Let’s take a look at stolen bases and on base percentage.
Here are the players with the lowest OBP with at least 50 stolen bases in a single season.
OBP SB1 Bert Campaneris .278 52 1972 2 Vince Coleman .285 50 1994 3 Omar Moreno .292 60 1982 4 Miguel Dilone .294 50 1978 5 Omar Moreno .295 53 1977 6 Bert Campaneris .297 55 1967 7 Jose Reyes .300 60 2005 8 Mookie Wilson .300 54 1983 9 Vince Coleman .301 107 1986 10 Bert Campaneris .302 62 1969
This list is rife of leadoff men (I’m going on memory but I’m pretty sure they all led off for their respective teams) but still couldn’t get the job done when came to getting on base.
They say you can’t steal first base but from a stat point of view, what these guys was pretty amazing (if not self-serving, see #9). These men got on base some 30% of the time (plus errors etc) yet still managed to steal an ungodly amount of bases.
If you think Bert Campaneris is over-represented in this list, check out the full list. Campy comes up #11, too.
No, you can’t steal first base but when these guy DID get on, you could be pretty sure you had a man on second by the next batter.