{"id":642269,"date":"2026-03-25T07:46:16","date_gmt":"2026-03-25T07:46:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/642269\/"},"modified":"2026-03-25T07:46:16","modified_gmt":"2026-03-25T07:46:16","slug":"josh-naylors-surprising-trend-leaves-seattle-mariners-with-big-2026-question","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/642269\/","title":{"rendered":"Josh Naylor\u2019s surprising trend leaves Seattle Mariners with big 2026 question"},"content":{"rendered":"

Josh Naylor’s most surprising behavior last season came out of nowhere. All of a sudden, the hefty first baseman was stealing bases left and right.<\/p>\n

Now, the question for the Seattle Mariners<\/a> entering 2026 is this: Will it continue?<\/p>\n

Naylor has signed a five-year contract to remain in Seattle for the long haul, so he can get comfortable and approach this however he’d like.<\/p>\n

It seems likely to continue, at least to some extent.<\/p>\n

The key here is that Naylor didn’t get faster. He had one of the slowest sprint speeds in the game last season.<\/p>\n

He just decided to use his clearly incredible baseball IQ to school pitchers time and time again.<\/p>\n

Naylor’s career-high in stolen bases before last season was 10, which he had in 2023 with the Cleveland Guardians<\/a>.<\/p>\n

MORE:\u00a0Cal Raleigh was supposed to play for the Braves<\/a><\/p>\n

In 2025, he stole 11 bases in the 93 games with the Arizona Diamondbacks<\/a> before being traded to Seattle, but then he found a whole additional level.<\/p>\n

In 54 games with the Mariners, Naylor stole 19 bases. And he wasn’t caught once.<\/p>\n

That gave him 30 steals for the season, and just two caught stealing, both with the Diamondbacks.<\/p>\n

After a certain number, it’s no longer a fluke. It’s something Naylor has discovered he can accomplish in the right circumstances.<\/p>\n

Maybe he’ll tone it down early in the year just to ensure he stays healthy for a long season ahead.<\/p>\n

But when it matters, Naylor has proven to himself he can read pitchers and take extra bases. Don’t expect it to slow down too much — besides, Naylor can’t get much slower. He’s simply smart enough to overcome it.<\/p>\n

More MLB news:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Josh Naylor’s most surprising behavior last season came out of nowhere. All of a sudden, the hefty first…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":582929,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2392],"tags":[5,620,4,619,65,3235],"class_list":{"0":"post-642269","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-seattle-mariners","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-mariners","10":"tag-mlb","11":"tag-seattle","12":"tag-seattle-mariners","13":"tag-seattlemariners"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116288709125791199","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/642269","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=642269"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/642269\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/582929"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=642269"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=642269"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=642269"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}