Problem Stealing Bases! Help!!!

FNC · 06-18-2007, 06:39 PM

I am playing in my first season and drafted good pitching and contact hitters w/ great speed. Most of my team has Stealing 19+ and speed 19+ yet they cannot steal! They are stealing at a 29% clip.

I have tried using run and hit exclusively and hit and run with little help.

The AI on the other hand LOVES to steal against me! 71% against my catcher with 15 Arm. They really seem to love stealing 3rd. I do not believe they have been caught stealing third.

What am I doing wrong? Should I restart my season and not even think about speed?

And does anybody try to steal 3rd base with any success??

endgame · 06-18-2007, 06:49 PM

This has a lot to do with a lot of contributing elements. Some questions to consider:

How many games have transpired? How far into the season are you to be arriving this judgment?

Is the team peforming poorly against all teams, some teams?

Pitchers they're facing heavily rated in Hold Runners? Catchers possessing extremely strong arms that discourage them or are they always nailed?

What's your Stealing Bases setting in the game setup? Frequent?

What's your catcher's arm rating?

There's more, but you get the idea. Large samples, lots of factors. Provide some more detail and we'll be able to offer more feedback.

FNC · 06-19-2007, 02:45 AM

I have managed all 45 of my games in my first season. I have not quick played any games.

I have only attempted to steal with my fast players 18+ in speed and steal. Some of the catchers have arms over 15 but some were under. I do not know my success rate against specific arm strengths of catchers.

Still my success rate should be higher with my quick players and I don't think 45 games is too small of a sample.

I will continue to try and steal and we'll see what happens.

I will pay attention to the Hold Runners for each pitcher which I have not done so far.

Thanks.

Bobble · 06-19-2007, 09:07 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by FNC

I will pay attention to the Hold Runners for each pitcher which I have not done so far.

I think this is the key. I read elsewhere on these boards stealing success is only about 1/3 influenced by catcher arm. I presume that means 1/3 baserunner stealing and 1/3 pitcher holding. You could be (as I was) leaving out a big piece of the puzzle.

Elendil · 06-19-2007, 11:12 AM

Pitcher "hold runner" affects only whether you achieve a good lead and (probably) whether you get picked off. So I recommend just taking stealing rating and catcher arm into account when trying to achieve a good lead. I recommend using the "steal" button instead of "run and hit" or "hit and run" (or "force steal"). You'll have fewer attempts, but when you do try to steal, your success rate will be higher, because your guy will have always achieved a good lead.

bruckm · 07-30-2007, 05:16 PM

Ok, I'm sorry, but base stealing during game play is a joke. It is purely random. has to be. cather 4-6 different scouts. league stealing on him 75% success rate guns down my 18 EVERY time but not my 13. If the game is pitching out it doesn't say so in the text. I have seen it say that; I've not yet had a runner thrown out when the computer pitches out. That fits as I rarely throw out a runner when I pitch out.

Success (during game play) isn't based upon pitcher hold ability, catcher arm, or runner's stealing rating. It's got to be random. Data sample my ***, it's random.

Doctor No · 07-30-2007, 05:20 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bruckm

Success (during game play) isn't based upon pitcher hold ability, catcher arm, or runner's stealing rating. It's got to be random. Data sample my ***, it's random.

I'm in my twelfth season right now, and base stealing sure as heck isn't random.

bruckm · 07-30-2007, 06:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Doctor No

I'm in my twelfth season right now, and base stealing sure as heck isn't random.

Sure it is.

Playing out each game or simming?

When the ai pitches out does it tell you? I've seen it say that a few times and each time my base runner was safe. Or is every non-struck pitch a pitchout (ball or strike) by the computer? My success rates with 13's and 14's are much better than my 18's and 19's. I notice no difference either whether stealing 2nd base (never forced) or run and hit. I don't mind taking pitches to get a favorable count and that doesn't seem to matter either.

