What rating affects steals?

[jbmagic]

What rating affects steals?


steal ability rating only?

or does running speed and running instincts rating have an affect to?

[Knox]

I think steal ability rating only.

Instinct is for taking the extra base or tagging up on the sac fly.

running speed is for extra base hits

[JDOldSchool]

I'm pretty sure that speed affects whether a player will attempt the steal.

[canadiancreed]

I always though it went as such:

steal ability = % of successful chances of able to steal a base
running speed = quickness to reach base and beat out the throw as Knox stated
running instincts = able to know when to take that steal, or go for that extra base. high ratings = Rickey Henderson; low ratings = someoen that you cringe to see try to steal a base

[mrbill]

You can pretty much see it, high running speed will attempt a lot of SBs, high stealing ability means they are successful a higher %.

I don't even consider running instincts in stealing bases.

I found one guy (and only one) on the top 10 basestealers in an online league that had under 50 stealing ability.

He attempted as many steals as anyone else (83 speed), but only succeeded 60% of the time, despite 91 running instincts.

[JDOldSchool]

Originally Posted by canadiancreed

steal ability = % of successful chances of able to steal a base
running speed = quickness to reach base and beat out the throw as Knox stated

Aren't those two the same thing?

[canadiancreed]

Originally Posted by JDOldSchool

Aren't those two the same thing?

I dont think so. You can be the fastest runner in the world, but if you don't know how to say, read the pitcher, or know the best times to go, you're not going to be as successful.

Hence why a higher steal ability will mean a higher steal %, which speed will help to leg out throws and be a factor in both quantityof SB's and extra base hits. I look at runnng speed as a "helper" rating for instinct and steal ability. It increases the amount of chances that the other two ratings would come into play

[Sweed]

Don't have time to do a search right now but as I recall it's like this..

speed = ability to get a jump
steal = chance of being succesful

This allows modeling of different types of basestealers and stops guys from abusing the high success\ low steal total type runner. A guy that comes to mind is Mark Grace. One year he was something like 14-3 in stolenbases. In this case he would have a low speed rating and a high steal rating. Without the speed modifier he could easily steal 80 bases or more. This speed modifier is also the cause of the "can't get a jump" message.

It also allows for the guy that is lightning fast but couldn't steal a base to save his life. This guy will have the high speed\ low steal ratings. Sorry, but can't think of a real example at the moment but I'm sure there are plenty.

[ctorg]

Whenever I'm letting the computer manage my team during games, I make a point of going and finding all the high speed/low stealing rating guys on my team and setting their stealing tendency all the way down. The AI gets into trouble with those guys.

[Hotwheelz]

Ive been able to get a pretty good steal rate with great speed and mediocre steal ability. That might just be for non-CPU players though. But its been pretty common for me.

[RonCo]

What do you consider pretty good?

I have no doubts in my mind that "speed" regulates how often a player will attempt to steal (or can get a jump), and "stealing" defines how often the player will be successful. I've pulled stats and studied it three or four times using both v5 and V6. In fact, success rate is pretty much linear with respect to steals. The only difference between the data I've seen is that success rate seems to have been tweaked down a little in V6.

If someone else has data that proves otherwise, though, I'm all ears ... er ... eyes.

While the current process is kind of workable workable, I consider the entier SB algorithm to be broken in that it flies in the face of what I think of as prudent logic. Maybe that's just me, though. But, seriously, a player doesn't have an ability called "steal bases." What he has is an ability to read pitchers, and a particular footspeed, an ability to slide, and (perhaps) the experience and baseball know-how to realize when an off-speed pitch is most likely. Put these together, then match them with the pitcher's pick-off move and mechanics, and the catcher's footwork and throwing arm, and you've got the parameters you need to simulate a stolen base attempt.

[mrbill]

Originally Posted by RonCo

While the current process is kind of workable workable, I consider the entier SB algorithm to be broken in that it flies in the face of what I think of as prudent logic. Maybe that's just me, though. But, seriously, a player doesn't have an ability called "steal bases." What he has is an ability to read pitchers, and a particular footspeed, an ability to slide, and (perhaps) the experience and baseball know-how to realize when an off-speed pitch is most likely. Put these together, then match them with the pitcher's pick-off move and mechanics, and the catcher's footwork and throwing arm, and you've got the parameters you need to simulate a stolen base attempt.

I think you have all these elements in the game, the fact that they're not all spelled out just keeps your screen from being cluttered with (useless) information:

Stealing ability IS the ability to read pitchers and slide and guess at off-speed pitches all in one rating.

Speed, well, is speed.

Pitchers have a Holding Runner rating, which is his pick off move and mechanics abstracted into a rating.

Catcher's have their throwing arm, which doesn't include footwork, but it might as well be abstracted into the rating as it is now.

You may imagine that a pitcher hiding his pitch type and hitter being able to call and off-speed pitch could be a useful level of detail within these ratings, but, there are far more important ratings to make true before breaking down stealing ability into sub categories (groundball/flyball or avoiding Ks).

[RonCo]

Well, Mr. Bill, I can imagine a lot of things. But what I actually see in the data is that:

Speed != "speed"
instead, Speed = "ability to get a jump" (or take off)

Stealing != "ability to read a pitcher" (i.e. get a jump/take off)
instead, Stealing = "chance I'll be successful"

Catcher's Arm does actually have a nice linear relationship to RTO%, except with the best arms, which threw out less % of runners, but resulted in far fewer runners attempting to steal. I assume this is because only the better runners attempted to steal.

Pitcher's hold ratings have only a _very_ tiny indication that they can prevent a runner from getting a jump, nor do they appear to have much of an impact on a RTO%. i can only assume that they do make a difference in pick-offs. I don't actually have that data.

Abraham Lincoln once said something like "If you call a tail a leg, a dog still has only 4 legs ... because calling a tail a leg doesn't make it a leg."

I would prefer the game be set up to simulate something that's real, rather than depend on me to "imagine" reality in a blurry algorithm that isn't actually set up right.

I should also say that I agree with your call for GB/FB/Avoid Ks/Line Drives/etc. clarity. I just don't see this as an either/or situation. It's not "fix GB/FB _or_ SB" It's "fix them both."

[Jayzone]

Both speed and steal rating affect the chance of success *making* a steal attempt (regardless sucessful SB or CS). Basically, both of them affect "stolen base attempt rate" with speed being a bigger factor than steal rating.

Only steal rating affect the chance of successful stolen base (SB%).

[RonCo]

Originally Posted by Jayzone

Both speed and steal rating affect the chance of success *making* a steal attempt (regardless sucessful SB or CS). Basically, both of them affect "stolen base attempt rate" with speed being a bigger factor than steal rating.

Only steal rating affect the chance of successful stolen base (SB%).

Yes, that's true. I'm over-characterizing when I say the steal rating has no impact on a player's taking off. But the speed rating does have a much stronger influence, so I'm taking only a little license there.