5 greatest baserunning threats in Boston Red Sox history
By Sean Penney
Red Sox outfielder Harry Hooper
Harry Hooper is another dead-ball era player who both benefited and dealt with the same drawbacks of the time period as Speaker did.
Hooper’s 300 stolen bases in a Red Sox uniform are the most in franchise history. He swiped those bases at a slightly more efficient rate than Speaker, if we are to believe the inconsistent data from that time period, but Hooper also had the benefit of playing in nearly 600 more games during his 12 seasons in Boston.
Despite stealing more total bases than any other Red Sox player, Hooper never had a season in which he topped the 40 steals he tallied in his first full season. His record is about longevity and his consistency with stealing over 20 bags in nine seasons.
His overall baserunning was deemed barely above-average by FanGraphs with a 0.1 BsR. However, it’s important to note that our measurements for baserunning are far more advanced than they were a century ago. The list of the 25 best single-season BsR ratings in franchise history almost exclusively belong to players in the 21st century, with the exception of Harper’s 5.7 BsR in 1973. Speaker is the only other Red Sox player to crack the top-30 prior to 2000.
BsR is a useful tool for evaluating overall baserunning but it’s clear that it’s less reliable for players from the early 1900s when there were fewer metrics to track.