stealing and hit and run

[spicki17]

i need some advice and/or explanations on having a team with great stealing and hit and run. here is the scenario:

i have an atg team with 8 batters w/ stealing of A or B. this team also has 7 batters with hit and run of B (which i believe is the highest hit and run). i am going to change both baserunning and base stealing to "very aggressive". in addition (for what it's worth), i am going to mark "steal more" on the player cards for the A runners (not that HAL pays attention to this, but i figure i might as well).

my question is more around hit and run. i want to know how hit and run actually works.

does hit and run have a separate hit and run card that it works off of (and by turning on hit and run for a very good player it decreases their production)? or, does hit and run work off the regular card and just change the results (i.e. a gidp might just be a regular ground out)? and how much does it hurt the stolen base percentage if the batter misses on a hit and run?

so, is the right play in this situation to turn hit and run on "very aggressive" also (and mark it on the player cards)? or should i just leave it normal, or what?

any help would be greatly appreciated. thanks!

[Mean Dean]

Just in general, don't put anything (other than bullpen) on the highest aggressiveness setting. If you put stealing or baserunning up there, you're going to be stealing or going for the extra base on very bad success chances -- especially with stealing, this is just a terrible idea (at least you move up the trail runner with the baserunning; with the stealing, all you're doing is wiping runners off the bases altogether for no reason.) And if you put H&R up there, that'll also hurt your overall offense, because yes, a good hitter sacrifices a lot when you H&R.

To answer your question specifically, there is a H&R chart that comes into play if either you roll on the hitter's card (50% chance) or if you roll a strikeout, walk, single or double off the pitcher's card (depends on pitcher, obviously.) So power is almost entirely sapped: the only chance of an extra-base hit are a triple or HR off the pitcher's card, or for A or B H&R hitters, the 3% chance of a double that is on the chart for them. An A has a 19.5% chance of a single; a B a 17% chance. Otherwise, it's all outs of various kinds, most of which advance the runner, or, as you allude to, the possibility of a missed pitch.

If the batter misses the pitch (17% chance of this for an A, 22% chance for a B), then the runner is forced to steal. This works no differently than a regular steal attempt; the only difference is that the runner has no choice about whether to go. Especially if he doesn't get the lead, this can be a problem, because then his chance is going to be his second basestealing number, -4 if he's held, minus the pitcher's hold and catcher's arm (+5/-5 maximum on the combination of the two). Since second basestealing numbers tend to be low for all but the best basestealers, the outlook for most players trying to steal without a lead is pretty bleak.

Basically, you only want to H&R with the Jack Wilsons of the world, or against dominant pitchers with very high strikeout rates.

[durantjerry]

1)Stealing-I would not go to "very aggressive". I currently have a 2006 team on pace to steal 500 bases(301 thru 99 games-77%). The steal rating letter does not matter, it is the steal number ratings that are used. I used normal for a while, but leave it on aggreesive now. I set only the best guys to "steal more", as they go quite a bit(almost a steal attempt per game for Figgens & Pods), so I'm assuming they often go with a bad lead, and only the top guys have a "15" rating with their bad lead. A guy with a "13"secondary rating, with a (-1) catcher and a (0) hold pitcher will be held on and will only have a 1-9 chance of success if my understanding of stealing is correct, which it may not be(-3 for being held on????). My lesser base stealers(Abreu, Crawford, W Harris, Soriano) are putting up similar %'s to Pods & Figgens with 1/2 the attempts or less. There are also many guns catching in ATG, but some lesser pitcher holds, so maybe they even out.
2)Hit and run-there is a seperate card. I have experimented a bit with the H&R. I have never gotten a great % going over conservative, but this is in regular SOMO. With your superior H & R ratings, you could probably use normal and get a good %. It is not a great move with a good player at bat, as the success rate won't be as good as a good player can achieve hitting away. I would say you want to check "hit and run" more with decent or worse hitters when there is speed in front of them("B" becomes an "A" when baserunner is held). You really don't want Ty Cobb using hit and run. If you have it on normal and you are getting poor results, try conservative, or visa versa.
My advice is based on the fact that I assume you are trying to win as opposed to just post gaudy Stolen base stats. I have never used "very aggressive" stealing or H&R. If you see the box scores using aggressive, they go early and often. The biggest difference to me is stealing 3b and 2b regardless of the situation. It can make for some great rallies and kill some when your guy takes off with 1st and 3rd and no outs and gets caught.
This is my team if it helps. "Aggressive" setting w/Pods, Figgens, W Harris & Bruntlett going more. Everyone else is neutral.
[url]http://fantasygames.sportingnews.com/baseball/stratomatic/2006/team/team.html[/url]
Here are my H&R stats using "extra conservative", as I really want to steal vs H&R. .H&R more with Cora, Pierre & Figgens(all "B" rated").
105 319 95 .771 20 27 6 7 9 24 16 16
Here is a box score to show you what you can expect:
[url]http://fantasygames.sportingnews.com/baseball/stratomatic/2006/league/boxscore.html?group_id=2724&g_id=543[/url]

[spicki17]

first off, thank you both for such detailed responses.

what i mainly take away from this is that setting stealing to very aggressive will just mean that HAL will steal when a baserunner has a lower percentage than he would if it was just aggressive.

also, with hit and run, the only time really that hit and run makes sense is when the hitter isn't very good, since the hit and run hitting card isn't very good (and the effect it has on the runner stealing 2nd).

below is a link to my team. i would much appreciate advice on how you both would set my settings based off my team. thanks again!

