There have been a lot of complaints about Eric Young. He doesn’t get on base enough. His batting average is too low. He shouldn’t be an everyday player. He should be the 4th outfielder.
Guess what? Speed Kills.
Stolen bases don’t produce runs?
Last year, I went through the Mets top stolen base seasons and wrote a post about how often runs were scored when both a stolen base was attempted and when an attempt was successful.
Who’s currently 4th in the Major Leagues in Runs Scored? Eric Young. Who’s currently 2nd in the Majors in stolen bases? Eric Young.
Eric Young is only 110th in batting average among qualifiers at .255 and 89th in on-base percentage – yet when he’s getting on base, he’s scoring. Why? Because he gets on first base and proceeds to get himself into scoring position. When runners get into scoring position, they score at a higher clip than when they stay stationary on first base.
On the young season (pun intended), EY has stolen 9 bases and has yet to be caught. He has scored 5 times after attempting a steal.
When Eric Young has made/attempted a steal, he has scored 56% of the time. In other words, if EY makes it to first base and attempts to steal… there’s a better than 50/50 chance he will score.
The Mets are 5-0 when Eric Young steals a base this season.
Roger Cedeno stole 66 bases in 1999 and scored 58% of the time after a successful steal.
Mookie Wilson had a career .314 OBP and his three best OBP seasons with the Mets were 1986-88 when he had OBP’s of .345, .359, and .345. He scored 90 and 91 runs on weak hitting Mets teams in 1982 and 1983 when he had OBP’s of .314 and .300.
Eric Young has a .344 OBP through April 16th.
If EY is at the top of the lineup and runs, he will score. Even with a lower OBP, he will score. If he continues to get on base at the clip he currently is and runs, we have a top flight run scorer right under our noses.