I also frequently pitch out when the computer runs and I rarely gun them down, even on throws that don't sail into centerfield.

It's random.

bruckm · 07-30-2007, 06:57 PM

If using steal 2nd the % of success should IMPROVE when they get a jump. That doesn't happen. my 18+ is successful less than 67% of the time when using the regular steal 2nd.

Doctor No · 07-30-2007, 07:05 PM

The play-by-play may be random, but the results certainly aren't. Why is there a correlation between speed and stolen bases?

To answer your question, I've played each of my team's games and simmed any games not involving my team. Except for World Series games and things like that where I wanted to watch.

Jliven61 · 07-30-2007, 08:07 PM

I too am having issues with stealing. I am replaying the 1970 Cardinal season. Lou Brock through 100 games has stolen 23 bases in about 35 attempts. About 60% of the time I attempt to steal him he can't get a jump. That season in reality Brock stole 51 bases and was caught 15 times.

With someone like Brock, you should be able to utilize them as a weapon on the bases and I simply have not been able to do that. I think he is a 16 STE in the game. I can understand an average speed/base stealer not getting a jump two out of three times, but not someone like Brock.

J

nyysfan · 07-30-2007, 09:57 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by FNC

I am playing in my first season and drafted good pitching and contact hitters w/ great speed. Most of my team has Stealing 19+ and speed 19+ yet they cannot steal! They are stealing at a 29% clip.

I have tried using run and hit exclusively and hit and run with little help.

The AI on the other hand LOVES to steal against me! 71% against my catcher with 15 Arm. They really seem to love stealing 3rd. I do not believe they have been caught stealing third.

What am I doing wrong? Should I restart my season and not even think about speed?

And does anybody try to steal 3rd base with any success??

I play out my games and only try to steal when my runner's STE rating is at least 3 points higher than the catcher's ARM rating (on a 20 point scale). I also only try to steal when the batter is even or ahead in the count, never behind. I never consider pitcher's HOLD rating. I believe by observation that higher HOLD ratings simply allow shorter leads and prevent my runner from taking off - thus fewer attempts. With these restrictions I don't have lots of steals, but I steal at quite a high percentage. I also don't try to steal 3rd unless my runner's STE rating is at least 6 points higher than the catcher's ARM rating (on a 20 point scale).

Neags23 · 07-30-2007, 10:11 PM

Nothing in the game is purely random. That's just silly. There is probably a random element built in to the equation, but I'd be willing to bet it's heavily weighted on ratings.

Just try a sample league. Take a fella that's a 1 or 2 in STE rating and attempt a steal 20 times. Then take another fella that's a 19 or 20, and try the same. I'm guessing the first player will have about a 15-20% success rate while the 2nd one will have about a 60-85% success rate.

And of course that is also dependent on things like pitcher's Hold rating, catcher Arm rating, pitch count, game situation, etc.

I can promise it's not purely random.

I had a problem with SB early on using the Steal 2B button, but switched to using the Force Runner button either on the first pitch or good pitch counts. My SB % probably doubled.

bruckm · 07-31-2007, 07:15 PM

Defensive ratings were random until this version and may still be random. I haven't really crunched the numbers yet.

Look, I may just not understand the terminology used by the programmers. I know what the terms should and do mean to me.

Steal 2nd should get better results than the forced. The runner may not get a good lead/jump at any point during that at bat, but if he does then the success % should be higher than would be normally expected against that catcher arm. The runner may not ever take off during that at bat which would cost the batter some seriously good pitches. That would waste a bunch of pitches and should hurt the ba of the hitter having to take all of those strikes. So, there would be a price to pay. Right now, I've got Pete Rose in '78 rated as a 13 and I can't get him thrown out at 2nd base. The AI clearly does not anticipate him running whereas it ALWAYS seems to expect Morgan and Griffey, 17 & 18 respectively, to run. I pretty much take the first 2 pitches with M & G, which are almost always balls, though they are rarely listed as pitchouts. This is uniformly against catcher's arms rated 10 or less. When a pitcher is >15 hold and/ or a catcher is >13 arm I just don't run, so it's not like I'm being reckless. My best base stealers (17+) are less than 67% successful.

