Byron Buxton Becomes the First Qualified AL/NL Batter to Go the Entire Season Without Being Caught Stealing or Grounding into a Double Play During a Full-Length Campaign

 

Throughout Byron Buxton’s 11-year MLB career, the ability to successfully steal bases and avoid grounding into double plays have been hallmarks of the Minnesota Twins center fielder’s game.  In fact, going into the 2025 season, Buxton boasted an exceptional 88.6% success rate in 105 career stolen base attempts while grounding into a mere 16 double plays across 772 games and 2,875 plate appearances.  As impressive as that may be, Buxton took it to a new level in 2025, becoming the first AL/NL player to go the entire season without being caught stealing or grounding into a double play while accumulating the requisite number of plate appearances to qualify for the batting title during a full-length campaign of 154 or 162 games.

 

A supremely talent player selected by Minnesota with the second overall pick of the 2012 draft, a series of injuries have kept Buxton from realizing his full potential.  Finally healthy in 2025, Buxton enjoyed a career-year in the batter’s box at age 31, setting personal bests in several categories including hits, triples, home runs, RBI, runs scored, and plate appearances.  On July 12, the slugger became the 12th Twins player to hit for the cycle, going 5 for 5 in the club’s 12-4 thrashing of the Pittsburgh Pirates.

 

Prior to 2025, the 2017 campaign represented the only season in which Buxton amassed the requisite 502 plate appearances, as he wielded the lumber 511 times for Minnesota.  During that year, Buxton went an incredible 29 for 30 in stolen base attempts and grounded into just one double play.  While injuries plagued him in subsequent campaigns, his ability to successfully steal bases and avoid grounding into double plays remained firm, as he was never a victim of either of those misfortunes more than three times in a season.  On top of that, from August 19, 2020 to April 1, 2023, Buxton played a total of 174 games without grounding into a twin killing.

 

The double plays grounded into statistic has been tracked by the NL since 1933 and by the AL since 1939.  Over that time, going an entire full-length season without grounding into a double play while also accumulating enough plate appearances to qualify for the batting title has been a rare feat, only accomplished by seven AL/NL hitters prior to Buxton.  The table below displays Buxton’s 2025 statistics alongside the seven previous hitters to turn the trick. 

CLICK TABLE TO ENLARGE

 

Note: Seventeen players show up under a Stathead search for qualified AL/NL batters who completed the season without grounding into a double play.  However, I have chosen to only recognize Buxton and the seven other batters in the table above as the nine additional batters who achieved the feat did so under special circumstances that I feel require an asterisk next to their accomplishment.  If you are interested in the statistics of those players and the reasons for each of their omissions, I have included a stat table and the explanations at the conclusion of the article.

 

A statistic you may not recognize on the table is DPopp which represents the number opportunities the batter had to ground into a double play by stepping up to the plate with a runner on first base and less than two outs.  Buxton opened 2025 splitting time between batting out of the two and three-holes in the order before moving to the leadoff spot in early May.  Batting leadoff undoubtedly decreased Buxton’s opportunities to ground into a double play.  Nevertheless, the veteran still wielded the lumber with 80 opportunities to ground into a twin killing.  During 2025, the average AL hitter grounded into a double play in 9.4% of their opportunities, meaning that a junior circuit batter with Buxton’s 80 opportunities likely would’ve bounced into seven or eight double plays.  During the 2025 campaign alone, a whopping 20 MLB batters matched or exceeded the 16 double plays Buxton has grounded into over his entire 11-year career.  Tampa Bay Rays third baseman Junior Caminero dubiously paced the AL and MLB as a whole by grounding into a twin killing a mind boggling 31 times while New York Mets first baseman Pete Alonso had the misfortune of leading the NL by being victimized on 23 occasions.  Over the course of Buxton’s 11-year career, he has only grounded into a double play 2.5% of the time when there was an opportunity to do so.  Among the qualified AL/NL batters recognized as finishing the season without grounding into a double play, Buxton’s 2.5% figure is the lowest career mark.  And, while Buxton may have been aided by batting first in Minnesota’s order, he is not alone in this distinction as Dick McAuliffe, Craig Biggio, Chase Utley, and Matt Carpenter also hit primarily out of the leadoff spot during their respective campaigns.

