Why do my guys always seem to get thrown out trying to steal?

[curt]

Originally Posted by Qeltar

I don't do it very often, but even guys with 70 speed and 65 stealing (for example) are constantly caught by guys who make perfect throws where afterwards it says "has now cut down 12 of 48 runners" or similar. So it's not like I'm running against guys with amazing records against SB attempts. I must be doing something wrong...

Thanks.

PS Meanwhile the AI steals on me with very high success despite a very good defensive catcher...

Probably because your guys are not as fast as my guys!!! I'm pretty successful, I run and hit a lot when I think a strike is coming.

[NoOne]

Originally Posted by Qeltar

Okay but I am still confused about why every AI catcher I have encountered has a way-way-below-.500 CS rate.

check league-wide results at end of year... could be your settings.

Rhetorical quesitons:
what's league SB%? (think it shows CS%, same thing)
how many SB attempts total for entire year?

compare to RL bb-ref... incerase /decreae the related Leauge Total Modifiers under League settings-Stats and AI setings - right side. or just adjust based on what you want to see... no wrong answer here.

also, there might be a drop-down on left side about stealing frequency? i wouldn't change this unless the league totals and league % are WAY off. stick to adjusting the modifiers. it'll be more intuitive. if you do change a left-side drop-down box for a stat, you probably want to auto-calculate modifiers before start of next season. those drops downs constitute a major change in a stat and range of results to expect.

i used to be overconcerned about teh league totals.. last few years i care more about individual players results -- ceiling of expectations of ratings etc per player rather than the league-wide totals.

i adjust these to get a ~71-72% success rate league wide, but i adjust # of SB attempts so that the "top" guys can reach 100-130+SB/year.

basically only max+/max+ speed/stealing ability break teh 100-sb barrier in my leagues and that is by design through my personal choices of teh Modifiers..

one thing to note -- SB% can sway +/- ~3% in any given year... SB attempts can sway +/- ~20% or so each year. hard to work with 1 year's resutls and make good adjustments. observe a few years at a time and make small adjustments until you get what you want.

i promise the AI has the same probabilities and facotrs that influence probabilities as you do when you try to steal.

[ConStar]

Originally Posted by Timofmars

As I understand it, speed doesn't increase your stealing chance. It only makes you more likely to be able to get an attempted steal to actually go (get a good jump). That is also affected by the pitcher's hold rating.

The chance of stealing success is based on the steal rating alone, plus of course the defense, which includes the pitch thrown (pitch out obviously, but maybe also speed of a pitch) catcher's arm, and the pitcher's hold rating.

I don't really like guys below 80 stealing rating to attempt steals unless maybe they are really poor in speed but still at least 70 in stealing. The idea here is that a fast guy will be able to run the bases well and get to 3rd on lots of singles anyway, so don't risk it, but the slow guy is a DP risk and takes a lot of hitting effort to move him around the bases to score, so a successful steal is worth a lot more for the slow guy.

Though if you play the game out, you can look at the catcher and pitcher to check for poor ratings and maybe steal more often than you normally would. Or if your team is a bit weak in hitting, it might be worth stealing a bit more since you can't depend as much on hitting. But my teams are heavily offensive, even if it costs defense and speed, so I really have a high bar for % stealing success to be worth it.

I wanted to respond to the above because I don't think that's accurate. I've got a guy who (on a 1-20 scale) ranks 13 (green) on speed and 7 (orange) on stealing. When he was in the minors and the AI was controlling him, he would have fairly high steal percentages but took very few attempts (think 7 SBs in 9 attempts). This was occurring at the AA/AAA level against decent catchers and pitchers. I rarely run him now that he's in the majors and I'm controlling him, but even now he's successful half the time.

However, when he dribbles a ball to an infielder out of the box, he gets thrown out most of the time and the play-by-play adds something like "his lack of speed gave the infielder time to throw him out," etc. So where does that green 13 in speed apply, if not to stealing? His baserunning stat (which is also decent, 12 or so) would seem to take over going first to third, second to home, knowing when to attempt to stretch a single into a double, etc. The stealing stat is all about defeating the pitcher and getting a jump, IMO, and the speed stat is, given a decent jump, his ability to defeat the catcher's throw.

Now, OP: Here's what I've found over a few seasons (I don't track my data, but this is accurate *FOR ME*):

* You must be playing pitch-by-pitch (never one-pitch, and selecting "steal base")
* You must never run at 0-0.
* You can run on a 1-0 count, but if the count is 0-1 or 1-1, a pitchout is probably coming.
* A 2-1 count seems to yield the highest probability of a successful steal. A 3-1 count is about equal to that.
* Pitchouts seem to appear a lot on the following counts: 0-0, 0-1, 1-1, 1-2. They almost never seem to appear on 2-2.
* Using Run and Hit on a 2-2 count produces good results but seems to trail on earlier counts.
* Summary: I will straight steal on 1-0, 2-1 and 3-1. I will run-and-hit on 2-2 and sometimes 3-1 or 3-2. I never steal on 0-0, 0-1, 1-1, 0-2 or 1-2.

I was having a lot of trouble stealing bases until I started sort of cheesing the counts like that.

[Orcin]

I agree with all of your pitch-by-pitch analysis, but I steal successfully all the time playing in the one-pitch mode.

[Qeltar]

Thanks, I'll try to go deeper into counts.

Your count analysis matches what I do playing base stealers in The Show, mostly, except in that game my favorite counts include 0-2 and 1-2. (These counts are more likely to get offspeed pitches, possibly in the dirt.)