Forced is when the sign is given to steal and the runner must go, good lead/favorable situation or not. The success % should be lower than the 'normal' rate. The interesting variable would be a 10-12 stealer against a poor catcher and a pitcher with poor hold.

Pitcher hold should be much more directly related to 1st: on which pitch the runner is able to get his jump and 2nd: whether the catcher even has a shot at the runner. A hold of less than 5 would in reality mean that the better stealers should be able to get a jump and be successful most every time. I pitched in college and I promise that I had more to do with the steals than my catcher's arm. He never had a chance...ever. Luckily the other teams saw no real need to steal against me as hits seemed to be fairly easy to come by for them. He took stolen bases seriously. I never really cared. I was just trying to keep the ball in the park.

I'm only on day 15 or so of playing the demo and I haven't seen any real difference in results between any of the choices on base running other than double steal (2nd and 3rd) against a lefthander with runners >12 has yet to fail for me.

bruckm · 07-31-2007, 07:41 PM

ok....this is what ticks me off. a 10 rated arm catcher who is only throwing out the league at a 27% rate is 50% against me in 8 games. That's using steal 2nd only with a 14, 18, & 18 base stealers. The 14 and 1 of the 18's are at 80% against this guy and the other 18 is...cow flop. Each time the pitcher's hold rating are all <10 in this SMALL data sample.

Random...during game play (simming probably more accurately reflects ratings)

RonCo · 07-31-2007, 09:15 PM

Data from a test league:

For all runners who attempted at least one steal, strength of correlation between:

Speed and Successful SB% = .05
Steal and Successful SB% = .42

Speed and SB/(1b+BB) = .63
Steal and SB/(1b+BB) = .59

So I say this data indicates Speed and Steal ratings both influence how often a runner runs, but only the Steal rating has any real influence on how successful a runner is when they take off. This is old-time OOTP dogma.

If I look only at those runners with more than 10 SBA, I get:

Speed and Successful SB% = -.17
Steal and Successful SB% = .66

Speed and SB/(1b+BB) = .58
Steal and SB/(1b+BB) = .53

Which says that among true base stealers, as speed increases, their rate of success decreases--it makes sense to a degree that a guy who runs more often is more likely to get tossed out. But note that the Steal rating still holds a very strong positive correlation to % steal success, again showing the the Steal rating drives success. The .58/.53 correlation to SBA/(1B+BB) shows that steal and speed ratings still drive overall attempts, though.

One more piece of information that is relevant.

For all players in this league who attempted a steal, the strength of correlation between the Steal rating and Speed rating was .26, a positive number that means that as Speed rises, so does Steal. But when we look at strength of that correlation for guys who had at least 10 opportunities, that correlation went to -.1, which I interpret to say that in the upper regions of the Speed spectrum, Steal capability tends to fall.

When I regress %SB success to Speed and Steal ratings for those with at least 10 attempts, I get:

% Success = .454 + (steal)*(.001926) - (speed)*(.00044)

Again, showing those who run a lot tend to get caught a bit more when they are faster--probably because they tend to have less Steal. I note the p-value for Speed is .036, which makes it barely significant.

Doing the same regression for all players who attempted a steal gives:

% Success = .413 + (steal)*(.002166) - (speed)*(.00033)

But in this case, the Speed p-value is .171 meaning it is not a statistically significant value.

Bottom line: Speed rating does not influence success in stealing except in that it can cause less capable stealers to run more often and more capable stealers to run less often.

bruckm · 07-31-2007, 09:54 PM

So the better base stealers IRL will not be so successful in this game.
I'm not talking about speed rating. I'm talking about steal rating. I'm playing out each game myself so there is no worry about the computer sending the runners based upon their speed rating.

