When teammate Josh Naylor gets a lead, Seattle Mariners star Julio Rodríguez gets curious and pays attention. He never knows when Naylor might teach him something about stealing a base.
It might seem counterintuitive that he’d be interested at all, considering Rodríguez’s well-established ability to run and Naylor’s own modest steal totals coming into this season. But when it comes to stealing bases in 2025, Naylor is a 5-foot-10, 250-pound walking (or running) contradiction.
Despite being a slugger-only by reputation and, without exaggeration, one of the slowest players in the league, Naylor came into the final days of the regular season with 29 stolen bases in 31 attempts. Since getting caught stealing second base on April 22 by Ben Rortvedt of the Tampa Bay Rays, Naylor has stolen 21 straight, including 18 in a row once he joined the Mariners via trade the last week in July.
Coming into the season, Naylor stole 25 bases total in 598 career games. He used to run faster and was even clocked a bit above league average five years ago as measured by Statcast, but Naylor’s speed took a hit following a gruesome ankle injury he sustained in a collision with then-Cleveland teammate Ernie Clement in 2021.
Today, only a handful of major leaguers are slower than Naylor, who ranks in the second percentile in sprint speed at 24.4 feet per second. The two most notable slow(er)pokes are Alejandro Kirk (24.2) and Giancarlo Stanton (23.6). Almost all of the others are backup-catcher types with limited playing time.
More like Josh Snailor! No matter — despite his slow sprints, Naylor recently joined Rodríguez and outfielder Randy Arozarena to form only the third trio of teammates in MLB history to have at least 20 home runs and 20 stolen bases in the same season. The only surprising part about any of the players joining this club is Naylor’s stolen base total.
Don’t concentrate on Naylor’s sprint times, Rodríguez told Pitcher List. Instead, just keep an eye on Naylor once he gets on base.
“He might not be as fast, but he’s definitely a really smart baserunner,” Rodríguez said. “You can achieve the same numbers in many different ways. He definitely found his own way to steal bases.”
Naylor’s way is to read the body language of opposing pitchers when they’re in the stretch, look for tendencies, pick the right moment, and take off when his chances are best. It’s not a unique process, but he finds that it works for him despite a lack of foot speed. Naylor said he’s always looking for a competitive edge. Other times, he’s worked on drawing more walks, striking out less, or playing better defense. Stealing bases in bigger volume is just a way that’s gotten him attention this season.
“I try to play a complete game,” Naylor said. “I don’t think there are limits to what a player can do based on his body type or height, or weight, or whatever the case is, whatever excuse you want to make. I think everyone can be a great player and do all things within the game. I just try to be a complete player, to be honest.”
He encourages his teammates to do likewise, said right-hander Logan Gilbert, who had a different idea of what Naylor was when the M’s brought him over.
“He was in the dugout the other day, almost screaming, telling our guys to steal, because he knew every single time the pitcher was going to deliver,” Gilbert said. “I wasn’t paying attention (at first), but once he said it, I checked and I’m like: ‘Oh, everything he said is right.’ He’s making up for (lacking) top-tier speed with how savvy he is.
“I wasn’t expecting that.”
Playing nearly seven seasons in the majors has given Naylor untold opportunities to, well, watch a lot of baseball games. And, as Hall of Fame slugger Yogi Berra famously said: You can observe a lot by watching.
Naylor is not just passing the time.
“I watch the timing of it — he always has good timing,” Rodríguez said. “He kind of studies pitchers and knows when it’s a good time for him to do it. That’s something that I’m trying to pick up a little bit and learn from him.”
Other teammates besides Rodríguez have watched Naylor watch games since he got to Seattle. Right-hander Bryan Woo said he’s also spent a lot of time in the dugout talking about the game with Naylor, picking his brain about things, and he’s already better for it.
“The way that he thinks about the game, the way he sees the game — everybody already on the team, in his short time here, knows just how much of a gamer that he is, and how good his baseball IQ is,” Woo said. “Some guys see the game a little bit differently and try to impact the game in all different types of ways. Those guys are irreplaceable.”
Naylor’s new teammates are finding out what the former ones already knew. Naylor and Clement played together with the Guardians for parts of two seasons. Now with the Toronto Blue Jays, Clement said he’s having a blast from afar watching Naylor expand his game to include efficient base stealing.
“It’s awesome. He’s an extremely smart baseball player in general, and a sneaky — really, really good — athlete,” Clement said. “You can learn a lot about this game just from paying attention.”
Clement and Naylor grew closer after Naylor’s ankle injury, a closed fracture and dislocation that required surgery and sidelined him for the final 3½ months of ’21. The injury cost Naylor significant pain, time, and sprint speed, but it didn’t dampen his attitude or dull his curiosity about getting better at his craft.
