Do teams with several good base stealers hit better with a runner on first base?

I looked at all teams since 1946 that had 4 or more players with 25+ SBs (I tried using 30+ SBs first but there were only 5 teams with 4 or more). The idea was that if a team had many base stealers the opposition will hold the runner on first base, opening up a hole that might help the batter. All data from Baseball Reference and Stathead.

There were 12 teams that had 4 or more players with 25+ SBs. I looked at how much better those teams hit with a runner on first base (and first base only) compared to having no one on base. But that difference was then compared to the league average difference.

Here are the 12 teams along with how many of their players stole 25+ bases and the average for the other teams in their league:

Team	Season	Count	Lg Avg.
OAK	1976	6	1.36
STL	1985	5	1.09
OAK	1974	4	0.83
TEX	1977	4	1.00
PIT	1977	4	1.27
HOU	1979	4	1.36
SDP	1982	4	1.55
STL	1983	4	1.82
STL	1984	4	1.36
CIN	1988	4	1.82
STL	1990	4	1.64
SDP	1999	4	1.20

Now it is possible that these teams played in a league that had many players with 25+ SBs, so that would make it harder to be better than the league average. So the last column supplies us with that information.

The 1974 A's employed a "designated pinch runner," track star Herb Washington (29 SBs). He appeared in 92 games yet never came to bat or took the field. The 1976 A's did pretty much the same thing with Larry Lintz (31 SBs) who appeared in 68 games with only 4 plate appearances. He played just 13 innings in the field.

The table below shows how much higher (or lower) each team's batting average was with a runner on first base than with no runners on base. Then the difference for the entire league. Then whatever edge each team had over the league average.

Team	Season	Team Diff	Lg Diff	Team Edge
OAK	1976	0.028	0.026	0.002
STL	1985	0.003	0.012	-0.009
OAK	1974	-0.003	0.033	-0.036
TEX	1977	0.048	0.024	0.024
PIT	1977	0.022	0.023	-0.001
HOU	1979	0.037	0.029	0.008
SDP	1982	0.071	0.026	0.045
STL	1983	0.034	0.028	0.006
STL	1984	0.04	0.028	0.012
CIN	1988	0.023	0.025	-0.002
STL	1990	0.021	0.032	-0.011
SDP	1999	0.012	0.012	0

If we look at the 1976 A's they hit .028 higher with a runner on first base than with no runners on. The league hit .026 higher, so their edge was .002.

5 of the 12 teams did worse than the league average. 4 others did less than .010 better. So no clear pattern  of teams with several good base stealers doing better. And these are teams that would have had a hole on the right side of the infield more often than average. The average edge across the 12 teams was .00317. 

The one team that had a very large edge was the 1982 Padres. They batted .242 with no runners on and .313 with a runner on first. So .071 higher. For the NL that year it was .253 with no one on and .279 wit a man on first, .026 higher. That means the Padres had an edge of .045 (.071 - .026).

The Padres had 873 ABs with a runner on first. That would mean an extra 39 hits or so (873*.045 is about 39). Not all of those extra hits would necessarily have been singles through the big hole between first base and second base. Their percentage of hits that went for 2Bs, 3Bs and HRs was about the same with runners on first as it was for no runners on.

About 76% of their hits in either case were singles. So maybe they gained about 30 hits from having more runners held on first base than the average team. But either way, 39 or 30, no other team would be even close to that kind of impact. 

The next highest team was the 1977 Rangers with an edge of .024. They had 952 ABs with a runner on first. That would mean about 23 extra hits (.024-952 is about 23). And then there is the 1974 A's who were .036 worse than the league average. That would mean about 34 fewer hits (.036-932 is about 34).

Another thing that might be important is what percentage of ABs with a runner on first were by left handed batters, who presumably would have an easier time hitting a ball in the hole. 

Team	Season	% LHB	Lg Avg	% LHB Edge	Avg Edge
SDP	1982	0.611	0.402	0.209	0.045
TEX	1977	0.432	0.428	0.004	0.024
STL	1984	0.517	0.404	0.113	0.012
HOU	1979	0.392	0.364	0.028	0.008
STL	1983	0.594	0.418	0.176	0.006
OAK	1976	0.254	0.397	-0.143	0.002
SDP	1999	0.417	0.384	0.033	0
PIT	1977	0.457	0.349	0.108	-0.001
CIN	1988	0.404	0.407	-0.003	-0.002
STL	1985	0.562	0.386	0.176	-0.009
STL	1990	0.449	0.431	0.018	-0.011
OAK	1974	0.289	0.355	-0.067	-0.036

61.1% of the 1982 Padres' ABs with a runner on first were by a LHB. The league average was 40.2%. So their %LHB edge was 20.9%. It is not a surprise that a team that must have had alot of LHBs hit so much better with a runner on first (they were the best relative to the league average, .045 batter from the last column).

But the next best team in Avg Edge, the 1977 Rangers, only had %LHB edge of .004. And 3 teams that had a positive %LHB edge had a negative Avg Edge. The 1983 Cardinals had a %LHB edge of .176 yet their Avg Edge was only .006.

So it does not look like there is much of pattern or evidence that having alot of LHBs raises batting average with a base stealer on first.

When I get a chance I might lower the SB level to 15 and do the same analysis.