Who Are the Top Baserunners in Baseball?

The Atlanta Braves are in the thick of the National League playoff race and can thank good baserunning for part of that. The Braves rank first in the 2012 Baserunning Net Gain statistic featured annually in the Bill James Handbook. Baserunning Net Gain evaluates each player's opportunities to advance on hits and avoid outs on the basepaths, crediting him for the bases advanced better than average and penalizing him triple for baserunning outs. Led by outfielders Michael Bourn and Martin Prado, the Braves have a team Net Gain of +54, comfortably above the second-best Oakland Athletics.

The top individual baserunners this year are a pair of center fielders: Tony Campana and Emilio Bonifacio. The two have combined to go 41 for 45 in stolen base attempts this year. Though neither speedster hits for much power, both provide value by wreaking havoc on the basepaths. Each has advanced first-to-third on a single in 50 percent of opportunities (compared to the league average of 29 percent), and both have advanced from second to home on at least 80 percent of singles (league average is 60 percent).

On the other hand, no amount of World Series heroics can erase the fact that David Freese is a bad baserunner. Freese advances well below the league average rates in every situation, has been thrown out three times, and has been doubled off twice already this year. To top it off, he has grounded into nine double plays, one short of the National League lead.