Josh Naylor Is Running Wild on the Basepaths
Josh Naylor is among the league leaders in stolen bases this season. It's time to appreciate what he is doing on the basepaths.
On Wednesday evening, Josh Naylor recorded his 10th stolen base in 12 games since being traded to the Seattle Mariners. Extrapolate those numbers to 162 games, and he’d be on pace for 135 steals!
Kidding aside, were you aware that Naylor is tied for 14th in Major League Baseball this season with 21 stolen bases? I sure was not. A passing fact that was brought up during this week’s Just Baseball editorial call turned into a rabbit hole that I have not stopped thinking about since we ended the conversation.
For those who may not be overly familiar with Naylor’s game, allow me to provide a brief summary so you can appreciate what he has been able to accomplish on the basepaths this season.
Naylor, who stands at 5-foot-10, 235 lbs, is not known for his speed. He’s a bat-first first baseman who has evolved into one of the more steady hitters at the position thanks to his ability to put the bat on the ball at a high rate while providing a good amount of pop as well.
Again, stealing bases is not his calling card.
Prior to the 2025 season, Naylor stole a total of 25 bases across his five seasons and 598 games in the majors. That number is even inflated due to his previous career-high of 10 steals that he had back in 2023 with the Cleveland Guardians.
Hence my surprise when I found out just how active he has been on the basepaths this season.
Amazingly, Naylor is not doing it as a result of a sudden spike in sprint speed. The exact opposite is happening actually.
Take a look at his average sprint speed per season dating back to his rookie debut in 2019:
| Season | Age | Average Sprint Speed (ft / sec) |
| 2019 | 22 | 26.1 |
| 2020 | 23 | 27.1 |
| 2021 | 24 | 26.4 |
| 2022 | 25 | 25.3 |
| 2023 | 26 | 25.8 |
| 2024 | 27 | 25.2 |
| 2025 | 28 | 24.5 |
Naylor’s sprint speed has tapered off throughout the years as he ages, which isn’t surprising to see. In 2025, his age-28 season, Naylor’s average sprint speed has reached a career-low at 24.5 ft/sec. Yet, he has almost as many steals in 105 games this year than he had in nearly 600 games before 2025.
Naylor, who, again, is tied for 14th in MLB with 21 stolen bases, is the glaring outlier on the leaderboard. Each of the 13 players ahead of him (as well as the three other names tied with him) has an average sprint speed of at least 28.0 ft/sec or faster except for Kyle Tucker (26.5 ft/sec).
Therefore, Naylor clocking in at a measly 24.5 ft/sec, which puts him in the third percentile in all of MLB, makes it almost unbelievable what he’s been able to accomplish.
His sprint speed is tied for the 14th-slowest average sprint speed in the league. For the sake of this exercise, below is a table of the the 13 names (and two who are tied with him) who have a slower sprint speed than Naylor, along with how many stolen bases each player has this season:
| Player | Average Sprint Speed (ft / sec) | 2025 Stolen Bases |
| Martín Maldonado | 23.1 | 0 |
| Sam Huff | 23.4 | 0 |
| Rowdy Tellez | 23.5 | 1 |
| Jacob Stallings | 23.6 | 0 |
| Giancarlo Stanton | 23.8 | 0 |
| Jose Miranda | 23.8 | 0 |
| Jhonny Pereda | 24.1 | 0 |
| Alejandro Kirk | 24.1 | 0 |
| Victor Caratini | 24.2 | 1 |
| Jose Trevino | 24.3 | 0 |
| Gio Urshela | 24.3 | 0 |
| Triston Casas | 24.4 | 0 |
| Austin Wynns | 24.4 | 0 |
| Wilmer Flores | 24.5 | 1 |
| Keibert Ruiz | 24.5 | 0 |
| Josh Naylor | 24.5 | 21 |
It’s safe to say that Naylor stands out like a sore thumb.
Now, sprint speed does not inherently mean a player is guaranteed to swipe a lot of bases, nor do you have to be the fastest guy in the league to be near the top of the stolen-base leaderboard. But it sure makes it easier, and Naylor is an extreme outlier when it comes to the correlation between speed and steals.
In fact, what he’s accomplished is historic. Thanks to some research done by our very own Leo Morgenstern, Naylor is in a class of his own when putting his numbers into historical context.
Of the players with at least 17 stolen bases since 2015, Naylor has by far the slowest sprint speed. The next closest is Brandon Phillips, who stole 23 bases back in 2015 with an average sprint speed of 25.8 ft/sec.
Among those players (387 of them to be exact), Naylor also has the slowest average home plate to first base time at 4.86 seconds. The next closest is, again, Phillips at 4.68 seconds.
The kicker? It’s not as if he’s getting exposed on the basepaths either. He’s actually been extremely efficient. Naylor is 21-for-23 on stolen-base attempts this season, giving him a success rate of 91.3%. For reference, the league average in 2025 is 77%.
Clearly he’s picking the perfect spots to be aggressive, and it’s paying off in a big way.
There’s a reason why I have been fixated on this since I learned about it earlier this week. Naylor is on legitimate 20/20 watch with 14 homers and 21 stolen bases on the year to this point.
That’s not something that should be glossed over. Last season alone, the list of players to accomplish a 20/20 season is not overly long (19). What did many of those players have in common? Raw speed, and plenty of it.
The lowest average sprint speed among that group was Jose Altuve at 27.1 ft/sec. Francisco Lindor was the only other player who had a 20/20 season last year with an average sprint speed below 28.0 ft/sec.
Naylor already has the most challenging portion of that out of the way, as 20 steals should not be feasible with his level of speed. And yet, he managed to surpass that mark on August 6. As crazy as it is to say, it’s not out of the realm of possibilities that he reaches 30 stolen bases on the year.
He needs to hit six homers in the remaining 47 games to reach the 20/20 milestone. Naylor has surpassed 20 homers twice in his career (20 in 2022, 31 in 2024). He truly has a chance to become one of the most improbable names to accomplish the feat, and it’s a storyline I will be monitoring heavily the rest of the way. I recommend you do the same.
To tie a bow on the conversation, below are a handful of notable players who rank in the 90th percentile or better in sprint speed and have as many or fewer steals than Josh Naylor this season:
- Byron Buxton: 17 steals, 99th percentile average sprint speed (30.2 ft / sec)
- Corbin Carroll: 14 steals, 98th percentile average sprint speed (29.7 ft / sec)
- Brenton Doyle: 10 steals, 96th percentile average sprint speed (29.5 ft / sec)
- Jackson Chourio: 18 steals, 94th percentile average sprint speed (29.3 ft / sec)
- Julio Rodríguez: 21 steals, 94th percentile average sprint speed (29.3 ft / sec)
- Matt McLain: 16 steals, 93rd percentile average sprint speed (29.2 ft / sec)
- Jarren Duran: 18 steals, 92nd percentile average sprint speed (29.1 ft / sec)
- Ceddanne Rafaela: 15 steals, 90th percentile average sprint speed (29.0 ft / sec)
Stats were taken prior to play on August 7.
Written by
Joey Peterson is a graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Madison and an editor for Just Baseball. Joey covers the Milwaukee Brewers, along with general MLB topics…