 

With his 24 stolen bases, Buxton surpassed the AL single-season benchmark for most swiped bags without being caught, which had been held by Alcides Escobar who went a perfect 22 for 22 for the 2013 Kansas City Royals.  Buxton’s 24 successful thefts only trails the MLB record of 30 set by Philadelphia Phillies shortstop Trea Turner in 2023.  Ironically, Turner was flawless in 30 steal attempts during the 2023 regular season but, after successfully swiping a pair of bases in each of the first two rounds of the postseason, was caught in his sole attempt during the NLCS.  Boston Red Sox shortstop Trevor Story appeared to be on his way to establishing both a new junior circuit and MLB benchmark as he maintained a perfect stolen base rate through his first 30 attempts.  During the September 17 game against the Athletics, Story made it 31 for 31 when he swiped second base in the bottom of the sixth inning.  However, Story lost his chance at cementing the record as, later in the game, he was caught while attempting to steal second during the bottom of the eight.  MLB began tracking caught stealing totals in 1951 and, since that time, just seven players have finished the season with 20 steals while maintaining a perfect success rate.  The table below compares Buxton’s 2025 campaign alongside the other six batters who accomplished this feat.

CLICK TABLE TO ENLARGE

 

As you can see Buxton stands alone in his achievement of maintaining a perfect base stealing success rate while also avoiding being the victim of grounding into a double play.  Of the other six players to steal 20 or more bags without being nabbed, Quintin Berry has lowest number of double plays grounded into on his ledger with four.  However, Berry only stepped up to the plate 330 times.  Thus for a qualified batter, Chase Utley has the lowest total with five.

 

Critics of the modern game may point to a 2023 rule change that increased base sizes from 15 to 18 inches square and argue that the perfect stolen base rates achieved by Buxton and Turner were due in part to the larger base sizes.  While the larger base sizes undoubtedly aided Buxton and Turner, the Twins slugger has registered exceptional stolen base percentages throughout his career.  In fact, prior to the 2023 rule change, Buxton stole bases with a superb 88.5% success rate, most notably going 29 for 30 in 2017.  Indeed, the veteran’s success rate has risen since the rule change, jumping to an even-more illustrious 95.2% over the past three seasons.  With his 24 thefts in 2025, Buxton’s career stolen base total increased to 117 while his success rate improved to 90.7%, a figure that currently leads all active or retired players with at least 88 attempts.

 

Thus far, no qualified AL/NL batter has put together two campaigns in which they went the entire season without grounding into a double play.  However, if Buxton manages to stay healthy, he could very well be the first player to accomplish the feat.  On top of that, the speedy veteran could also become the first player to post multiple campaigns with 20 or more stolen bases while maintaining a perfect success rate.

 

—by John Tuberty 

 

—end of main article—

CLICK TABLE TO ENLARGE

 

The first qualified AL/NL hitter to go the entire campaign without grounding into a double play, George Watkins, did so in 1934 with just 329 plate appearances for the season.  At the time, only 100 games played were required to qualify for the batting title.  A year later, Augie Galan was credited with going the entire 1935 campaign without grounding into a twin killing.  However, according to Retrosheet's game logs from that season, Galan was indeed doubled up on June 25 of that year.  Additionally, Rickey Henderson, Otis Nixon, and Ray Lankford each achieved the feat in 1994 when the baseball strike wiped out nearly the last third of the season while the quartet of Joey Gallo, Wil Myers, Victor Robles, and Dansby Swanson turned the trick during the pandemic-shortened 2020 campaign.  Gallo and Swanson technically became the first AL/NL qualified batters to go the entire season without being caught stealing or grounding into a double play.  However, 2020 was far from a full-length campaign as the regular season spanned just 60 games with a mere 186 plate appearances required to qualify for the batting crown, a far cry from the 477 or 502 needed in 154 and 162-game campaigns.  During 2020, Swanson and Gallo successfully swiped a respective five and two bases, each well behind the 24 stolen base attempts Buxton achieved his perfect rate under in 2025.

 

Follow me on Twitter/X @BloggerTubbs

 

Stat links to main players mentioned: Byron Buxton, Trea Turner, Trevor Story, Junior Caminero, Pete Alonso, Dansby Swanson, Rickey Henderson, Craig Biggio, Paul Molitor, Chase Utley, TJ Friedl, Matt Carpenter, Joey Gallo, Kevin McReynolds, Wil Myers, Victor Robles, Otis Nixon, Ray Lankford, George Watkins, Augie Galan, Pete Reiser, Dick McAuliffe, Rob Deer, Alcides Escobar, Quintin Berry

 

Sources:

All statistics drawn from Baseball Reference/Stathead

 

Retrosheet Augie Galan June, 25, 1935 Game Log

 

Matthew Leach, “Buxton warms up for Derby with cycle—on his bobbleheadday!” MLB.com

 

Brian Murphy, “This Story ends with a caught stealing,” MLB.com

 

Base Sizes (2023 rule change) MLB.com

 

