Before you offer an answer to this question, let me muddy the waters a bit. What if we changed the adjective to the “greatest”? Or how about the “most successful”? Might that change your answer?
Here is my point: Depending on how the question is asked might determine how you answer. Based strictly on numbers, Paul Molitor is the career leader in stolen bases for the Brewers with 412. Does that make him the best? The greatest? The most successful?
Let me offer a few stolen base stats to ponder as you think about how you want to answer this question.
First, the most stolen bases. As noted above, Molitor tops that list with 412 steals as a Brewer. He has a significant lead over Robin Yount who is second on the career list with 271.
Brewers’ players with 50+ career stolen bases
In the team’s history, there are 29 players who swiped 50 or more bases in their time with the Brewers. Of those 29, 12 reached the 100-mark in steals. They are: Molitor (412), Yount (271), Ryan Braun (216), Carlos Gomez (152), Jim Gantner (137), Tommy Harper (136), Rickie Weeks (126), Scott Podsednik (113), Pat Listach (112), Darryl Hamilton (109), Mike Felder (108) and BJ Surhoff (102).
Next, Brewers who led the league in stolen bases. That list includes Tommy Harper in 1969 with the Seattle Pilots (73), Scott Podsednik in 2004 (70) and Jonathan Villar in 2016 (62). Those three players and Pat Listach with 54 steals in 1992 are the only Brewers to steal more than 50 bases in a season.
You could easily define a “most successful” base stealer as a player who was not caught. In this case, Christian Yelich tops this list.
Yelich has best stolen base percentage in Brewers’ history
Of the 29 Brewers who had 50 or more career stolen bases, Yelich had the best stolen base percentage with an 85.7% success rate (84 steals in 98 attempts). Here are the Brewers Top 10 in highest stolen base percentage:
85.7%, Christian Yelich
83.1%, Scott Podsednick
80.9%, Carlos Gomez
80.7%, Hernan Perez
80.0%, Mike Felder
79.8%, Rickie Weeks
78.6%, Tommy Harper
78.3%, Ryan Braun
78.2%, Paul Molitor
78.0%, Jonathan Villar
Lastly, a stat looking at the frequency with which the player stole a base for the Brewers. Leading this category is Scott Podsednik, who tallied his 113 career steals in only two seasons in Milwaukee. Podsednik had 113 steals in 308 gams with the Brewers, or a steal every 2.7 games. Tommy Harper is second on this list. He had 136 steals in 454 career games with the Brew Crew, a steal every 3.3 games.
Podsednik stole bases most frequently for the Brewers
Here is the Top 10 in his category of fewest games between steals.
1 steal for every 2.7 games: Scott Podsednik
1 steal for every 3.3 games: Tommy Harper
1 steal for every 3.6 games: Alex Sanchez
1 steal for every 3.7 games: Jonathan Villar
1 steal for every 4.0 games: Pat Listach
1 steal for every 4.2 games: Mike Felder
1 steal for every 4.4 games: Eric Young
1 steal for every 4.5 games: Paul Molitor
1 steal for every 4.6 games: Carlos Gomez
1 steal for every 4.9 games: Jean Segura
So, who you got? Molitor? Podsednik? Harper? Yelich? Someone else?
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