As a first attempt, you might have guessed that the Braves haven’t done much in racking up stolen bases since adopting the power-oriented offensive approach in 2019. That’s quite intuitive, but unfortunately it’s somewhat distorted by reality.
The Braves finished just inside the top ten in team stolen bases in 2018, and then again in 2019. 2020 and 2021 were low steal years, but in 2022 the Braves were average, and in 2023 they were back in the top ten. However, over the past two seasons, they have reverted to an essentially no-steal offense.
The above figures are for rough counts only, rather than adjustments for probabilities and the like. That said, this pattern basically holds even if you use a more sophisticated accounting of stolen base value — in fact, starting in 2018, the Braves have alternated between two-year periods of “yes, we steal a lot of bases” and “we have little interest in stealing bases.”
If we were to use past experience as a guide, we might say that the Braves’ stolen base accumulation relative to other teams in 2026 will depend on two things: 1) the health and willingness to run of Ronald Acuña Jr., who has racked up about a third of the team’s total steals since his debut, and whose relative lack of running in 2020-2021 and 2024-2025 is responsible for the big anomaly with the Braves. overall team rankings in those years compared to 2018-2019 and 2022-2023; and 2) the ability of Michael Harris II and Ozzie Albies to reach base.
The other consideration is that by hiring Antoan Richardson from the Mets, the Braves may be trying to adapt their offensive strategy to what happened to the Mets last year: lots of (successful!) steals despite not being a very fast team in terms of foot speed. In particular, the 2025 Mets were interesting because it wasn’t that they ran all the time – their steal attempt rate was average – but that they rarely ran out when they tried, making it almost “free” to get an extra base. If the Braves follow suit in 2026 due to Richardson’s presence, it might not be a volume play for them. That could take the pressure off Acuña’s health and Albies/Harris’ OBP.
I suspect the combination of the above factors is pulling them into average territory as they still won’t run often but will have more success doing so, but this could really go either way. What do you suspect at this point?
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