Shohei Ohtani inaugral member of 50/50 club

[Smellincoffee]

Ohtani breaks 50/50 barrier with 'greatest' game

The Dodgers' Shohei Ohtani became the first player in baseball history to reach the 50/50 club by stealing two bases and hitting three home runs in a 6-for-6 performance against the Marlins.

www.espn.com

The Dodgers' Shohei Ohtani, he of the double threat, delivered last night by becoming the first MLB player in history to hit 50 homers and steal 50 bases in the same season. Ronald Acuña Jr came close last year but not quite.

That home run, off a position player inserted into a game that was thoroughly out of hand, was his third of the night and 51st of the season. It drove in his 10th run, a Los Angeles Dodgers record. And it provided an emphatic conclusion to a game that saw Ohtani become the first player with 50 home runs and 50 steals in a season in baseball history while clinching his first trip to Major League Baseball's postseason.

"To be honest, I'm the one probably most surprised," Ohtani said through an interpreter in a television interview. "I have no idea where this came from, but I'm glad that I performed well today."

 

[Quintillus]

I knew he could hit, I knew he could pitch, I hadn't known he could steal bases.

That's an impressive combination of speed and power.

 

[Bamspeedy]

How much of that is because of the bases being closer to each other? (It was predicted there would be more stolen bases before the season started, so not surprising records involving stolen bases gets broken...)

 

[Quintillus]

That's an interesting question... the difference is 4.5 inches, or less than 0.5% of the distance between 1st and 2nd, or 2nd and 3rd. Intuitively I wouldn't expect that to change things a whole lot.

But according to baseball-almanac.com (https://www.baseball-almanac.com/hitting/hisb3.shtml), stolen bases are up about 50% in 2023 and 2024, the two years with the rule change.

I wonder how much of it is that it's actually that much easier to steal, versus that it has encouraged more attempts.

There's another variable too, also from 2023 (source: https://www.mlb.com/news/mlb-new-rules-for-2023-faq):

Pitchers will also be limited to two disengagements from the mound (i.e. pickoff attempts or step-offs) per plate appearance with a runner on base. The disengagements reset the clock.

That may be helping runners get a bigger lead and thus steal more bases.

The stolen base totals the past two years are similar to what they were in the late '90s; the 2021 and late-2010s numbers were at a low point. My take-away is that there's no need to add an asterisk next to the record.

Now Roger Maris getting an extra 8 games to break the home run record? Babe's total should be bumped to 63 to reflect the change in the length of the season!