Guardians' Steven Kwan Keeps Getting Slower
Lets dive into the causes and impact of his declining speed
As Steven Kwan continues another fantastic season in an abysmal Cleveland outfield, there is one part of his game that appears concerning. Steven Kwan in his debut season was in the 80th percentile of sprint speed; now he is in only the 35th. While it would be easy to say that his hamstring issues are the cause of the problem, I think there is a little more nuance. Over the course of the season we have seen Steven Kwan pull up early on grounders or opt to wait back on balls he may have dove for in the past, it seems intentional to me. With his hamstring issues it makes perfect sense for him to be a little more conservative especially this early in the season.
Using Statcast Baserunning we can see the new conservative baserunning approach from Kwan pretty clearly. In advance opportunities Kwan is only attempting to take the extra base 21% of the time versus the league average of 34%. In 2025 that makes 13 advance attempts in 62 opportunities, all of which he reached the extra base safely.
This season is the first in his career he is attempting to take the extra base less than league average. In ‘22 and ‘23 he attempted 7% more than average, and in 2024 he attempted 1% more than average even while missing a month with the hamstring injury.
The fact that he has reached the extra base safely on every advance attempt so far is not just a testament to his baserunning skills, but also evidence that he can push harder when he needs to.
So the baserunning isn’t a major issue especially when you consider the health of this teams 2nd best hitter. Lets check his performance in the field now:
There may be some cause for concern on the defensive side for the three time gold glover. Statcast has him rated at -3 Outs Above Average and 1 Fielding Runs Value. Prior to this season he was significantly better in both. It is worth noting that Kwan is pacing his best defensive years in Defensive Runs Saved. Another important note is that Statcast seems to have a few errors in Kwan’s OAA where fielding opportunities were given a clearly wrong catch probability. Given the disagreement of the two numbers I am not ready to hit the “panic” button on Kwan’s defense.
The good news is that Kwan remains elite with his arm in the outfield. He has had the most valuable arm so far this season according to Statcast.
After scouring through all this data I am cautiously optimistic about the long term outlook with Kwan’s baserunning and defense. As the season goes on I will be keeping track of DRS and OAA to see if one starts to regress towards the other or they meet in the middle. I hope and believe that his arm as well as his baserunning IQ will be able to make up for any lost speed and keep Kwan valuable in all facets of the game.