Josh Naylor is one of the biggest, slowest players in Major League Baseball. And out of nowhere, he’s become one of the game’s most prolific base stealers.
In the past month, Naylor’s swiped 11 bags, second-most in the Majors in that span. It’s the same numbers as noted speedsters Elly De La Cruz, Jarren Duran and Pete Crow-Armstrong combined. Naylor has stolen third base five times this season. He’s stolen against three Gold Glove-winning catchers. He has a career-high 22 steals for the year — half of them since being traded to the Seattle Mariners in late July — and he’s been caught only twice, once while trying to steal home. He hasn’t been caught stealing since late April.
“I think it’s about not being afraid to fail,” Naylor said. “Not being afraid to take a chance. That’s big for me. I try not to think about failure. Try not to think about, ‘What if I do this?’ I just like to play baseball, play hard.”
Those who have witnessed firsthand Naylor’s daring approach to base running — including one who’s played with him since they were children — say such a shrugging explanation is overly simplistic and undersells the preparation and baseball acumen required to so thoroughly defy our expectations of what an elite base stealer looks like.
No, Naylor is not built like Bobby Witt Jr., and doesn’t run like him either. Naylor is listed at 235 pounds, making him — according to Stathead — one of only nine active players who weigh that much without being more than six feet tall (the other eight have combined for seven steals this season). Statcast has measured Naylor’s average sprint speed at 24.5 feet per second.
Witt is the fastest player in baseball at 30.3 feet per second, while Naylor ranks 532nd out of 546 players who have been clocked at least 10 times. According to Stathead, Naylor is the only player 6-foot-or-under, and weighing at least 235 pounds, to ever steal 20-plus bases in a season.
Josh Naylor is the first @MLB player with 10+ stolen bases in his first 12 games with a franchise since Billy Hamilton for the Cincinnati Reds from Sept. 3-25, 2013.
— Mariners PR (@MarinersPR) August 7, 2025
So, how has he done it? How has a big, slow first baseman managed to steal more bases this season than Duran, Shohei Ohtani, or Corbin Carroll? And how has he done being caught a single time in the past four months?
“For Josh, it’s the intellectual part of the game,” Cleveland Guardians’ catcher Bo Naylor said.
Bo would know. He’s Josh’s little brother.
“It’s the pattern recognition and being able to take advantage of those things,” Bo continued. “You compare him to someone who has just crazy speed, they can just trust their legs to do the work. To everyone who has the potential to steal bases, it just depends on whatever your ability is and making the most of it.”
Naylor is stealing at a 92 percent rate this season. (Alika Jenner / Getty Images)
Naylor’s ability is not raw speed. He’s played seven seasons in the Majors, and this is the slowest he’s ever been. The last time Naylor stole more than 10 bases in a season was 2016, when he was 19 years old in A ball. Even then, he stole only 11. But he has a lifelong eye for detail, having grown up watching baseball with his dad, who preached situational awareness. Naylor’s carried that into major league clubhouses.
“He has a good baserunning IQ, good instincts,” Guardians first base coach Sandy Alomar Jr. said. “He sees tendencies and stuff.”
Naylor played the past five seasons with the Guardians. They rarely asked him to steal, Alomar said, because they had speedsters for that, and Naylor’s job was to drive them in. But Naylor was 23-for-29 on stolen base attempts with the Guardians. His baserunning metrics weren’t great, but they weren’t awful, and more often than not, he could get a bag when a pitcher gave him an opening or a catcher gave him a chance.
“I know what he looks like,” former Guardians coach and current Boston Red Sox coach Kyle Hudson said. “He doesn’t look like he would be athletic, but he’s very athletic as well. When he first got traded over to us (from the San Diego Padres in 2020), I was like, ‘This guy moves really well.’ And you wouldn’t expect him to. He’s actually quick.”
Traded to the Arizona Diamondbacks this winter, Naylor stole three bases in the first week and a half of this season. He was thrown out trying to steal home (in extra innings) on April 20, and was caught stealing again the next game, but Naylor hasn’t been thrown out since, going 18-for-18 the past four months.
Josh Naylor tries to steal home.
Dbacks-Cubs series keeps getting weirder.@12SportsAZ pic.twitter.com/B5TClLARjK
— Jake García (@Jake_M_Garcia) April 20, 2025
Shipped to the Mariners at the trade deadline, Naylor has stolen 11 more bases since his Mariners debut on July 25. Only New York Yankees second baseman Jazz Chisholm Jr. (12) has stolen as many in the past month. Naylor has stolen two bases in a game three times since he got to the Mariners.
In one two-game stretch, he stole four off touted Chicago White Sox rookie Kyle Teel. Earlier in the season, he stole bases against notably strong throwers J.T. Realmuto of the Philadelphia Phillies and Patrick Bailey of the San Francisco Giants. He also stole one against Colorado Rockies catcher Jacob Stallings, another Gold Glove winner (though not one with a particularly strong arm). Naylor has stolen bases against the Brewers, Giants, Nationals, Blue Jays, Phillies and Cubs, all top-11 in the majors in caught stealing percentage.
“I mean, speed is always going to be a plus, if you’ve got that burner skill,” Mariners first base coach Eric Young Jr. said. “But I think if you have a good eye and know what you’re looking for, and then knowing your capabilities and what you’re good at — which he (has) — he definitely takes advantage of it.”
Naylor’s ability to pick up on tendencies and take advantage of them on the bases will meet a fascinating match this week when his Mariners travel to Cleveland to play the Guardians. Naylor will be up against his former team — the Guardians have been among the best in baseball at throwing out base stealers this season — and his brother should be behind the plate. The Naylor family is planning to fly into Cleveland for the series.
Will the slowest base stealer in the major leagues try to swipe a bag against his little brother with Mom and Dad in the stands?
“Oh, 100 percent,” Bo Naylor said. “I’d be shocked if he didn’t, to be honest.”
(The Athletic’s Andy McCullough and Zack Meisel contributed to this story)
(Top photo: Mitchell Layton / Getty Images)