The best SF Giants baserunners in 2024 will not surprise you

Baseball Savant recently published a new metric to assess how good of a baserunner each player is. For the SF Giants, the results were not surprsing as both Matt Chapman and Tyler Fitzgerald ranked as the team's best baserunners.

The best SF Giants baserunners in 2024 will not surprise you

The name of the new metric is called Baserunning Run Value. It is measured in terms of runs gained or lost by stealing bases and taking extra bases on the basepaths.

Stolen bases will often tell you how efficient a runner is at stealing bases. Generally, if they are successful in more than 75 percent of their opportunities, then they are helping the team. However, anything less than that is counterproductive.

This metric is attempting to combing two key elements of baserunning into one number. In a bit of a surprise, the Giants ranked surprisingly high in this metric. They were near the bottom in terms of steals and did not have a particularly fast team.

As a team, they were 11th in baseball with +3 Baserunning Run Value. Much of that value came from taking extra bases on the base paths. In fact, the Giants were third in baseball with +7 runs added via extra bases taken. They were near the bottom in terms of adding runs by stealing bases. That part is not too surprising.

On an individual level, Matt Chapman and Tyler Fitzgerald led the team with +3 Baserunning Run Value each. Mike Yastrzemski and Grant McCray were tied for third on the team with +2
Baserunning Run Value apiece. McCray only played for the Giants in the final six weeks of the year, so this does highlight how he can impact the game with his speed.

Interestingly, Willy Adames' former team, the Milwaukee Brewers, led baseball with +18
Baserunning Run Value. Adames contributed +2 baserunning runs on his own.

There are a lot of stats and metrics in baseball these days. I like to treat this as one data point in terms of trying to illustrate how a team generates value. It is probably not the be-all, end-all stat and it will likely be modified down the road. Do you agree with where the Giants ranked in this metric?