Jorge Polanco has been a favorite prospect of mine for several years and at this point he has certainly established himself as one of the best prospects in the Twins system. His discipline at the plate and positional flexibility make him seem like a relatively safe bet as far as prospects go. However, Polanco’s lack of power and speed have prevented him from being viewed as a dynamic prospect; you won’t see him on any top 100 prospect lists. But after 3 steals in four games, is it time to reevaluate Polanco’s base stealing ability? Here is a quick look at Polanco’s performance in terms of stealing bases the last several years:

Year SB SB% SB/162G

2012 6 67% 19 51

2013 4 50% 6 115

2014 17 61% 21 131

2015 3 100% 162 4

As you can see, Polanco actually stole bases at a solid rate in 2012 and 2014; the outlier in this data set is 2013, when he stole just 4 bases in 115 games. In other words, Polanco might be a better base then commonly believed. However, Polanco’s biggest problem in all of these seasons hasn’t been his raw number of stole bases, but rather his success rate: he has never succeeded in more than 2/3 of his attempts, and even that occurred in a short-season league.

But if we look a little bit deeper, we can identify a little bit more of a trend. Through July of last season, Polanco had stolen 11 bases in 18 attempts. But in August and September, he stole 6 bases in 8 attempts. If we combine 2012, 2013, and the first 4 months of 2014 into one group, and the final 2 months of 2014 with the start of this season into a second group, this is what we see:

SB SB% SB/162G

21 57% 13

9 82% 44

This shows a much different story: not only is Polanco stealing bases lots of bases but he is also succeeding at a very good rate; in short, he looks like a very legitimate base-stealer. Admittedly, there are a few problems with this argument. The first is that 34 games is a small sample size. The second is that I “cherry-picked” the sample: if I had included one more or one less month in the second group, Polanco’s performance would appear quite different.

However, there are a few indicators that make me confident that Polanco’s newfound basestealing ability is here to stay. The first is that this trend has been duplicated in his winter league play. Polanco has played for Leones del Escogido of the Dominican Winter League each of the last 2 winters, and he performed as a basestealer the winter following the 2014 season than the winter preceding it: 3-3 in 23 games (21 per 162, 100% success rate) vs. 4-6 in 49 games (13 per 162, 67% success rate). In other words, Polanco’s increased success at the end of 2014 carried over through the winter and now into the spring. Secondly, , even early on in 2014, Polanco was attempting to steal bases at a career high rate: he attempted 29 steals per 162 games in 2012, 11 in 2013, and 35 in 2014. So it seems possible that the there was a concerted effort in 2014 to have Polanco run more, which might reflect optimism on behalf of the Twins organization. Perhaps even more important, is that this trend manifested itself soon after arriving in AA: Polanco stole 7 bases in 10 attempts in 37 total games for the Rock Cats last season. Maybe he picked up a key bit of coaching advice that played a key role in his success.

We’ll have to wait and see if Polanco’s improved basestealing is here to stay. I, for one, think it is. If Polanco can contribute 30 steals at a 75% success rate—which I think is fairly manageable—he will be a much more dynamic prospect and could shoot up rankings next winter.

The next question, of course, is how valuable these steals are. But that’s a question for another day.