Tubbs Baseball Blog: 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.

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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.

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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

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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.

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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