Braves think they can run wild, reopen 40-40 club with new rules. ‘Why not?’
Posted by
JD (aka Jason Dean)
Mar 2 '23, 11:00
|
By Jayson Stark Mar 2, 2023
NORTH PORT, Fla. — The good old 40-Homer, 40-Steal Club has been dark for 17 years now. The passwords have all expired. It’s been years since anyone even knocked on the door.
But maybe not for long. Not if the Atlanta Braves have anything to say about it.
What do you get when you combine a team of elite athletes with a set of new baseball rules that limit pickoff throws, pump up the size of the bases and shrink the distance between those bases? You get a team that says its mission is to reopen the 40-40 Club.
But now here’s the wildest part of that mission. The Braves are not just talking about opening the doors to admit one new member of that 40-40 Club. Would you believe three?
Right. Three: Ronald Acuña Jr., come on down. Michael Harris II, you too. And Ozzie Albies, feel free to ring that bell if you’re also in the neighborhood.
Three? Yep, three. We know this might sound like your standard dreamy spring training talk. But we’re passing it along because we had this actual dreamy spring training talk with Albies, the Braves’ resident second baseman and energizer.
“I think it’s gonna be an awesome year,” he began. “It’s gonna be a lot more running game for sure.”
So does that fit into his team’s plans? Albies smiled.
“Yes,” he said, “because we have a lot of speed runners in our lineup that can easily get 20 to 25 bags a year. Why not?”
So let’s start with Acuña. What is he capable of?
“He can easily get 40 to 50 bags by himself,” Albies said matter of factly.
Wait. Does that mean Acuña could do more than just join the 40-40 Club? Could he even become the first member of the (gasp) 50-Homer, 50-Steal Club?
“Why not?” Albies said. “Let’s do it. Nothing is impossible.”
Hmmm. Let’s put aside, for a moment, the inconvenient fact that nobody has ever entered that club. If Acuña is as healthy as he appears to be this spring, nearly two years removed from his gruesome knee injury, we’re talking about a player who can do things other humans can’t do. So who are we to say the impossible isn’t possible in his case?
Then what about Albies himself? We’d heard buzz in Braves camp he’d been dreaming of joining the 30-30 Club. So we asked him if he thought 30-30 was doable?
“I’ll take 30-30,” he said. “But my goal is to go 40-40.”
Hold on. Did he really say 40-40?
“Yeah, that’s the goal,” Albies reiterated. “That’s the mindset. When me and (base-running coach Eric Young) were talking, he said, ‘Why not go for 40 bags?’ I said, ‘Yeah, let’s do it.’”
So if you’re doing the math in your head, you know they’re now up to two 40-40 guys, at least on Albies’ stat sheet. We thought we should notify him that no team has ever had two men do that in the same season. He wasn’t impressed.
“Well, maybe this year,” Albies said, without blinking. “Why not? Work hard. Might as well do it.”
So that’s 50-50 for Acuña, and 40-40 for Albies, huh? Then what, we asked, was Harris going to do? For the record, he had 19 homers and 20 steals last year as a rookie, or 24/31 if you include his 43 games in the minor leagues. So is he headed for 30-30?
“40-40,” Albies retorted confidently.
C’mon. He’s going 40-40, too?
“Why not?” Albies replied. “He’s a speedster. Plus, he has power. So 40-40, that would be great. That would be amazing.”
We wanted to make sure we had this straight: 40-40, 40-40, 40-40? Is that what he was saying?
“Why not?” Albies said. “I guess that’s history right there.”
He guesses? He guesses that’s history? How ’bout this for history:
Major League Baseball is about to launch its 148th season. In nearly a century and a half, a total of four men have gone 40-40 in any of those seasons. Only one of those four has done it in the 21st century. And no team has ever had more than one player join the 40-40 Club — not merely in a season, but in the history of its franchise. That’s the kind of history we’re talking about here.
The 40-40 Club
2006 Alfonso Soriano 46 / 41
1998 Alex Rodriguez 42 / 46
1996 Barry Bonds 42 / 40
1988 Jose Canseco 42 / 40
So if that happened, we told Albies, and his team really did have three 40-40 guys, we could promise one thing for sure: The Braves definitely would be the talk of baseball.
