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It's also important to remember that "slow" is a relative term for this group of professional athletes.
One of the funniest things i have witnessed is some west coast reporter that constantly ragged on Adrian Gonzales (1b of dodgers et al.) about how slow he was. After more than a few articles that mentioned it, someone proposed a race, and they did it.
The 'clod' gonzalez left the guy int he dust, lol.
whether it was a reporter, talk show radio host or just some moron off the street, you get the point.
Slow for these guys isn't necessarily slow, unless you are talking about a cecil fielder type. There aren't that many that fit this bill, even amongst the 'slow' ones.
The elite speed guys are different, but a large portion are all relatively quick and only a few steps separate most players.
We could do the math over 90' using fast and slow 40-times and it's going to be a matter of fractions of a second and a few feet. you'd have to scale down 40-times, because running around bases is not optimum. you don't get foot blocks to kick off of, and you have to complete a swing and reposition body coming out of the box to start off. Corners slow you down too.
it may look like the math is ~9' difference between a 4.5s and 5.0s 40-time, but it's going to be smaller than that. More importantly, even shorter than .375s difference too. the time makes it more obvious, imo.
taling a 1/4 of a second for an average to elite speed over 90 feet. I bet a 5.0 in the 40 is below average for mlb -- anyone that isn't ~40 and position allows doesn't allow them to be a sloth and still competent.
As far as what things do, that's been cleared up, obviously. As far as effect on stealing simply go test it, if unsure. take any clod with 80/100 and higher stealing ability and crank up his individual stealing tendancy. your manager's slider may influence the individual startegy, unless you tell him to ignore team strategy, etc.
if they are 90+, i move that slider up all the way or 1 down from max. That's with a middle-of-the-road manager strategy to start as a base.
at 80ish, i start at -2 or -1 from max, but i will put the toe into the pool and see what happens if i max it out. If they maintain their high-% success rate, i allow results to determine that last bit.
This stuff isn't 100% clockwork, but you can narrow it down significantly with a little attention and retention. You should know just by the ratings where to start, then adjust a notch or two from there based on results.
I think there's some sort of experience factor for stealing too. Some guys with high speed and ability ratings simply take 2-3 years of poor results before they start stealing at a 75-80+% clip in my leagues. That's in addition to other possible factors that potentially cause variation between 1 player and the average/what you typicalyl see from similarly rated players -- beyond random luck with same %-rate in reality.
about clemente only stealing when it matteres -- smart guy. It may reduce %sucess a little bit compared to stealing all the time, but also increase %-success in the smaller subset of meaningful moments-- more likely to catch someone sleeping, if the perception is you don't steal much. whereas if you steal all the time, you get no benefit of occasional laziness from the defense or less often at least.
if it doesn't help, it's just an e-peen. selfish, self-centered behaviour that is quantifiably detrimental to the team's success.
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