Cards: Byron Buxton 2024 Topps Archives, Byron Buxton 2024 Topps Flagship Collection, Byron Buxton 2025 Topps Heritage, Byron Buxton 2025 Topps Now

 

Other Articles by Tubbs Baseball Blog:

Hall of Fame Candidate Tim Hudson’s Pair of Late Season Undefeated Streaks That Played Key Roles in Securing the 2000 and 2002 AL West DivisionTitles for the Oakland Athletics

 

How Dwight Evans Overcame a Mid-Career Crisis to Evolve into a Hall of Fame-Caliber Player

 

Salvador Perez, Jorge Soler, Bob Cerv, Heavy Johnson, and the Rich History of Kansas City’s Single-Season Home Run Record

 

 

 

A guest post from author Douglas J. Gladstone centering on Angel Luis Alcaraz Acosta and Sergio Ferrer who are among 498 pre-1980 MLB retirees currently ineligible for a pension

 

Even the most knowledgeable baseball fan probably doesn’t remember Angel Luis Alcaraz Acosta, who played in the big leagues in 1967 and 1968 for the Los Angeles Dodgers and 1969 and 1970 for the Kansas City Royals.

 

A graduate of Ana Roque High School in Humacao, Puerto Rico, Alcaraz was a reserve infielder who, in parts of four seasons, appeared in 115 games, came up to the plate 365 times, collected 70 hits, including four home runs, nine doubles and two triples, scored 30 times and had 29 runs batted in,

 

Alcaraz, who now lives in Venus Gardens-Rio Piedras, in San Juan, turned 84 years-old this past June.

 

For his time playing the game he loved, Alcaraz earned the princely salary of $8,000 during his last season playing for the Dodgers; in his first season playing for the Royals, he got a raise to $10,000.

 

Alcaraz would most likely be a footnote in the annals of the national pastime if it weren’t for one thing: he’s now among the 498 retired ballplayers not receiving Major League Baseball (MLB) pensions.

 

I am thinking of Alcaraz because he has all but been forgotten by today’s players.

 

For that matter, so too has San Juan’s Sergio Ferrer, who played for the Minnesota Twins in 1974 and 1975 before finishing up his career with the New York Mets in 1978 and 1979. In his rookie season, Ferrer was paid $7,800.

 

See, in 1980, the vesting rules for a pension changed. It used to be a player needed four years of service to be eligible for one but, ever since, it’s only been 43 days.

 

It was a sweetheart deal the league offered the Major League Baseball Players’ Association (MLBPA), which is the union that represents the current players, with one notable caveat: the pre-1980 players like Alcaraz and Ferrer were not retroactively included.

 

So for the past 45 years, post-1980 players like New York Mets shortstop Francisco Lindor  —  a prominent member of the union who in 2021 signed a 10-year, $341 million contract extension — have only needed 43 game days of service on an active roster to get a pension. And their designated beneficiaries get to keep that pension.

 

Instead of MLB pensions, all pre-1980 players like Alcaraz get is a yearly payment of up to $11,500 for every 43 game days of service they accrued on an active MLB roster. Given the time he spent with Los Angeles and Kansas City, it's more likely that Alcaraz gets a bone of $5,500 thrown at him. And that's before taxes are taken out.

 

What's more, the payment cannot be passed on to anyone. So when Alcaraz dies, whoever his designated beneficiary is will not receive the bone he’s being thrown. 

 

But do you hear this issue being bandied about by today’s ballplayers in advance of the collective bargaining negotiations that are soon to get underway? Of course not.

 

Under the terms of the collective bargaining agreement between the union and MLB, the league doesn’t have to bargain about the pre-1980 players unless the union first broaches it. As for the MLBPA, it doesn’t owe these retirees what is known as the “duty of fair representation”, i.e, once they’re out of the game, the union doesn’t have to provide legal guidance or counsel to them.

 

What makes this unseemly is that the national pastime is doing great financially. The average salary is $5.1 million, the minimum salary is $760,000 and, according to my friend and fellow SABR member Max Effgen, the Major League Baseball Players Pension Plan currently has $4.6 billion in assets, with 9,670 participants; that is an increase of $400 million in assets with 177 fewer participants from 2022.

 

Are both MLB and MLBPA suggesting they can't afford to pay these men more?

 

If anyone can help these men it’s Lindor, a native son of Caguas, Puerto Rico who, as a member of the eight-member players’ union executive committee, is in a position to go to MLBPA Executive Director Tony Clark and insist that this injustice be remedied once and for all.

 

Listen, nobody begrudges anyone his money. This is, after all, still a capitalist country.  