So, I was wrong. It's not random, just bad.

An 80% base stealer should be successful about 80% of the time in this game and I bet they are when simming a season. Now, If I run without regard to whom the catcher is then it should be less than 80%. If I'm selective and run only when I get a good jump then it should be better than 80%. Am I missing something here?

tcblcommish · 08-01-2007, 12:33 AM

I have had a guy who stole 100 bases in 2 seasons and 96 in another. In his 5 seasons he has 487 steals.

His stealing percentage is around 79% or something like it.

DougWyatt · 08-01-2007, 01:10 AM

I don't have any data to contribute - just my gut. But it is my belief (again, no foundation) that playing out games is different. The base stealing results "feel" good to me in leagues I've simmed; but don't "feel" good to me in leagues I've played out.

There is one team in my HS league that continues to pile up runners. And they run ALL over me. To the point where I drafted and played battery units JUST TO PLAY THEM - and no change. And I mean awesome anti-steal battery units (10 arm, 10 holds - on a 10 scale). I use pitch-outs, and hold runner constantly; and they aren't even slowed. Of note - I have never nabbed a baserunner on a pitchout - or pickoff attempt. Even with 100+ games worth of playing. Although, I have been nabbed in that way.

My guys have no such luck. Even against average catchers and 10/10 runners - it's so iffy that I rarely try anymore.

In my experience - double steals & 3rd base steals are nearly impossible to stop.

RonCo · 08-01-2007, 07:52 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bruckm

So the better base stealers IRL will not be so successful in this game.
I'm not talking about speed rating. I'm talking about steal rating. I'm playing out each game myself so there is no worry about the computer sending the runners based upon their speed rating.

Well, you can ignore the SBA/(1B+BB) numbers then, but the % successful charts should still apply to at least some degree. At the end of the day, a runner's success will be based on their steal rating, the catcher's arm, and probably a healthy penalty for attempting to run more than expected...not to mention the factor that randomness plays. With 50-100 SBA in a season, a particularly bad or good performance has a fair likelihood of happening by random chance.

Quote:

So, I was wrong. It's not random, just bad.

I'm not a real fan of the running algorithm. It tends to model the real life world to a greater degree, but it still isn't great. But I've also spent a lot of time thinking about how I would code such an algorithm, and it's tricky. Still, I have thoughts on how it could be made better. Unfortunately, like many of my other thoughts, they could require a moderately large tear-up of current code.

Quote:

An 80% base stealer should be successful about 80% of the time in this game and I bet they are when simming a season. Now, If I run without regard to whom the catcher is then it should be less than 80%. If I'm selective and run only when I get a good jump then it should be better than 80%. Am I missing something here?

I'm not sure what you mean by "only when I get a good jump." Runners in OOTP either get a jump or don't. There really is no jump quality modeled to the best of my knowledge. It's OOTP lingo for "he actually attempted a steal." Maybe I'm wrong.

That said, I think you're correct in that the very best base stealers in OOTP will not tend to be quite as good as the very best base stealers in real life. I'll post a couple charts in a few moments. I don't, however, think there's much difference in playing by hand and simming, but I suppose if you're running in all situations, then I would expect your success to drop.

06-18-2007, 06:39 PM	#1
FNC Minors (Single A) Join Date: Jun 2006 Posts: 66 Infractions: 0/1 (1)	Problem Stealing Bases! Help!!! I am playing in my first season and drafted good pitching and contact hitters w/ great speed. Most of my team has Stealing 19+ and speed 19+ yet they cannot steal! They are stealing at a 29% clip. I have tried using run and hit exclusively and hit and run with little help. The AI on the other hand LOVES to steal against me! 71% against my catcher with 15 Arm. They really seem to love stealing 3rd. I do not believe they have been caught stealing third. What am I doing wrong? Should I restart my season and not even think about speed? And does anybody try to steal 3rd base with any success??