I normally play in one-pitch mode and I did dabble with taking pitches but most of the time this just make the hitter fall behind...

I already knew never to bother on 0-0...

[Timofmars]

Originally Posted by ConStar

I wanted to respond to the above because I don't think that's accurate. I've got a guy who (on a 1-20 scale) ranks 13 (green) on speed and 7 (orange) on stealing. When he was in the minors and the AI was controlling him, he would have fairly high steal percentages but took very few attempts (think 7 SBs in 9 attempts). This was occurring at the AA/AAA level against decent catchers and pitchers. I rarely run him now that he's in the majors and I'm controlling him, but even now he's successful half the time.

Just go to the player search screen, look for all MLB batters for the year with like 300 or more ABs, and look at the SB data compared to their running/stealing. I find it gives a relatively clear picture that SB success % will be closely related to stealing, especially when looking at the few slow guys that have good stealing, compared to fast guys with poor stealing.

Your player having 7 SBs out of 9 in the minor is really small sample, and you can see many even bigger variances in the ML data for many players that don't fit what you'd expect, but it's just random variances. It should even out. And your player now being successful half the time stealing is reasonable to expect. That's not a good stealing rate, and almost surely is detrimental to the team.

[ConStar]

Originally Posted by Timofmars

Just go to the player search screen, look for all MLB batters for the year with like 300 or more ABs, and look at the SB data compared to their running/stealing. I find it gives a relatively clear picture that SB success % will be closely related to stealing, especially when looking at the few slow guys that have good stealing, compared to fast guys with poor stealing.

Your player having 7 SBs out of 9 in the minor is really small sample, and you can see many even bigger variances in the ML data for many players that don't fit what you'd expect, but it's just random variances. It should even out. And your player now being successful half the time stealing is reasonable to expect. That's not a good stealing rate, and almost surely is detrimental to the team.

Anyone in my league who has a wide disparity in those two stats (running/stealing) doesn't seem to run much to begin with, and there's not a significant difference in success between high R/low S and low R/high S. As to the guy I'm referring to (an outfielder named Brandon Miller), when I say successful "half the time," he was 3 of 6 last year on a 523-AB sample. I only ran him if we were facing a pitcher with a particularly bad hold rating or a catcher with a weak arm -- and even then, I didn't run him much.

To know what causes a difference in success rate between high R/low S and low R/high S players, you have to know who they're facing from a battery standpoint. Just pulling numbers from all players with 300+ ABs or PAs tells you nothing about where their respective SBs and CSs came from.

What really matters here is what the developers have to say about the matchup of either the R or S stat versus a pitcher's hold ability, or a catcher's throwing ability. Trying to figure out the speed/stealing/baserunning puzzle is a bit like the discussion on pitchers' velocity/stuff/movement. It's almost like we have an extra stat, or at least one of them isn't focused well enough. In the example we're all discussing here, I wish "baserunning" was specifically limited to "baserunning instincts." I think that would make the R/S discussion a lot clearer.

[Timofmars]

Originally Posted by Orcin

I have found the most significant success factors to be a poor pitcher’s hold rating and some element of surprise. By the latter, I mean going on a strange count in pitch by pitch mode or at least not running on the first pitch/batter after an obvious base stealer reaches base.

I've looked at SPs with at least 100 innings and their hold rating compared to steals allowed vs caught stealing, and I couldn't see any correlation. But I've also looked at catchers stats, and their Catcher Arm rating seems to be a big factor for catching the base stealers. The guys above 80/100 arm have like 40% Runner Thrown Out %.

[IanIachimoe]

Originally Posted by Orcin

I agree with all of your pitch-by-pitch analysis, but I steal successfully all the time playing in the one-pitch mode.

same, one pitch here & a TON of success. I run on 0-0 a lot as well.

also never use hit & run.

[timmermac]

I always want to run first pitch of the at bat as well. 1954 Willie Mays is at least 11/13 doing it that way.

[5-4-3]

I’ve had bad luck running into pitchouts on 0-0 counts. Give me a 1-0 count any day.

[ConStar]

Originally Posted by Timofmars

I've looked at SPs with at least 100 innings and their hold rating compared to steals allowed vs caught stealing, and I couldn't see any correlation. But I've also looked at catchers stats, and their Catcher Arm rating seems to be a big factor for catching the base stealers. The guys above 80/100 arm have like 40% Runner Thrown Out %.

In this game, it seems the Hold rating (again, in my experience) is only (or mostly) a factor in keeping the runner parked on the base. If he manages to get a jump and go, pass/fail kicks over to the catcher's stats. Where high-hold guys are a factor is in getting a lot of "Bob wanted to go, but didn't get a good jump there. Count moves to 0-2."

One thing I will mention is I had a catcher who rated 20/20/20 (arm, catching ability, and overall "catcher" rating) on a 1-20 scale and while he only threw out 50-ish percent of guys, at the end of the year, he only had to attempt 10-15 throws the whole season. The AI saw him behind my plate and just decided to abort basestealing as an option altogether.

[Timofmars]

Originally Posted by ConStar

In this game, it seems the Hold rating (again, in my experience) is only (or mostly) a factor in keeping the runner parked on the base. If he manages to get a jump and go, pass/fail kicks over to the catcher's stats.

Right, the online manual seems to say hold is major factor on the defense's side of things for preventing a steal attempt from being tried. But the manual also explicitly says the pitcher's hold is a factor in the success of the steal attempt, though probably very low.