Dugout Strategy vs. Crime of Opportunity: Digging Into What Drives Base-Stealing Success for the Chicago Cubs
Photo Credit: New York Times
The fans in Wrigleyville have a winner they can cheer on for the first time in almost a decade. The Cubs have made the leap from a middling ball club to a dominant force in the National League under second year manager Craig Counsell. Behind an explosive offense and a bullpen top 5 in ERA, the cubs hold a small but substantial lead in the competitive NL Central. A large part of their success has come on the base paths, where the cubs are 2nd in stolen bases (SB) and tied for 9th in caught stealings (CS), but they rank second in stolen base percentage (SB%), where successful steals are divided by total attempts. The team they rank behind, the New York Mets, has 35 less steals than the Cubs on the season, making the Cubs the most prolific base stealing team in terms of both efficiency and volume.
What causes a stolen base barrage like this? The players or the manager? The timeless debate of on the field talent vs. pregame preparation. Craig Counsell has set the foundation for this team, but is that just a result of overpowering offensive talent? As with everything, it’s probably somewhere in between, but let’s dive into the numbers.
The Strategy: Craig Counsell
Craig Counsell was known for 2 things during his 16 year playing career: having a very interesting batting stance, and getting hit by Mariano Rivera in the 9th inning of game 7 during the 2001 World Series, where he would score the winning run. He parlayed that success into a 9 year managerial stint with the Milwaukee Brewers and is the all-time most winningest manager in team history.
Counsell has always been one to prioritize running as a manager with his Brewers ranking an average of 8th in SB and 5th in CS, but ranking 4th in SB and 3rd in CS from 2020-2023. The Cubs were around league average base stealers during Counsell’s time with the Brewers and well below league average in CS. Counsell molded the Cubs took look more like his Brewers teams and the Cubs top 5 rankings in both SB and CS during his tenure display that offensive style. Particularly, the way Counsell manipulates a lineup produces baserunning opportunities.
Lineup Construction
The stat circled on the second image is base-running runs, a stat that determines the impact a player has when on base. In this case, a positive BsR correlates to being a base-running threat. Counsell spreads the base stealing threats all over the lineup and puts them in front of dangerous hitters. Tucker hits in front of Suzuki (who leads MLB in RBIs), Crow-Armstrong and Swanson hit in front of Busch (highest OPS among 1B), and Hoerner and Shaw hit in front of Happ (Consistent OBP hitter). This form of manufacturing steals has produced 106 SB for the and creates sequences like this one below.
Situational Understanding
The Cubs base stealing success is due mostly to their efficiency, with only 18 CS on the year. They pressure opposing pitchers and catchers that have slow deliveries and weak arms using strong leadoffs from 1st. The Cubs are 9-8 on the year when getting caught stealing while they are 29-10 when they successfully steal a base without getting caught.
Outs on the base path are a huge momentum killer for an inning, taking the bat out of the offense’s hands. The Cubs are +28 on the bases this year through the first half compared to +30 for the entire year last year. They are not uber aggressive to take extra bases, but are not making unnecessary outs and keeping innings alive.
The Opportunity: The Players
Photo Credit: Axios
A game plan can only go so far if the players are not able to execute, and the Cubs have the personnel to keep up their torrid pace. For a majority of MLB history, players good on the base paths were liabilities with the bat, the old saying “you can’t steal first base.” There are a few notable exceptions, namely Rickey Henderson, who once said that “Rickey can’t steal 2nd base if he doesn’t get on 1st base, so I still have to get on base.” Rickey, the all time steals leader, was also prolific with the bat, not unlike the 2025 Cubs.
The 2025 Cubs are hitting 23% better than league average on the season, including a .327 On Base %. That adds up to statistically 1 baserunner per inning for the cubs, which is around 4-5 opportunities per game to put a runner in scoring position with a steal. The Cubs are stealing over 1 base a game on average this season, largely because of how often they get on base. Historically speaking, the team has the same OPS+ as Hall of Famer Tim Raines, a 7 time All Star with the Expos.
Getting on base is only half of the battle for stealing bases, and the Cubs have plenty of speed to make magic happen in the 90 feet between 1st and 2nd.
Pete Crow-Armstrong’s speed jumps off of the page, with a top 3 sprint speed in the Major Leagues, but the rest of the players provide a lot of value as well. 6 batters, 5 full time hitters are above league average runners with a lot of room for improvement. Seiya Suzuki only has 2 SB on the season even though he grades out as a well above average runner, similar to Dansby Swanson, who only has 7 SB.
Going Forward
Baserunning is the awkward middle child of valued skills by position players. Hitting is the oldest kid, constantly valued at every level of the sport. Fielding is the youngest kid, cooler and unheralded. Then there is baserunning, how do you evaluate that? For the longest time steals were the only metric, but they occurred so little after the mid-90s that they were an afterthought. The new rule changes in 2023 created the perfect environment for a baserunning explosion and changed the dynamic of run scoring in the MLB.
Base-stealing will change the entire game of baseball as we know it within the next 20 years. Catchers will need stronger arms to throw out runners, pitchers will need to be quicker to home to hold runners at 1st. Small ball may make a return like in the 1970s and the days of Rickey Henderson, look at the 2015 Royals and the success they had playing small. I am excited to watch the evolution of baseball as it only gets faster.