Stealing Lots Of Bases Means Getting Caught Stealing A Lot

The Record No Player Wants To Break – Caught Stealing

Rickey Henderson Owns The Most Career Steals & Caught Stealing Records

Pittsburgh’s Maury Wills is caught stealing third in the eighth inning as Giants third baseman Jim Ray Hart applies the tag, umpire Augie Donatelli signals Wills out. June 13, 1968  photo: Russ Reed

The new rule changes scheduled to go into effect in 2023 might result in more stolen bases. The bases will be physically larger increasing from 15 inches square to 18 inches. More importantly, pitchers will only be able to throw to a base twice per batter to hold a runner on, that includes stepping off the rubber and not attempting a pick-off. The assumption is this should bring about more stolen base attempts.

Base stealing has been declining over the last decade and the experts at MLB came up with these changes to make the game better and move faster.

Prolific base stealers are a thing of the past. It should therefore come as no surprise that Rickey Henderson who stole 1406 bases was also caught stealing 335 times. Only five other players have been caught stealing 200 or more times. They are Lou Brock (307); Brett Butler (257); Ty Cobb (212): Maury Wills (208) and Juan Pierre (203).

How far is anyone from breaking Henderson’s caught stealing record?

The active caught stealing leader is Elvis Andrus. He is 87th on the all-time list with only 111 caught steals. Dee Strange-Gordon is next on the active list having been caught stealing 102 times.

All the remaining active players who are among the career leader board are over 30-years-old. That means it is impossible for any of them to approach Henderson’s record.

I know you can never say never, but it would take an extraordinary player to break Henderson’s stolen base and caught stealing records.