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MLB: The Top 15 Major League Baseball Base Stealers of All-Time

By Nicholas Ian Allen

June 8, 2013; Los Angeles, CA, USA; New York Yankees Ricky Henderson before the old timers game against the Los Angeles Dodgers at Dodger Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Jayne Kamin-Oncea-USA TODAY Sports
June 8, 2013; Los Angeles, CA, USA; New York Yankees Ricky Henderson before the old timers game against the Los Angeles Dodgers at Dodger Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Jayne Kamin-Oncea-USA TODAY Sports /
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June 8, 2013; Los Angeles, CA, USA; New York Yankees Ricky Henderson before the old timers game against the Los Angeles Dodgers at Dodger Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Jayne Kamin-Oncea-USA TODAY Sports
June 8, 2013; Los Angeles, CA, USA; New York Yankees Ricky Henderson before the old timers game against the Los Angeles Dodgers at Dodger Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Jayne Kamin-Oncea-USA TODAY Sports /

Sure, Rickey Henderson ranks atop our list of the top 15 Major League Baseball base stealers of all-time, but it’s closer than you’d think. Much closer. 

Stolen bases have been a part of baseball since its earliest days. However, most of the players we consider to be among the greatest base stealers of all-time have played in the last four decades – and especially in the 1980s.

The poster child for the stolen base – the Greatest of All-Time – is Rickey Henderson, who holds the Major League record with 1,406, a full 468 more than second place Lou Brock. But just because Henderson had (many, many) more stolen bases than anyone else, does that truly mean he is the best base stealer in Major League history?

To answer that question, I devised a three-part scoring system that would rank the top 15 base thieves in big league history:

  • Total number of stolen bases (Only top 50 all-time are eligible)
  • Stolen bases per season (stolen bases/years a player played in the big leagues)
  • Success rate (stolen bases/attempts)

The first measurement to be considered is overall production. Therefore, we started with the players that rank in the top 50 in stolen bases in the official Major League record book. However, because stolen bases were calculated differently in the 19th Century and because caught stealing statistics were not fully reliable until well into the 20th Century, we struck some of the old-timers from the list.

Top 25 Greatest, 16-25

  • Bert Campaneris, 59 Points
  • Ozzie Smith, 64 Points
  • Ichiro Suzuki, 65 Points
  • Cesar Cedeno, 69 Points
  • Brett Butler, 73 Points
  • Luis Aparicio, 75 Points
  • Roberto Alomar, 76 Points
  • Paul Molitor, 79 Points
  • Barry Bonds, 81 Points
  • Bobby Bonds, 82 Points

For example, Hall of Famers Billy Hamilton and Ty Cobb who rank third and fourth in the record book for career stolen bases could not be considered because their success rate could not be accurately calculated. Because of inconclusive caught stealing stats, 25 players including top-ten base stealers Arlie Latham, Eddie Collins and Max Carey had to be left off the list.

That gave me a list of 25 players to compare. Stolen bases per season and success rate were calculated for each player, and each category was ranked from 1-25 with one point assigned for each place. One point was given for first place and 25 for 25th place (golf scoring rules apply and the lower the score, the better).

However, after examining the results, there was a problem. Several of the top 15 players were being penalized in the stolen bases per season category because they played in roughly 10, 20 or 25 games in multiple seasons either as a rookie, an aging veteran or due to injury. I thought it was still a fair metric since the best base stealers played long number of years (and it might help to limit a lofty ranking based solely on career longevity) but not a perfect one. Therefore, I added a fourth category:

Is it a perfect formula? Probably not (and we can discuss that in the comments below), but it helped to even out the number of years when a player was limited by age or injury and helped the biggest threat to the G.O.A.T. make a move for the top spot. And as it turned out, Rickey Henderson had some very stiff competition.

Without further ado, the top 15 MLB base stealers of all-time:

Next: Carl Crawford

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