06-18-2007, 06:49 PM	#2
endgame Hall Of Famer Join Date: Aug 2002 Posts: 16,842	This has a lot to do with a lot of contributing elements. Some questions to consider: How many games have transpired? How far into the season are you to be arriving this judgment? Is the team peforming poorly against all teams, some teams? Pitchers they're facing heavily rated in Hold Runners? Catchers possessing extremely strong arms that discourage them or are they always nailed? What's your Stealing Bases setting in the game setup? Frequent? What's your catcher's arm rating? There's more, but you get the idea. Large samples, lots of factors. Provide some more detail and we'll be able to offer more feedback. __________________ "Try again. Fail again. Fail better." -- Samuel Beckett _____________________________________________

06-19-2007, 11:12 AM	#5
Elendil Hall Of Famer Join Date: Dec 2003 Location: the dynasty forum Posts: 2,318	Pitcher "hold runner" affects only whether you achieve a good lead and (probably) whether you get picked off. So I recommend just taking stealing rating and catcher arm into account when trying to achieve a good lead. I recommend using the "steal" button instead of "run and hit" or "hit and run" (or "force steal"). You'll have fewer attempts, but when you do try to steal, your success rate will be higher, because your guy will have always achieved a good lead. __________________ Heaven is kicking back with a double Talisker and a churchwarden stuffed with latakia.

07-30-2007, 10:11 PM	#13
Neags23 All Star Starter Join Date: Apr 2006 Posts: 1,577	Nothing in the game is purely random. That's just silly. There is probably a random element built in to the equation, but I'd be willing to bet it's heavily weighted on ratings. Just try a sample league. Take a fella that's a 1 or 2 in STE rating and attempt a steal 20 times. Then take another fella that's a 19 or 20, and try the same. I'm guessing the first player will have about a 15-20% success rate while the 2nd one will have about a 60-85% success rate. And of course that is also dependent on things like pitcher's Hold rating, catcher Arm rating, pitch count, game situation, etc. I can promise it's not purely random. I had a problem with SB early on using the Steal 2B button, but switched to using the Force Runner button either on the first pitch or good pitch counts. My SB % probably doubled. __________________ GM Havana Sugar Kings, World Baseball League - 2000, 2003, 2005 WBL Champions Former GM Washburn Sea Wolves Dog Days Baseball - 1981 & 1986 Kennel Cup Champions

07-31-2007, 07:15 PM	#14
bruckm Minors (Single A) Join Date: Jul 2006 Posts: 81	Defensive ratings were random until this version and may still be random. I haven't really crunched the numbers yet. Look, I may just not understand the terminology used by the programmers. I know what the terms should and do mean to me. Steal 2nd should get better results than the forced. The runner may not get a good lead/jump at any point during that at bat, but if he does then the success % should be higher than would be normally expected against that catcher arm. The runner may not ever take off during that at bat which would cost the batter some seriously good pitches. That would waste a bunch of pitches and should hurt the ba of the hitter having to take all of those strikes. So, there would be a price to pay. Right now, I've got Pete Rose in '78 rated as a 13 and I can't get him thrown out at 2nd base. The AI clearly does not anticipate him running whereas it ALWAYS seems to expect Morgan and Griffey, 17 & 18 respectively, to run. I pretty much take the first 2 pitches with M & G, which are almost always balls, though they are rarely listed as pitchouts. This is uniformly against catcher's arms rated 10 or less. When a pitcher is >15 hold and/ or a catcher is >13 arm I just don't run, so it's not like I'm being reckless. My best base stealers (17+) are less than 67% successful. Forced is when the sign is given to steal and the runner must go, good lead/favorable situation or not. The success % should be lower than the 'normal' rate. The interesting variable would be a 10-12 stealer against a poor catcher and a pitcher with poor hold. Pitcher hold should be much more directly related to 1st: on which pitch the runner is able to get his jump and 2nd: whether the catcher even has a shot at the runner. A hold of less than 5 would in reality mean that the better stealers should be able to get a jump and be successful most every time. I pitched in college and I promise that I had more to do with the steals than my catcher's arm. He never had a chance...ever. Luckily the other teams saw no real need to steal against me as hits seemed to be fairly easy to come by for them. He took stolen bases seriously. I never really cared. I was just trying to keep the ball in the park. I'm only on day 15 or so of playing the demo and I haven't seen any real difference in results between any of the choices on base running other than double steal (2nd and 3rd) against a lefthander with runners >12 has yet to fail for me. Last edited by bruckm; 07-31-2007 at 07:18 PM.