“Why not?” he said again. “Why not? Nothing is impossible.”
Why not? He uttered those words over and over. It’s a beautiful motto. It’s a fabulous bar to set. It’s hard not to admire the ambition behind those words. But when he asked — eight times — why not, he can’t possibly have wanted to know the actual answer. Because there are many more reasons that actual answer is “not” than “why not.”
Here we go:
• How many active players have even had a 35-35 season at any point in their career? Exactly one. That would be Acuña himself. He went 41 homers, 37 steals in 2019, and did in fact have his sights set on 40-40 until a September hip injury. But again, he’s the only guy who has ever come close in the whole sport.
• How many teams have ever even had 35-35 teammates? That would be zero — in the history of baseball.
• How many leagues have even had two members of the 35-35 Club in the same season? Even that has happened only twice. Alex Rodriguez (Mariners) and Shawn Green (Blue Jays) did it in the American League in 1998. Eric Davis (Reds) and Darryl Strawberry (Mets) did it in the National League in 1987. So that was kind of a while ago.
• All right, what about 30-30 teammates? Even that has happened only twice in any season. Strawberry and Howard Johnson did it for those 1987 Mets. And Ellis Burks and Dante Bichette did it for the 1996 Rockies. And that’s all.
But you know who also played — and stole 53 bases — for those 1996 Rockies? That would be a guy named Eric Young. And why do we mention that? Because that very same Eric Young is — as Albies mentioned — the base-running coach/guru for these 2023 Braves. And this team, he said, reminds him of that team.
“You know what would be nice?” Young said, without prompting. “Going back to those Rockies days: 200 home runs, 200 steals.”
You should write this down then: Only one team in the history of this sport has ever put up 200 home runs and 200 stolen bases in one season. That team was Young’s ’96 Rockies.
They swiped 201 bases, with six of the eight position players stealing 17 or more. They launched 221 home runs, with Burks, Vinny Castilla and Andres Galarraga each bopping 40-plus, in the glorious, pre-humidor days of Coors Field. They led the league in both categories.
Eric Young led the NL with 53 stolen bases in 1996. He swiped 465 bags in his career.
So how many teams have stolen 200 bases in a season since? That would be one — José Reyes’ 2007 Mets (with exactly 200). How many teams have even led their league in both categories, with any number, since? That would be two — the 2012 Brewers and the 2017 Brewers.
We know the Braves have lead-the-league-in-homers potential, because they did that last year, with 243. (The Yankees led the majors with 254.) But they stole only 87 bases, which ranked just ninth in the NL. The way Albies is talking, he and Acuña could beat that by themselves this year. Does that seem realistic?
We’d vote no on that. But if the Braves are talking big numbers and big dreams, Young knows he needs to admit something: That’s probably his fault.
“I always teach my guys to have a set of high goals,” he said, “because when you set a smaller number, it limits you. So when you get to that number, then what? They can get 10 (steals) in the first month if these opportunities come up. So I always tell my guys to think of a higher goal than that. Why limit yourself with 20 (steals) or 30?”
Higher goals are a beautiful thing. But are the goals Young and Albies are setting even remotely possible? Let’s think that through.
CAN ACUÑA REALLY GO 40-40 OR 50-50? Albies and Young are both adamant about this part. Don’t assume Acuña can’t do 40-40 based on anything you saw last year, when he hit just 15 homers and stole 29 bases (but also was thrown out 11 times).
Acuña scuffled all year with knee soreness. But remember, in 2019, he just missed going 40-40. And when he blew out his knee in 2021, he was on pace for 44 homers and 34 steals. So when we asked Young what Acuña can do this year that he wasn’t physically capable of doing last year, Young painted 2022 as just a blip on the Acuña radar screen.
“I think Ronald is going to come back to the 2019 numbers,” he said. “That’s what I think. Ronald looks very good. So 40-40 is a strong possibility. And I think he’ll hit close to .300. And if he does all that, you know what you guys are going to be talking about at the end of the year for Ronald Acuña Jr? MVP. That’s what.”
