Grantland.com's Jonah Keri takes an extremely in-depth look at base larceny with notably thief Coco Crisp.

 

Keri and Crisp review video of Crisp swiping bases and the A's center fielder describes his thought process and what he is seeing in each pitcher's moves. One example happened to come against the Minnesota Twins' Brian Duensing in August of last year.

 

Duensing (and his catching mate) allowed five steals on six attempts in 2012 and Crisp explain a little bit about why:

 

With lefties obviously it's a little more tricky. With this particular situation, I believe that I was looking at his head. And that was his first movement home, was when he gave a sharp, quick look home, which gave me a few ticks before his front foot lifted. And as soon as he picks up his foot, I take off … or I try to take off. Normally on this particular play it's a slide step. I wouldn't go unless I caught a sign that was a little earlier than his front foot going toward home.

 

As a team which allowed the highest swipe percentage in baseball (82% success rate), the 2013 Twins need to limit the damage on the base paths.

Superb article. Thanks for the link.