5 greatest baserunning threats in Boston Red Sox history

Red Sox outfielder Jacoby Ellsbury

Jacoby Ellsbury ranks third in franchise history with 241 steals despite appearing in far fewer games than anyone else in the top-five.

His blazing speed was immediately put on display when he led the league with 50 stolen bases during his first full season to finish third in the Rookie of the Year race. The following season he shattered the franchise single-season record with 70 stolen bases.

Ellsbury led the league in steals three times, swiping 50+ bags in each of those seasons. His 52 steals in 2013 and 50 in 2008 rank fourth and fifth respectively in franchise history, giving Ellsbury three of the top-five best seasons for stolen bases.

He only managed 39 in his All-Star campaign in 2011 but that was because he was too busy racking up extra-base hits. Ellsbury set career-highs with 46 doubles and 32 home runs that season to finish as the runner-up for the AL MVP award. He became the first 30/30 player in Red Sox history that season. The power surge was a clear outlier based on the rest of his career but the drastic uptick in homers provided him with fewer opportunities to steal bases.

Not only was Ellsbury piling up steals at an elite level, he was also highly efficient at doing so with an 83.9% success rate during his seven seasons in Boston.

Ellsbury’s 35.7 BsR trails only Betts in Red Sox history and his 10.7 BsR in 2013 set a single-season franchise record for the statistic.

His blazing speed was the dominant factor in his game but unfortunately, Ellsbury used those wheels to go speeding out of town when the Yankees offered him a lucrative free-agent deal. The contract turned out to be a bust in the long run so the Red Sox dodged a bullet by not topping the offer from their rivals. His underwhelming production in the Bronx took the sting out of the perceived betrayal so we can now look back fondly at memories of a young Ellsbury racing around the bases.