It’s easy to be skeptical. But how about we just accept that idea, that Acuña is a threat to do pretty much anything if healthy. We’ve at least seen that. On the other hand …
HOW COULD HARRIS POSSIBLY GO 40-40? The folks around him are predicting big things. Harris is aware of that talk. He just doesn’t want to be an active participant in that talk.
“I don’t really want to put a number on it,” he said. “I guess we’ll just see, as the days go on. I’m just trying to get as many wins as I can.”
But you know who is showing none of that restraint when they talk about what could lie ahead for Harris, last year’s NL Rookie of the Year, who doesn’t even turn 22 until next week? That would be pretty much everyone in his camp. Harris has the look of a guy who could win the Falcons’ running back job tomorrow if he put his mind to it. And his teammates and coaches can’t stop gushing about his rare package of coolness, agility and pure strength.
“You know who he reminds me of, with those legs, is Bo Jackson,” Young said. “When he runs, it’s power. It’s a force. And the only guy I can remember like that is Bo Jackson.
“So I’m anxious to see his career development and how many bags he can steal, because let me tell you: He’s become a better hitter since he’s been up here (in the majors). And that’s only going to get better with experience. And when it all clicks, he’s going to be really special.”
OK, no argument there. But 40-40? Harris’ home run total for his professional career is 33 — in 311 games. So is he really doing that 40-40 thing this year, in his first full big-league season? Why are we inclined to take the under on that? Speaking of which …
HOW THE HECK COULD ALBIES GO 40-40? We want to believe every word that rolls off of Albies’ tongue. But 40 steals and 40 homers? It’s going to take some convincing to believe those words.
• Stolen bases by Albies last year — three!
• Home runs by Albies last year — eight!
“Ozzie had a lot of things going on health-wise last year,” Young said. “So the fact that he’s actually saying that is a good sign, because that means he’s going to be looking forward to making it happen.”
It’s true that it was One of Those Years for Albies. He broke his foot in June, then came back and made it through one game before breaking his finger in September. So he played in only 64 games — and wasn’t 100 percent in most of those.
Did we see enough, then, in 2021 — when this guy mashed 30 home runs and 77 extra-base hits, while stealing 20 bases in just 24 tries — to have faith there really is a 40-40 season in him? And is it OK if we also mention that he’s 5-foot-8?
Whatever. You know how Albies answers those questions, right?
“Why not?”
But there’s one other thing to remember. This isn’t Ozzie Albies’ track meet to run, and it isn’t Eric Young’s track meet. The manager, Brian Snitker, and the front office get to make this call, about how much these new rules will allow the Braves to run amok. And that jury is still out.
It’s way too early for any of these men to know for certain what’s doable now that wasn’t doable before. But it’s not too early for them to do anything and everything they can to find out.
Through their first five games this spring, the Braves were second in the Grapefruit League in stolen-base attempts (with eight). They’ve also had quite a few other times when their runners took off but the pitch got fouled off or put in play. So this fact-finding mission is on, full speed ahead. Literally.
“I don’t know what to expect, quite honestly,” Snitker said, “what teams are going to do and how they’re going to approach this. But I’ve got a feeling we’re gonna see some weird s— in spring training.”
Well, as the manager of a team whose very first game of spring training ended on a pitch-clock violation, that’s easy for him to say. But what’s not so easy to say is whether the new limit on pickoff throws is all it will take to allow his team to run like Whitey Herzog’s 1987 Cardinals.
So his runners have tried taking longer leads, just to see what they’re comfortable with. And after opposing pitchers even make one move to first base, look out. We’ve seen Braves players just take off, on first move, after that happens. So it’s pedal to the metal so far this spring. And it’s something to watch as we go along.
Then again, it’s all in the lab-experiment phase right now. But if Young and Albies have a vote, it’s here to stay. And what if they’re right? What if this does become the first team in history with two 40-40 teammates … let alone three … let alone one of them even going 50-50?
“If we have that, then guess what?” Young said. “Guess what the Braves are going to be doing at the end of this year? Spraying champagne. That’s what.”
|
Responses:
|
Replies are disabled on threads older than 7 days.
|
|