Baseball's All-Time Stolen Base Leaders

This article lists baseball's all time stolen base leaders by both total stolen bases and stolen base percentage
with a minimum of 500 stolen bases. In the era of modern baseball 17 players have stolen over 500 bases in their careers (19 other players have stolen 500 or more bases but they did so before records were kept on caught stealing). The two lists presented here will show which players were really baseball all time greatest stolen base leaders. The first list just shows how many actual stolen bases while the 2nd lists is by stolen base percentage. Baseball's real all time stolen base leaders should be ranked by the 2nd list as it shows which players were the most successful per attempt.

All Time Stolen Bases Modern Era (SB's/caught stealing)

1) Ricky Henderson - 1406/335

2) Lou Brock - 938/307

3) Tim Raines - 808/146

4) Vince Coleman - 752/177

5) Joe Morgan - 689/162

6) Willie Wilson - 668/134

7) Bert Campaneris - 649/199

8) Kenny Lofton - 622/160

9) Otis Nixon - 620/186

10) Maury Wills - 586/208

11) Ozzie Smith - 580/148

12) Brett Butler - 558/257

13) Davey Lopes - 557/114

14) Cesar Cedeno - 550/179

15) Barry Bonds - 514/141

16) Luis Aparicio - 506/136

17) Paul Molitor - 504/131

All Time Stolen Bases by Percentage Modern Era

1) Tim Raines - .847 Rock Raines should be in the HOF.

2) Willie Wilson - .833 Better than Bill James says he was.

3) Davey Lopes - .830 Underrated player who destroyed lefties as hitter.

4) Joe Morgan - .810 Tie

4) Vince Coleman - .810 Tie and no bleach.

6) Ricky Henderson - .808 Can't knock since he stole most bases by 468.

7) Ozzie Smith - .797

8) Paul Molitor - .794

9) Kenny Lofton - .793 Another under-appreciated player.

10) Luis Aparicio - .788

11) Barry Bonds - .785 Steroids clouds this number.

12) Norm Nixon - .769

13) Bert Campaneris - .765

14) Cesar Cedeno - .755 His kid was good base stealer too for little bit.

15) Lou Brock - .753 From 2 to 15 by percentage is a big drop.

16) Maury Wills - .738 1st player dropping below 75%.

17) Brett Butler - .685 Easily the worst of the 500 SB class.

It is generally accepted in baseball that a player must be successful 75% of the time when attempting to steal bases in order for the attempts to be worthwhile. Only 2 players fall beneath that number. The player dropping the most on the 2 lists is Lou Brock from #2 total steals to #15 by stolen base percentage. Maybe Brock should have taken bigger leads. The player moving up the most is Davey Lopes from #13 total steals to #3 by percentage.

In my opinion the #1 stolen base leader by percentage Time Raines belongs in the Baseball Hall of Fame.