[url]http://fantasygames.sportingnews.com/baseball/stratomatic/atg3/team/team_other.html?user_id=1701[/url]

[cummings2]

There is a thread I started about Hit and Run where I tried to figure out how the heck to use it. It gets a bit convoluted since I am not tha good at expressing things simply and quickly.

Let me give it a shot.

According to what I've found HAL seems to trigger H&R with

1. Opp Pitchers with poor HLD and/or catcher's with bad T-ratings and a runner on base with good safe steal chances with lead. -By good I mean 17,18,19-

2. IMO HAL will consider Stealing and Bunting before executing the H&R. A bit long getting into how I came to this conclusionl but I believe that everytime a runner is on base HAL goes through something like this:

Do I steal (Y/N)
if N= Do I Bunt? (Y/N)
if N= Do I H&R? (Y/N)
if N= Swing away.

what helps HAL answer those questions is a combination of the individual settings and managerial settings. As it's been mentioned the managerial settings tell HAL when there's a green light. If the green light is too low in terms of success rate then HAL will be trying it all over the place.

So, in a situation where given all the factors in place stealing 3B yields a 55% chance of success -If the settings tell HAL only to go for it when there's a 90% chance of stealing then you'll never try stealing that 3B. Good Call. But what if there is an 80% chance of stealing a base? -That's where I think the manager settings come into play.

With better runners, obviously you get higher rates of succ. steals more often, and their not so hot matchups are still at a fairly high succ. rates. that's why lowering the manager setting for stealing i.e. going to aggressive and or very agg. more often than not will yield poor results.

So, when it comes to stealing, I'd say: Normal + Steal More if you want to rely on the speed of the team and play that card. If you want a more conservative team that happens to have good steal and speed numbers then I'd go with Conservative + Steal More.


Hit and Run wise: Dean is right on the money with his points above. In the thread I mentioned before Marcus WIlby also dropped by with some good points, you might want to check those out.

The highest success rate I've had with H&R teams come when I've taken the time to check the opp. teams Pitcher and Catcher ratings (HLD and T) the defense up in SS and 2B and how they'll be affected by holding runners and which points in the lineups are the ones that benefit the most from the hold penalty and take into account the BP rating for singles.

I'd say that with a good combination you can hit over .300 off H&R plays as a team (my best is .353 over one season) In the average setting you can expect a .250 - .260 BAVG off H&R. Most importantly, as Dean said without much SLG to go with.

If you want to trigger the H&R more then bump the setting for bunting to extra conservative but if you are in a no-DH league that might come back to haunt you with pitcher's DPs since they'll swing away more often.

If a player has a good average or OPS then I'd rather him swing away. Of your team I'd almost only try to H&R with Larry Bowa with Leflore hitting ahead of him to trigger the play.

This is an good example touse: Leflore get on Base. given settings and all he tries to steal. If he gets his lead he'll go and most like swipe. If he doesn't then you have the H&R guy behind him to move him over. In both cases you risk the out for the sake of having a runner in scoring positon. If that's the case then whomever follows better have positive clutch and high GbAs, something like Joe Jackson. he has more than enough Avg., GbAs and pos. clutch. to have the streategy payoff, so that a sequence would be:

Leflore
Bowa
Jackson

Problem is you're putting two of your lower OBP before your higher AVG. H&R has always given me this predicament. But it's fun.

In your team, given what I percieved as a generally negative clutch thing going on I'd take that into consideration. Both Stealing and H&R have as a byproduct the possibility of having the clutch come into play more often than not -since you are willing to sacrifice outs for moving runners over-

O.k. long rant now, and I think it's as confusing as I've ever written. Hope it makes sense. If not just listen to the guys before me.

[spicki17]

thanks to all for the long explanations. i set my team up last night with aggressive base stealing and base running and normal hit and run. i then checked off most of my A runners to "steal more", and 2 of my hitters (the worst 2 i had) to "hit and run more".

im excited to see how this team does, since i almost never go for stealing, and even when i do, its like 2 or 3 players, not a whole team.

thanks again for all the help!

[cummings2]

Hey there papa -S-

looking though your team stats in berce (interested in your cool team here)

Your H&R stats are a bit a-wacky: 3-16-11 in 18 games. If you set the individual settings as you mentioned the numbers of H&R attempts is actually quite high and the success rate is fairly low in BA terms, in moving the runner it's not so bad. My suggestion if this continues and you want to tweak is to Click all good hitters to "Do not H&R" while leaving all other settings the same as now.

You could, at that point move the manager setting for H&R to aggresive but only for kicks really.

Also, I think your league is with a DH. Personally I'd keep in eye on the bunting. You already have 10 attempts, IMO it's better to keep the bunting down while stealing and H&R-ing.

Nice going and congrats on trhe good start :D

[cummings2]

I just Bumped the Hit and Run thread. Lucky's points were of great help to me. Hope they help you as well.