Tom Brennan - THE METS' "ART OF THE STEAL"

Macks Mets writer John from Albany loves the stolen base.

Heck, who can't love a triple steal, or a steal of home, or a steal to get the winning running into scoring position that is followed by your favorite team's walk off hit?  I do.

The reality in Mets' history is the stolen base has been a weapon used relatively infrequently, and there are a variety of reasons for that.

The Mets' all time top 10 dudes in steals are as follows:

Jose Reyes 408, Mookie Wilson 281, Howard Johnson 202, David Wright 196, Darryl Strawberry 191, Lee Mazzilli 152, Lenny Dykstra 116, Bud Harrelson 115, Wally Backman 106, Roger Cedeno 105.  

Six of those 10 guys managed to steal more than 75% of the time, too, with Lenny D coming in on top at 82.27%, pretty nice.  

Carlos Beltran was successful stealing in 86%,

He was barely out of the Mets' top 10, at 100 career Mets steals.

Still, one must consider the down side of the stolen base as a weapon.

Jose Reyes was an Iron Man his first 4 full Mets seasons, averaging close to 160 games and averaging 65 steals.  In his next 7 seasons, he averaged just 115 games per season, largely due to leg issues.

David Wright was an Iron Man early on, too, until he turned brittle.  How much of that brittleness might have been due to the cumulative impacts from his base stealing is a worthwhile question, that I guess only he could answer.

Mookie Wilson stole 158 of his 281 bases over a 3 year stretch early in his career 1982-84, from ages 26-28.  His was a different issue, as he lost playing time due to his platoon with Lennie Dykstra for a few seasons, but at age 33, in his last Mets season prior to a mid year trade to Toronto, he stole just 7 bases in 80 games, a far cry from his gaudier totals in 1982-84.  Age slows most guys down who are not named Ricky Henderson.

Hojo was one of the Mets' best power/speed players ever, and had very balanced career numbers of 228 HRs and 231 steals.  Yet in his last 3 seasons, spanning 755 plate appearances, he stole just 18 bases, so the seed tool, as with Mookie, faded for Hojo once he hit age 32.

Rocket Roger Cedeno came from LAD with a season high of 9 steals in limited play and promptly stole 66 in his first Mets season at age 24.  At the time, I thought he was the fastest Met ever after watching him leg out an infield single on a normally hit grounder a few steps to the right of the shortstop - he just outran the sucker. 

That was the beginning of a 4 year stretch in which he stole 171 bases in 509 games.   From age 28-30, he stole just 19 more and was out of baseball, as his speed game vanished.

Speed is fleeting and can damage a good to great player.  A guy who realized that was Carlos Beltran, who stole 100 out of 116 attempts as a Met, but over a span of 839 games. 

SO it seems the true "Art" here is this: if your game is built on speed, then utilize it as much as you judiciously can, because once it is gone, you're gone soon after.

If you are a David Wright multi-talented type, realize the wear and tear that stealing can do to a player's body, and use to the tool judiciously like a Carlos Beltran.  Because when you are great, your health is everything.

The 2007 team was awesome with steals, swiping 200 while being caught just 46 times.

1994 was the polar opposite...in that strike-shortened 113 game (55-58) season, the laddies stole just 25 of 51, led by John Cangelosi with 5.  Jose Viscaino was the Anthony Young of steals, being successful just once in 12 attempts.  In fact, he, Jeff Kent, and Bobby Bonilla were a combined 3 for 21 in steal attempts!  Horrendous.

Before I go, I looked at a few of the slow afoot crew:

Ed Kranepool at age 18 stole 4 of 6, but after that, only 11 of 36, which tells me that at age 19 he lost a step or two.

Rusty Staub, while slow of foot, managed to somehow steal 6 of 9 as a Met, and was a surprisingly good 47 up and 33 down in his career, which shows that success can be had if one's mind is really put to it.

Bartolo Colon was up 326 times in his career and was never caught stealing - and he never stole a base, either.  He did manage to walk one time, though.  I imagine the walk was unintentional.  Robbie Ray was the (winning) pitcher who walked Colon in an August 2016 Mets game.  Go figure.

Wilson Ramos?  No surprise there, as he has been up nearly 3,500 times and is 1 for 4 in steals.  I guess the one time, the catcher probably got hysterical that he'd even try to steal and couldn't throw the ball, or something.

Oh, and John....Fonzie never stole more than 11 in a single season, but was a commendable 53 of 70 in his career.  Kudos to the Fonz.

OK, everybody - I won't steal any more of your time.