Best Basestealer?

I hate to pick on the good people at ESPN, but their "Hot Stove" reports have been ridiculous thus far.

They would have us believe that Juan Pierre is the best basestealer in baseball, because he "steals bases when the Marlins need it most." Horsepucky.

Pierre did steal 45 bases last year, no doubt some of them in especially high-leverage situations, and that's nothing to sneeze at. Only two guys had more steals, Podsednik (70) and Crawford (59).

But here's the catch: Juanes was also caught 24 times, 9 more than the aforementioned Carl Crawford, who had the second highest total. That's a slew of outs, folks. The sabermetric rule of thumb is that basestealers must do their thing at a 70% success rate to actually contribute more runs than they cost. Pierre's fearless, alright, but the Marlins aren't any better off for it.

Here's a short list of guys who were far better basestealers last year:

Podsednik 70SB at 84% Success
Crawford 59SB at 80%
Beltran 42SB at 93%
Abreu 40SB at 89%
D. Roberts 38SB at 93%

In fact, as I look down the spreadsheet, no one that stole more that 20 bases did so while getting caught over 30% of the time. It stands to reason, really, and it raises the question of whether Pierre was actually the worst basestealer in the majors last year. No one turned as many potential runs (in the form of his speedy self on first) into outs (in the form of his embarrassed self jogging back to the dugout 24 times).

Pierre was better in 2003, when he stole 65 and was caught "only" 20 times, but it was still no banner year.

I know it's the offseason, but trumpeting Juan Pierre's fearlessness is just plain dumb.