Omar Moreno where are you?

The Pirates have been mentioning they will run this year. Do you believe them? I do. I heard JR mention it at Piratefest, he mentioned it the other day as well.

At Piratefest He alluded to the fact that the team wasn’t built for speed prior to the trades of Bay, etc. I am not certain it is built for speed now either outside of Morgan, who was caught nearly 50% last season.

I took a very quick look as I have to head to Florida today. The Bucs were last in the division in the category. The Pirates stole 57 bases and were caught stealing 19 times.

The Astros 114 stolen bases led by Bourn with 41.
Brewers 108 stolen bases (only 29 times caught) Hart had 23, Weeks 19, Cameron 17, and Braun 14.
Cubs 87 stolen bases. Theriot had 22 but was caught 13 while Soriano had 19 and was only caught 3 times.
Reds 85 stolen bases. Phillips had 23, while Hairston had 15 caught only three times
Cards 73 with Izturis grabbing 23 of them.

I think this. The Pirates are going to try and be agressive. I am not familar with who works with the players on base stealing. I watched Rickey Henderson on MLBTV the other night. It was a lesson. He stole third so many times it was sick. When asked his secret, “watch the pitchers elbow.” Did you know Rickey said he would never worry about the shortsop or the second basemen. Only the pitchers elbows mattered as he took a SEVEN step lead off of second base.

To take a close look at the NL. The World Champion Phillies stole 136 bases and were caught stealing only 25 times.

Omar swiped 96 on his own in 1980. He was caught 33 times that season. Can Nyjer, McLouth and the boys get anywhere close to those numbers? Team speed and base running has been a weakness and I wonder how we will get it fixed?