 

But if it weren’t for the guys like Ferrer and Alcaraz, who endured labor stoppages and went without paychecks so free agency could occur in the first place, do you think Lindor would be in a position to be getting the kind of big money he’s making?

 

Lindor’s nickname is “Mr. Smile.” By doing the right thing, he can put a smile on the face of Alcaraz, Ferrer and 496 other men.

 

 

Douglas J. Gladstone is the author of “A Bitter Cup of Coffee; How MLB & The Players Association Threw 874 Retirees a Curve.”

 

A guest post from author Douglas J. Gladstone centering on Reggie Baldwin--one of 502 pre-1980 MLB retirees currently ineligible for a pension

 

This is the tale of two Grambling State University Tigers – Reggie Baldwin and Gary Eave.

 

A Magna Cum Laude graduate, Mr. Baldwin, who turned 71-years-old on August 19th, was a catcher who played for the Tigers between 1973 and 1976. Mr. Eave pitched for Grambling a bit later, between 1982 and 1985.

 

Both were lucky enough to play in “The Show”: Mr. Baldwin with the Houston Astros in 1978 and 1979, and Mr. Eave with Atlanta Braves and Seattle Mariners between 1988 and 1990.

 

Yet only one of them is collecting a pension from Major League Baseball (MLB).

 

Regrettably, Mr. Baldwin is among the ever shrinking group of former ballplayers – 502 at last count -- who don’t receive a MLB pension because of the time when they played. See, Baldwin and the 501 other men like him played prior to 1980, when new vesting requirements were implemented in collective bargaining negotiations with the union representing ballplayers, the Major League Baseball Players’ Association (MLBPA), which lowered the service credit you needed for a pension from four years to just 43 days. But the men like Baldwin, who all had more than 43 days of service but less than four years, were not retroactively included in this new arrangement.

 

Instead, all the men like Baldwin receive are non-qualified retirement payments of $718.75 for every 43 game days they were on a big league roster, up to a maximum payment of $11,500.

 

However, a vested retiree can receive up to $275,000, according to the IRS.

 

Baldwin, who co-founded Antioch International Ministries with his wife Prophetess Franett Baldwin in 1990, made $21,000 as a rookie catcher for the Astros in 1978. (Eave didn’t fare that much better, by the way; in his rookie year with the Braves, he earned $62,500).  Meanwhile, thanks to the 2022 collective bargaining agreement, the players’ union made sure that the minimum salary for current players rose to $760,000 this season.

 

In the 52 career games he appeared in, Baldwin came up to the plate 87 times, scored five runs, collected 21 hits, including six doubles and one home run, and drove in 12 runs.

 

With the average MLB salary last year reported to be $5.1 million, and with MLBPA Executive Director Tony Clark reportedly receiving a yearly salary of $3.41 million, it is my position that the union is forgetting to take care of the men like Baldwin. After all, unions are supposed to help hard working people in this country get a fair shake in life.

 

Since the league doesn’t have to have negotiate about this matter in collective bargaining, it’s essentially up to the union to go to bat for these men. 

 

What makes this especially reprehensible is that Clark, a former ballplayer with the Detroit Tigers and five other teams, received the Negro League Museum’s Jackie Robinson Award in 2016; however, he has never commented about these non-vested retirees, many of whom are filing for bankruptcy at advanced ages and having banks foreclose on their homes.

 

Other persons of color affected include Scipio Spinks of the Astros, Joe Gilbert of the Montreal Expos (who wore uniform number 42 as a tribute to Robinson) and Aaron Pointer, an NAACP award winner who was the first African-American linesman in the PAC-10.

 

I have never met Mr. Baldwin – for that matter, I haven’t met Mr. Eave, either – but I have made numerous appearances with Mr. Spinks, who once body doubled the late Oscar winner Louis Gossett, Jr. in a television movie about Hall of Fame pitcher Satchel Paige called “Don’t Look Back.” Like myself, he puts the onus to correct this travesty squarely on the back of the union.

 

It is perhaps ironic that, as we celebrate the contributions of the union movement on Labor Day today, the MLBPA refuses to fight for the men who endured work stoppages, went without paychecks and stood on picket lines all so that today’s players could reap the benefits of free agency. 

 

That’s why, if you want to assist in correcting this egregious error, I urge you to contact Mr. Clark, as well as MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred, and tell them exactly what you think of this blight on the national pastime.

 

Clark can be contacted via email at comms@mlbpa.org while the Commissioner can be contacted via email at customerservice@mlb.com.

 

Thank you for anything you can do to remedy this injustice.

 

Douglas J. Gladstone is the author of “A Bitter Cup of Coffee: How MLB & the Players’ Association Threw 874 Retirees a Curve.”