Quote:
Originally Posted by Brad K
The players previously listed are attempting more steals per single in the game than they did historically. (Yes, singles are a rough estimate of steal opportunities but its the one used in OOTP for historical accuracy checks.)
1. In the game players are more likely to run against lower quality opposition (catchers with weaker arm rating, pitchers with lower hold rating).
2. If, in the game, if a player is asked to run more, he's used up the low quality opposition and so is exposed to higher quality opposition and his success rate drops.
3. In the game, AI managers are asking good stealers to attempt too many steals (all the players in the game played exclusively for AI controlled teams).
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Better formula for ratio would be: 1b+2b+walks(all kinds, incl. hit by pitch).
As for stealing in general, I've always paid attention and tested it. In 21 there's a change towards unicorns with 200+ speed. Here's the test I've ran:
Results help to understand some of misconception that make you guess between options.
Speed is primary attribute, Stealing is modifier.
Player with max Speed will attempt more than player with good Speed, even if Stealing is maxed for both. If you're accustomed to different "stats correlations" types, this is one of the examples:
a) vs poor Hold pitcher & poor Arm Catcher speedster will be effective even if he has stealing 10 of 250.
b) vs good ones, he will get caught max, but Speed will still give him good volume of SB
c) W/o speed, even 250 Stealing player won't get anything. High Floor on Speed attribute, but low Speed will automatically make him attempt less, so he will only go for it in some very good spots (like a)
d) Max Speed, max steal guy is now unstoppable: 60% attempt ratio & 90% success. So if you get elite OBP guy with max SPE&STE, he will get you insane amount of extra runs. So powerless CF prospects can be "steals" in late 1st round, but max speed is very very rare.
Now all that's left is your tactical instructions. As you can see from Stealing bases 1 (yellow background, row 11&12), you can shut down even most eager players. So using a, b, c, d you can exclude all the options you listed.
As was my experience, balancing of historical players was done through both SPE&STE. Now that SPE is much more prolific, historical players with skew towards STE are struggling. As you can see from row 19&20, you can get even very good guys (175 of 250) into
negative BsR by running recklessly. Meanwhile 250 of 250 guy running recklessly will get you 1/3 of elite bat production from both stealing & baserunning. 9 WAR with 0 2b, 0 3b, 0 HR. So the middle ground is lacking balance, that's why you see difference in outcomes.
I'm not stating there are no other factors affecting this. Maybe HOLD or Catcher Arm is OP. Maybe stealing max amount is too much and there's "diminishing returns" principle in engine. But I'm pretty sure if you transfer STE rating into SPE rating, things will improve at same AI settings. Right now there are pretty much 3 tactical settings for stealing(see last rows):
10 (max stealing bases) for elite guys to max their positive actions
5 (average stealing bases) for above average or close to elite guys to carefully pick their spots and prioritize success above volume
1 (min stealing bases) for everybody else. They will still get some, but they don't accumulate any volume, so minimizing outs is pretty much the best thing to do. If there's close game & you're down 1-2 runs, manager will probably still push them to steal if it's 3 instead of 1.
As you can see from BP column (lime background), sensible Baserunning/Stealing Bases values to match player abilities allows all kind of players to produce positive results from Baserunning. But stealing only starts being positive at 100 of 250 SPE & elite (150+) STE. And even then it's minuscule @ "best possible situations" frequency. So if STE is factor for coach to increase frequency and for "old" SB output formula, it can mess up 150 SPE, 200 STE results. Which most of them are?