2010 in the Orioles System: 20+ SB

Because it's mid-January and the hot-stove league is pretty cold at the moment, I've spent a lot of time this week looking at Orioles minor league / franchise stats. It kills the time.

Now, I've said it many times on this blog before, but I love me some steals. Any kind, really. Steals of 2nd, steals of 3rd, steals of home; 1st inning steals, 9th inning steals, steals with a 10-run lead; steals on lefties, delayed steals, double steals... YOU NAME IT, I love it. It's a disease, really; my father passed it along to me, with first-person accounts about guys like Maury Wills, Lou Brock, Ron LaFleur (honest), etc... Plus, I grew up watching Vince Coleman and everyone else on the 1980's Whitey Herzog Cardinals tear the Mets catchers apart every year, and literally steal the NL East title, season after season... even though I hated them for it, I also became addicted to it. IMHO, the stolen base edges out strike-throwing power pitchers as the most interesting thing in baseball.

Side Note - I know that folks might argue that the triple and the inside-the-park home run are more interesting than the stolen base, but I'd counter that by saying that the those things don't happen often enough to be the "most interesting" thing in baseball, and are, by nature, almost fluke occurences; you can't realistically watch an at-bat for any player and say to yourself "I hope this guy hits a triple", and have it happen regularly enough to walk away with any sense of satisfaction... it's kind of like saying "I hope I'm going to cath a foul ball on THIS PITCH.... Ughhh. Damn. We'll get them next time." It's a losing wager. But when someone like Rickey Henderson gets on base, the probability of a steal is high enough that committing yourself to that hope isn't mutually inclusive of dooming yourself to disappointment. Get my drift?

It's pretty well known that the Orioles organization hasn't emphasized the stolen base much, historically, and that's still the case... they just don't have a ton of players that can run, and most of those that can are flawed enough in other ways that they'll probably never even sniff the major leagues, unless it's an emergency call-up, etc... with 1 or 2 notable exceptions. Just for fun, I pulled together some numbers:

• There were 186 players in the Orioles system (both in the majors, and at all levels of the minor leagues) that had at least 1 plate appearance during the 2010 season.
• Of those 186, only 10 (5.4%) recorded 20+ stolen bases for the year.
• To put this into context, the Orioles had 9 minor league affiliates in 2010. That means that there was only about 1 player at each level who swiped more than 20 bags.
• That's even taking into account the lower levels of the minors, where players who can fly, but have serious flaws in their game, are still pretty abundant.
• The Oakland Athletics, who haven't exactly been known as a running team in recent years, had 3 guys on their major league roster with 29 or more steals last year. We had only 3 guys in the whole organization who stole more than 29.
• The top 10 franchise steals leaders are listed, below:

• The franchise steals leader was OF Kyle Hudson (23), with 40 @ Frederick (High-A). Hudson is similiar to Matt Angle (24) in that while he can run, plays good defense, and has good on-base ability, he's almost completely devoid of power; he posted an isolated power number of .044 in 2010, which is absolutely anemic.
• The best overall prospect on this list is probably OF Xavier Avery, who was ranked as the #3 prospect in the Orioles system by Baseball America during the offseason. 
• Avery stole 38 across two levels (High-A Frederick, and Double-A Bowie).
• From what I've heard, however, is that while he's a great athlete (Baseball America listed him as the best in the organization), he's not a real fluid basestealer or defender, at least at this point. He gets caught stealing a lot, takes bad routes to balls, and has poor footwork.
• Brian Conley isn't on this list, and is completely un-renowned, but I like his skillset a lot. Good speed (21 steals), a little bit of pop (.129 ISO), and mad on-base skills. Walked 70 times in 414 plate appearances last year at Delmarva. Problem is, he's wayyyy to old (24) for Low-A, and as 17th round draftee in 2008 (out of Towson), will probably expire in the low minors.

To put this in context of Orioles history, here are the ten best stolen base seasons in franchise history, I think it says volumes about your offensive priorities when 3 of the top 4 stolen bases seasons in your franchise's history were posted by white dudes: