question for bernie about game engine

[scorehouse]

on baserunning and base stealing, what is the difference between normal, aggressive and especially very aggressive?

[scorehouse]

or anyone else that has a clue :lol:

[durantjerry]

Don't know if this helps, but I have used all the steal settings and my experience is:
[b:1cf1fbddf3]Very Aggressive[/b:1cf1fbddf3]=pretty wild stealing. I have only used it a couple of times with teams that are specifically designed to steal and are VERY fast. I stole 795 bases in the 80's game using this setting with many checked to "steal more" and if you were using "very aggressive", I would imagine you would be using "steal more". There were multiple steal attempts of home in some games, many steals of third and if there is an open base, there is a decent chance they will go(first and third w/ one out, for example). They were caught 304 times, which I think is pretty good considering, but the team was very fast. Stearns, who is an 18-13 stealer, stole 37 bases and was caught 18 times without "steal more" being checked. If you assume an arbitrary number of 300 steals being caused by "steal more", you are still looking at a five steal attempt per game pace caused by the "very aggressive" setting.
[url]http://fantasygames.sportingnews.com/baseball/stratomatic/80s/team/team_other.html?user_id=81551[/url]
[b:1cf1fbddf3]Aggressive[/b:1cf1fbddf3]-Still pretty wild with regards to stealing third and going whenever there is an open base, but less so than the above. I would not use this unless my team was specifically designed to steal bases. I think it would be tough to have a 75% success rate without having a very fast team. I have stolen 478 bases in the 2006 game with this setting("steal more" on Pods and all 19 lead guys) and won a championship, but again, the team was built to steal.
[url]http://fantasygames.sportingnews.com/baseball/stratomatic/2006/team/team_other.html?user_id=7663[/url]
[b:1cf1fbddf3]Normal[/b:1cf1fbddf3]-Normal is more "normal" than the above two, less steals of third and running with the open base. I still think with this setting you will be under 75% as often or more often than not and I want to be over 75% more often than not. I would not consider using this setting unless stealing bases was going to be MORE than a normal part of my offense. I used to try it in prior years but I always ended up downgrading because I got caught too much.
My opinion may be tainted by the fact that I usually have a good offense and definately don't want to be caught stealing, especially at the top of the order. I think the "steal more" settings make using the above settings unneccessary with your average team for the most part. I just finished a 2009 season where I stole 223 bases while only being caught 50 times using "conservative" or "very conservative"(I forget which) and using "steal more" with the fast guys, who are mainly the guys I want running often. The conservative settings still seem to let the slower guys run, but only when they have a very good chance of making it and the fast guys seem to steal a decent amount of bases at a high percentage.
[url]http://fantasygames.sportingnews.com/stratomatic/team/team_other.html?user_id=275047[/url]
I use the base running settings based on my experience with the steal ratings and only go to normal when I have maybe 5-6 runners in the 1-15 thru 1-17 running ratings because I also don't want guys thrown out on the bases and if the base running settings for "aggressive" and "very aggressive" are comparable to the equivilent steal settings, I don't ever want to use them because they would be too aggressive.

[MARCPELLETIER]

There is some info in a thread of the strategy section that I just bumped.

[durantjerry]

I usurped Marcus' conclusions from the strategy section.

[quote:d6742cf40c][b:d6742cf40c]So my overall conclusions: [/b:d6742cf40c]
1- Hal is conservative when it comes to baserunning decision.
2- Going aggressive or superaggressive only tints Hal to become "normally aggressive"
3- If you have a fast team, on average 1-15, you will generate many runs simply by going aggressive, perhaps as much as 40 additional runs per season.
4- Overall, I believe the running abilities are underestimated in TSN. By how much? I don't know. Still need to answer that A question.[/quote:d6742cf40c]

I find your conclusions about going aggressive base running interesting. My only clue as to how base running works is to compare it to how stealing works, and I found "Very Aggressive" and "Agressive" stealing to be exactly as they say, very aggressive and aggressive. This has scared me off the aggressive base running, as I could only see achieving an acceptable steal percentage with aggressive or more when the team is extremely fast so I was working under the assumption that base running worked similarly.

[MARCPELLETIER]

In a word, I wouldn't be surprised if the threshold for base running and for base stealing are not the same, so I wouldn't use the understanding of one to infer conclusions on the other.

There is also the fact that HAL has to make a decision on the part of the defense with base running. If the runner is sent aggressively to third, Hal might still prefer to go to the cut-off man, and make sure that guy from first doesn't go forward.

With base stealing, Hal doesn't decide much defensively: he just goes for the throw.

[tcochran]

For the right team, I love the "very aggressive" settings. I had a very fast 2001 season team that stole almost 400 bases. The same outfit -- it's a keeper -- is not quite as fast in the 2002 season right now, but they are still stealing home and moving runners into scoring position much more than they would, otherwise.

I believe the base stealing and running settings all come down to the different ratings on the player cards. Some guys are very fast but make poor decisions about stealing bases. Others are a bit slower, but are very sharp at when to make a move.

With the right guys, being very aggressive can be fun!

[MARCPELLETIER]

BTW: durantjerry, we are waiting for your team to throw off activities in the Reverse league.


I went with "aggressive base stealing", just to see what was going on.

2 notable events

1- Beltran was caught stealing at second base.

Beltran got on first. Numbers were 1-19 safe if he got the lead. 1-9 if he didn't get the lead.

Holiday got an at-bat. Sandoval was next, with one out, but Beltran was sent off before he could swing.

Either: Hal waited for Holiday to have a free swing, and then got Beltran's lead and got the unlucky 20.
Or: Hal tried to get the lead with Beltran as soon as he got first base (after all, aggressive was the setting). Hal didn't get the lead for Beltran. Holiday swang and missed. Hal looked at all the gbAs on Sandoval's card, and thought somewhat that 1-9 safe was worth the shot.

My guess is that Hal went on with a 45% success ratio.


2- Braun stole third base (and trail runner stole second) with one out.

Assuming that Braun was not held, numbers were: safe 1-11, (1-7 if Braun was held).

My guess (hope) is that Hal went on with a 55% success ratio.

[RICHARDMILTER]

My two cents: No matter what type of team I have I always set the base running to; aggressive. All the other categories should probably depend on the type of team you have. In regards to base stealing I am more inclined to use aggressive. I have extensive experience with the computer manager (Hal). One other setting I always use is; conservative with the intentional walks. In general I am not a big fan of the intentional walk in most cases,and I feel the computer is a little too loose with them. Just like I think Hal is a little too conservative with the base running.