Base Stealing?

Under Team Strategy, there are 5 options to select for Base Stealing and under Hitter Pref there is an option to select by player "More Steals".

Just trying to under how to use the settings together.

Can I assume if I select under Team Strategy Base stealing as "Normal", but select a hitter under Hitter Pref to have "More Steals" does this equate to basically a Team Strategy for that hitter = Aggressive for Base Stealing?

Thanks.

There was a thread on this topic, but I'm not sure there's a definite answer. It's one of the few areas where I'm okay with letting HAL use his best judgement.
viewtopic.php?f=13&t=648494

......Can I assume if I select under Team Strategy Base stealing as "Normal", but select a hitter under Hitter Pref to have "More Steals" does this equate to basically a Team Strategy for that hitter = Aggressive for Base Stealing?.....

If I rewrite the 2nd half of your question as: "does this equate to that hitter being more aggressive on the base paths", the answer is yes. He will try to steal more often. So the next question is, when should a player have their "Steal More" box checked in Hitter Preferences.

I asked that question 15 years ago and the answer was when the 2nd number in parentheses (eg. (19-13) is 13 or higher.

Expect a 75% success rate for such players.

I think the general sabermetric consensus is that on an relatively normal offensive team, a 75% success rate is about the break even point. In the heavy HR leagues I see online here, the break even point might be closer to 80% for most teams, unless you play a small ball type team in a pitcher's park. Now, in real baseball, this is way more situational, as higher leverage late game situations change that percentage a meaningful amount, but in SOM we only have those series wide settings. I also think our online 12 team leagues will almost _never_ replicate real life stolen base percentages since there is little financial incentive to play catchers with +2 arms or pitchers with +9 holds since everyone has so many options available, but obviously those guys do play in real life.

The math of how the stealing numbers working is explained pretty thoroughly in the links provided in this chain. In general though for someone starting out, conservative is probably the setting to use if you expect to hit a typical number of homers. Then in the individual players settings, set everyone to not steal except the pretty obvious base stealing threats (B or higher in AA/A/B/C.. ratings) --that keeps your slow guys from getting picked off when they won't steal hardly at all anyway. If they are really good stealers with a 18/19 first number, set them to steal more and watch your team SB percentage. If your results are better than 80% try the team setting of normal. If those individual guys you set to steal more are less than 75% turn that off.

(Note: this isn't expert advice on how to optimize SBs in online SOM, just a good place to set them in the beginning so it can't really hurt you starting out)