06-19-2007, 02:45 AM	#3
FNC Minors (Single A) Join Date: Jun 2006 Posts: 66 Infractions: 0/1 (1)	I have managed all 45 of my games in my first season. I have not quick played any games. I have only attempted to steal with my fast players 18+ in speed and steal. Some of the catchers have arms over 15 but some were under. I do not know my success rate against specific arm strengths of catchers. Still my success rate should be higher with my quick players and I don't think 45 games is too small of a sample. I will continue to try and steal and we'll see what happens. I will pay attention to the Hold Runners for each pitcher which I have not done so far. Thanks.

07-30-2007, 05:16 PM	#6
bruckm Minors (Single A) Join Date: Jul 2006 Posts: 81	Ok, I'm sorry, but base stealing during game play is a joke. It is purely random. has to be. cather 4-6 different scouts. league stealing on him 75% success rate guns down my 18 EVERY time but not my 13. If the game is pitching out it doesn't say so in the text. I have seen it say that; I've not yet had a runner thrown out when the computer pitches out. That fits as I rarely throw out a runner when I pitch out. Success (during game play) isn't based upon pitcher hold ability, catcher arm, or runner's stealing rating. It's got to be random. Data sample my ***, it's random.

07-30-2007, 06:57 PM	#9
bruckm Minors (Single A) Join Date: Jul 2006 Posts: 81	If using steal 2nd the % of success should IMPROVE when they get a jump. That doesn't happen. my 18+ is successful less than 67% of the time when using the regular steal 2nd.

07-30-2007, 07:05 PM	#10
Doctor No Minors (Single A) Join Date: Jul 2007 Location: Denver, Colorado Posts: 99	The play-by-play may be random, but the results certainly aren't. Why is there a correlation between speed and stolen bases? To answer your question, I've played each of my team's games and simmed any games not involving my team. Except for World Series games and things like that where I wanted to watch.

07-30-2007, 08:07 PM	#11
Jliven61 Minors (Single A) Join Date: Mar 2007 Posts: 52	I too am having issues with stealing. I am replaying the 1970 Cardinal season. Lou Brock through 100 games has stolen 23 bases in about 35 attempts. About 60% of the time I attempt to steal him he can't get a jump. That season in reality Brock stole 51 bases and was caught 15 times. With someone like Brock, you should be able to utilize them as a weapon on the bases and I simply have not been able to do that. I think he is a 16 STE in the game. I can understand an average speed/base stealer not getting a jump two out of three times, but not someone like Brock. J

07-31-2007, 07:41 PM	#15
bruckm Minors (Single A) Join Date: Jul 2006 Posts: 81	ok....this is what ticks me off. a 10 rated arm catcher who is only throwing out the league at a 27% rate is 50% against me in 8 games. That's using steal 2nd only with a 14, 18, & 18 base stealers. The 14 and 1 of the 18's are at 80% against this guy and the other 18 is...cow flop. Each time the pitcher's hold rating are all <10 in this SMALL data sample. Random...during game play (simming probably more accurately reflects ratings)