“He’s one of the best teammates I’ve ever had,” Clement said. “And after the collision that we had, I just have so much love for him. He was awesome to me because I felt terrible, obviously, from that incident. He’s an easy guy to root for. He’ll always be a brother.”
As a competitive ice hockey player growing up in Mississauga, Ontario, he showed the kind of burly athleticism the Miami Marlins liked enough to pick Naylor 12th overall in the 2015 MLB Draft. Naylor’s hockey background serves him well as a baseball player in general, he thinks, and there could be some linkage to the stolen bases.
“Maybe the attitude aspect of it, just trying to be a dog on the field, being eager to play, and ready for every opportunity,” Naylor said.
If the Mariners and Blue Jays meet in the playoffs in October, Clement might have to cover the bag on a Naylor steal attempt. That’s one thing, but Clement found it hard to imagine playing hockey against him.
“If I saw him coming at me on skates, I’d definitely be trying to get out of the way,” Clement said. “It’s like a freight train coming at you.”
Mariners manager Dan Wilson foresees Naylor possibly helping them win a playoff game because of a key stolen base.
“We’ve talked about ‘Nailz’ a lot,” Wilson said. “It’s his ability to see the game, and how smart of a player, a headsy player, that he is. He takes advantage of opportunities that he gets, ones the other team affords him. He has done that on a number of occasions, and it’s been big.
“Advancing 90 feet, especially late in the year like this, can make a big difference. It’s already come up huge for us.”
Some stolen bases are more valuable than others. A single stolen base doesn’t always lead to a run scored, and a running game that generates too many outs will make even trying to steal not worth the gamble. Analytically minded front offices figured this out decades ago, and teams generally clamped down on their own stolen-base attempts, even if players were being smarter about when they tried to run.
MLB’s stolen base sleepwalk changed once the league started to limit pickoff attempts in 2023. Stolen base totals jumped 41% that season, with the changes opening things up for any player willing and able to take advantage.
“I mean, you see Juan Soto doing it,” Mariners catcher Mitch Garver said. “He’s never stolen bases before, really, and now he’s going 30-30. It’s just another thing to add to your game and to improve on. And Josh has done a really good job with that. He scored a bunch of big runs for us.”
Naylor fits ideally into the Mariners’ offensive style, which marries power and speed better than most teams. Seattle has a good chance to finish in the top 10 in runs scored and, within that, the top three in home runs and top four in steals. Even slugging catcher Cal Raleigh, who leads the league in homers, having reached 60, is also 14-for-18 stealing bases. Raleigh and other Mariners players credited first base coach Eric Young Jr. with helping them be more effective base stealers.
The ideal number varies depending on the league-wide run-scoring environment, but a stolen base success rate of 75% is widely considered the break-even point. Major-league ballplayers generally are very good at stealing bases, with the league having a success rate of 77.7% this season. The Mariners steal with 81% success, which also ranks fourth in the league. The New York Mets, who stole 142 bases in their first 160 attempts, lead the league with an 89% success rate. And Soto, as mentioned by Garver, is just a few steals short of becoming the seventh 40-40 player.
A stolen base doesn’t only move a runner 90 feet closer to home. Running teams collectively give opposing pitchers something else to worry about beyond the batter. M’s right-hander George Kirby said he was glad to have Naylor on his side and not running the bases against him anymore.
“Man, plenty of times I’ve pitched against the Guardians, and he’s just one guy you always have to be aware of,” Kirby said. “You really have to mix up your holds. He’s really, really smart, and picks up on guys’ tendencies really easily.
“Honestly, you’ve got to treat him like he’s, you know, Julio Rodríguez or Bobby Witt, because he has that stealing threat in him. Just because he’s not a typical-looking stealing guy, people just kind of brush it off. You really got to pay attention to him.”
Naylor’s teams have an 18-7 record when he steals at least one base. Ten times after stealing this season, Naylor has scored a run. But it’s more than that. Baserunners who try to steal put their opponents in a position of having to respond. Stealing bases can give an offense leverage, and doing so puts an opponent in a position to make a costly mistake.
“That is the most important part of the running game,” said Garver, in his ninth major-league season. “Stealing a base might not result in a run in the moment, but it could result in more pitches thrown for a certain guy. It could result in the position of the infielders being shifted to a different spot where a ground ball might go through. Those are things you can’t quantify (easily), but they’re things that are outcomes of what happens from stealing.”
The Mariners recently clinched their first division title since 2001. The playoffs start next week. This might be their best shot since that season to win the World Series. As the games grow more consequential, Naylor said he won’t be afraid to push the envelope smartly to find an edge.
“If I get thrown out, I get thrown out,” Naylor said. “I’m going to take my shot, if I feel that I have it, and calculate all the scenarios in my mind, calculate everything [the pitcher] is doing in the moment, and take my shot when it’s time to take the shot.”
Even a freight train running at reduced speed can make a devastating impact.
