Only four men have ever done it, a total of eight times, and nobody has joined the club in more than a quarter-century. Will anyone ever steal 100 bases in a season again?

â€œI donâ€™t think so,â€ says Miami Marlins outfielder Juan Pierre, who has led both the American and National Leagues in steals, with a career high of 68 in 2010 for the Chicago White Sox. â€œI think with all the video and how quick guys are to the plate, I donâ€™t think itâ€™ll be done again.â€

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Maury Wills was the first player to reach the century mark, stealing 104 bases for the Los Angeles Dodgers in 1962. It was 12 years before his feat was matched and eclipsed, as Lou Brock stole 118 bases for the 1974 St. Louis Cardinals. Rickey Henderson swiped 100 bases three times for the Oakland Aâ€™s, including a record 130 in 1982, and then Vince Coleman had three straight 100-steal seasons for the Cardinals, with a total of 326 thefts from 1985-87.

In 1988, Henderson stole 93 bases for the New York Yankees, and Coleman 81 for St. Louis, and since then, nobody has even had 80 steals. Marquis Grissom had 78 for the 1992 Montreal Expos, as did Jose Reyes for the 2007 New York Mets, the closest anyone has come. That is why the question is not about anyone approaching Hendersonâ€™s record, but merely coming within 30 by getting to triple digits.

â€œEverybodyâ€™s caught up in the home runs and things like that,â€ Pierre tells Sporting News. â€œA lot of teams donâ€™t even want you to run. They figure youâ€™re in scoring position on first base with the guys in the lineup. The biggest thing, also, is teams donâ€™t even run or preach running and stealing bases anymore.â€

Major league teams are attempting 0.79 stolen bases per game this season, the lowest rate since an 0.75 average in 2005. From 1974 through 1999, teams averaged more than one attempt per game, with the success rate peaking at 0.86 per game in 1987 â€“ more than the current attempt rate. Since the turn of the century, though, steal attempts have dipped. Pierre and Reyes lead the majors with three seasons of 60 or more steals in the 2000s.

â€œThatâ€™s what my whole career has been around,â€ Pierre says. â€œI believe (the steal can be an effective tool). I think baseball with the sabermetrics â€“ none of the sabermetrics are around base-stealing or baserunning. Iâ€™ve never seen one stat on that. Teams are starting to use that as the law of baseball now, so itâ€™s only going to go down. Hopefully, because the power numbers are getting back to normal now, especially in the National League, I think youâ€™re going to have to rely more on running over the next three, four, five years.â€

Itâ€™s not entirely true that sabermetrics ignores base-stealing and baserunning, but it is a lightly analyzed part of the game. Ultimate Base Running (UBR) is one of the components of Wins Above Replacement (WAR), and there are Weighted Stolen Base Runs (wSB) and Speed Score as well. Still, in general, Pierre is right that the rise of sabermetrics has been a bad thing for those who like the stolen base.

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The reason that the spreadsheet community does not like stolen bases is the risk of one of a teamâ€™s 27 precious outs. A 2011 FanGraphs article provided the statistical break-even points for stolen bases from a run expectancy standpoint, for each potential situation. The conclusion was that the accepted rule of thumb, a 75 percent success rate, â€œrepresents most situations quite well.â€

On a leaguewide basis, that 75 percent threshold has never been reached â€“ the highest steal conversion rate in history was 74.8 percent in 2007. It is important to note, though, that the historical trend, through eras of varying levels of stolen base attempts, has been for the success rate to go up. The last season with a leaguewide steal success rate of less than 55 percent was 1955, the last season under 60 was 1958, the last season under 65 percent was 1981, and the last season under 70 percent was 2003. That rising success rate through the years has meant that the number of outs given away per game on steal attempts â€“ currently 0.22 per game â€“ has generally been on the decline.

One reason that stolen base rates have gone down and success rates have gone up is that not every Tom, Dick, and Harry is allowed to take off at will anymore. Tom Brunansky had 69 steals and was caught 70 times from 1981-94. Dick Groat had 14 steals and was caught 27 times from 1952-67. Harry Simpson stole 17 bases and was caught 18 times from 1951-59. Today, they would be getting red lights.

â€œThe manager tells guys when to run, or the speed guys will wait until they get a (pitcher) thatâ€™s 1.3 or 1.5 (seconds delivering to home plate), and they know they can make it,â€ Pierre says. â€œThereâ€™s not that many guys out there, so you donâ€™t get that many opportunities. To steal against guys thatâ€™s 1.2 or low 1.3, it takes a good jump and it takes a little daring, even if youâ€™re fast. So thereâ€™s a little more caution now.â€

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Pitchers work on slide-step deliveries and the general trend in the majors has been for hurlers to throw harder, further cutting down on delivery times. Still, there are players who find a way to make it work on the basepaths, like Jacoby Ellsbury, who leads the majors with 52 steals this season and has been caught only four times. Then thereâ€™s rookie sensation Billy Hamilton, 5-for-5 since the Cincinnati Reds called him up from a 75-steal season in the minors, a year after he swiped 155 between Single-A and Double-A.

â€œIâ€™m happy for him, because thatâ€™s what he can do,â€ Pierre says. â€œItâ€™s hard to hit home runs. A big threat in the lineup, you only get the opportunity a little. They walk you. Guys like us, they never walk. You get on base, we can definitely make things happen and make the offense go. I donâ€™t know if people see the value of speed like they used to. Hopefully it comes back. â€¦ Thatâ€™s why Iâ€™m happy to see the Kansas City Royals doing well now, because theyâ€™re running. Theyâ€™re leading the major leagues as a team in stolen bases, and theyâ€™re right in the wild card race. So, I definitely believe you can build around speed. You canâ€™t have a team full of me, and you canâ€™t have a team full of Chris Davises. Youâ€™ve got to have some balance. I think thereâ€™s guys that can do both. There are a lot of guys that can run and hit for power, more so than in the past.â€

Walks were what set Henderson apart â€“ in 1982, when he set the record with 130 steals, he led the American League with 116 walks. While there might never be another player like Henderson, there could be a chance for Pierreâ€™s dream of the speed game coming back on a more general level to come true, for an unexpected reason.

Rickey Henderson stole 1,406 bases and drew 2,190 walks in his career. (AP Photo)

One of the common misconceptions about Moneyball is that the Oakland Aâ€™s rise under Billy Beane was based on sabermetrics and on-base percentage. While that is true to an extent, the book was about Beane exploiting market inefficiencies â€“ teams were not giving appropriate value to players who contributed in certain categories, including OBP.

Now, thanks to the numbers revolution, OBP is prized, and base-stealing ability could be an undervalued attribute. Compare a lineup made up of this seasonâ€™s position-by-position stolen base leaders with the regulars of the Atlanta Braves, the team with the best record in the National League.

While it is obviously impossible to put together the all-speed lineup, the eight playersâ€™ 82.9 percent success rate is well above the rule of thumb break-even point. Seeing how that group has a 12.1-WAR advantage on the Braves, at a savings of $12 million, it is a strategy worth examining.

In some ways, the Royals have done that, as Pierre mentioned, and Kansas Cityâ€™s 82.6 percent success rate on steals is in the paying dividends range. The problem for the Royals is the 360 combined plate appearances that were given to Jeff Francoeur and Miguel Tejada earlier in the year, as those veterans contributed neither stolen bases nor anything else to the strategy. If Kansas Cityâ€™s all-out speed game down the stretch pays off with a wild-card spot, other teams may race to embrace the value of speed.

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