07-31-2007, 09:15 PM	#16
RonCo Hall Of Famer Join Date: Aug 2003 Posts: 10,378	Data from a test league: For all runners who attempted at least one steal, strength of correlation between: Speed and Successful SB% = .05 Steal and Successful SB% = .42 Speed and SB/(1b+BB) = .63 Steal and SB/(1b+BB) = .59 So I say this data indicates Speed and Steal ratings both influence how often a runner runs, but only the Steal rating has any real influence on how successful a runner is when they take off. This is old-time OOTP dogma. If I look only at those runners with more than 10 SBA, I get: Speed and Successful SB% = -.17 Steal and Successful SB% = .66 Speed and SB/(1b+BB) = .58 Steal and SB/(1b+BB) = .53 Which says that among true base stealers, as speed increases, their rate of success decreases--it makes sense to a degree that a guy who runs more often is more likely to get tossed out. But note that the Steal rating still holds a very strong positive correlation to % steal success, again showing the the Steal rating drives success. The .58/.53 correlation to SBA/(1B+BB) shows that steal and speed ratings still drive overall attempts, though. One more piece of information that is relevant. For all players in this league who attempted a steal, the strength of correlation between the Steal rating and Speed rating was .26, a positive number that means that as Speed rises, so does Steal. But when we look at strength of that correlation for guys who had at least 10 opportunities, that correlation went to -.1, which I interpret to say that in the upper regions of the Speed spectrum, Steal capability tends to fall. When I regress %SB success to Speed and Steal ratings for those with at least 10 attempts, I get: % Success = .454 + (steal)(.001926) - (speed)(.00044) Again, showing those who run a lot tend to get caught a bit more when they are faster--probably because they tend to have less Steal. I note the p-value for Speed is .036, which makes it barely significant. Doing the same regression for all players who attempted a steal gives: % Success = .413 + (steal)(.002166) - (speed)(.00033) But in this case, the Speed p-value is .171 meaning it is not a statistically significant value. Bottom line: Speed rating does not influence success in stealing except in that it can cause less capable stealers to run more often and more capable stealers to run less often. Last edited by RonCo; 07-31-2007 at 09:21 PM.

07-31-2007, 09:54 PM	#17
bruckm Minors (Single A) Join Date: Jul 2006 Posts: 81	So the better base stealers IRL will not be so successful in this game. I'm not talking about speed rating. I'm talking about steal rating. I'm playing out each game myself so there is no worry about the computer sending the runners based upon their speed rating. So, I was wrong. It's not random, just bad. An 80% base stealer should be successful about 80% of the time in this game and I bet they are when simming a season. Now, If I run without regard to whom the catcher is then it should be less than 80%. If I'm selective and run only when I get a good jump then it should be better than 80%. Am I missing something here?

08-01-2007, 12:33 AM	#18
tcblcommish Hall Of Famer Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: Canada Posts: 3,439	I have had a guy who stole 100 bases in 2 seasons and 96 in another. In his 5 seasons he has 487 steals. His stealing percentage is around 79% or something like it.

08-01-2007, 01:10 AM	#19
DougWyatt All Star Starter Join Date: Dec 2003 Location: Michigan Posts: 1,117	I don't have any data to contribute - just my gut. But it is my belief (again, no foundation) that playing out games is different. The base stealing results "feel" good to me in leagues I've simmed; but don't "feel" good to me in leagues I've played out. There is one team in my HS league that continues to pile up runners. And they run ALL over me. To the point where I drafted and played battery units JUST TO PLAY THEM - and no change. And I mean awesome anti-steal battery units (10 arm, 10 holds - on a 10 scale). I use pitch-outs, and hold runner constantly; and they aren't even slowed. Of note - I have never nabbed a baserunner on a pitchout - or pickoff attempt. Even with 100+ games worth of playing. Although, I have been nabbed in that way. My guys have no such luck. Even against average catchers and 10/10 runners - it's so iffy that I rarely try anymore. In my experience - double steals & 3rd base steals are nearly impossible to stop.