Are you stealing the odds?

I wasn't sure how I perform, as a coach, with regards to stealing bases. When being conservative, when being agressive, what players should be checked with the "steal more" option, etc.

So I downloaded 30 seasons of data coming from the SOM online game. I only downloaded the first 50 players ranked by stolen bases, roughly speaking players with 6-7 stolen bases and more. So my data are representative of the players with the most stolen bases, but not of players stealing usually 3-4 stolen bases who might happen one lucky season to steal 16. So if anytthing, my data might inflate the real number of stolen bases of people with fewer stealing ability. To create the list below, I also rejected all season with fewer than 400 Plate appeareances, the reason being that I was interested in stats of players being used full time or at least in platoons---and I didn't know how to deal with players being used as pinch-runners.

So, if I take the first line of the table below as an example, among the stats of the 30 seasons I downloaded, Schafer had more than 400 PA in five of them. On average, he had 481 PA---which suggests that he was used in a platoon in at least several of these. On average, he had 60 stolen bases and 16 caught stealing.

This list has every player whose average is 15 sb or more---I don't go below 15 because of the bias explained above. Obviously, players with only 1 or 2 seasons of data don't have stats as reliable as players with 15 or 20 seasons, so have also the limitation in mind. Here's the list.

Code: Select all

Seasons   Name   PA   SB   CS
 5   Schafer, J   481   60   16
20   Gordon, De   599   59   20
14   Dyson, Jar   580   58   17
16   Revere, Be   633   49   17
27   Altuve, Jo   711   48   16
10   Hamilton,    607   47   19
 3   Davis, Raj   604   40   14
 2   Young Jr.,   453   39   11
17   Ellsbury,    646   31   8
21   Gomez, Car   665   28   11
15   Andrus, El   608   27   12
 2   Spangenber   575   27   7
26   Reyes, Jos   640   26   10
12   Martin, Le   563   26   9
 9   Gose, Anth   548   26   10
 1   Jackson, A   574   26   6
 1   Fuld, Sam_   588   26   9
22   Marte, Sta   595   25   10
25   Span, Dena   680   24   7
15   Cain, Lore   594   23   7
20   Blackmon,    593   22   8
 4   Inciarte,    466   22   7
16   Rollins, J   614   21   7
23   Escobar, A   642   21   7
18   Santana, D   582   20   6
 8   Suzuki, Ic   588   20   6
 6   Wong, Kolt   574   19   7
11   Pollock, A   489   19   6
 4   Crawford,    445   19   7
 7   Den Dekker   538   19   10
 4   Blanco, Gr   680   19   8
 6   Figgins, C   489   18   6
 1   Bonifacio,   534   18   8
 1   Kipnis, Ja   595   18   9
 1   Polanco, G   637   17   4
 7   Segura, Je   516   17   5
 7   Pagan, Ang   481   17   7
12   Yelich, Ch   660   17   7
 3   Lough, Dav   521   16   7
20   Aybar, Eri   600   16   7
18   Heyward, J   601   16   6
 2   Marisnick,   578   16   5
 1   Paredes, J   609   16   4
14   Eaton, Ada   552   16   7
 7   Taylor, Ch   643   16   6
 9   Dozier, Br   660   16   6
17   Gardner, B   643   16   6
 2   Rosales, A   540   16   7
23   Frazier, T   622   15   7
19   Desmond, I   610   15   5
23   Ramirez, A   602   15   6


So, to come back to my initial intention, how do I fare with my own players?

Here's the link of my first Tour team: http://onlinegames.strat-o-matic.com/team/1399247 .

I have two speedsters on this team. With 15 games left, Dyson is projected to finish 53 SB- 12 CS and Cain is heading to finish with 22-3 (I got him in a trade early in the season). It seems that I have been more conservative than my colleagues, who had on average (58-17) and (23-7) respectively. I should finish with 6 fewer stealing bases and 7 fewer caught stealings for these two players. Overall, though, I prefer to trade 6 fewer sb and have 7 fewer cs, so I like what I ended up with.

For the record, my usage was roughly 50% aggressive 30% conservative ---for example, I turned my settings to conservative when facing catchers with high negative arms--or when playing in stadiums with high Ball park homerun ratings---and 20% normal.

This is a sincere question, Marc, particularly since I'm sure you can answer it. What exactly were you trying to determine and what exactly do you feel you have determined?

Also, I initially thought your typo "influate" was a neologism signifying trying to inflate by influence. You might have inadvertently created a good one...

What I like about the CD-ROM is you can actually set your team to not steal unless it has a 70% or 75% or 80% chance and so on. Why can't we have that here?

We should also be able to check a box that says, "Don't steal third base" and "Don't steal home".

What I like about the CD-ROM is you can actually set your team to not steal unless it has a 70% or 75% or 80% chance and so on. Why can't we have that here?

We should also be able to check a box that says, "Don't steal third base" and "Don't steal home".

Your 100% right, it's in the game engine already, it just needs to be presented on the manager/batter settings screens.

Good catch: influate vs inflate!!

Just thought I might as well share the data. I showed one way to look at it, but I guess there are many ways to look at the data.

Here's another way: generally, players can't repeat their real life success with stolen bases. Among players who played full-time in 2014, only Revere has matched his "real-life" total number of stolen bases. Gordon is 5 short, Altuve is 8 short, Hamilton is 9 short, Gomez is 6 short, Span is 7 short, Escobar is 10 short.

Another thing that caught my eyes: Strat can't reproduce the stats of runners with very high percentage success. I believe Brantley led the majors with 23/24= 96% among players with 20 steals or more, but he was 14/19 (74%) in Strat. Reyes goes from 30/32 (93%) to 26/36 (72%); Ellsbury from 39/44 (89%) to 31/39 (79%).

Let me stand corrected: James Jones led the majors in 2014 among players with 20 steals or more with a success rate of 96.4% (27/28). I didn't post Jones' stats because no one used him as an everyday player in the set I downloaded, but looking at my file again, I can attest that he had a success rate overall of 73.8% (222 sb 79 cs).

Players who have the rate *4(19-6) seem to have the best success rate (Stanton, 86%, Utley, 84%, Turner 84%).

There are many angles to look at on these stolen base settings.

True, the cdrom does have the option to not steal unless it has a 70% or 75% or 80% chance and so on.
But suppose we all set that at 80%. Pudge Rodriguez in his career caught 46% of the runners attempting to steal according to Baseball-Reference.com. How would that translate to everyone having a setting to not steal unless you were guaranteed 75% success rate? Either absolutely nobody would steal or his percentage of throwing runners out would fall to 25%. Net result that great throwing arm's only value would be to reduce stolen base attempts.

Does that mean I would not want the ability to have that setting/control? No. But I think the time has come for the stolen base system to get an overhaul. We have the basic stealing system. We have the advanced stealing system which is better. Time for the Realistic stealing system.

The role of the catcher has to be more than just a plus or minus some number. There should be some mechanism for showing how frequently that catcher made an accurate throw or something.

Pitcher hold should be more than just a plus or minus some number. It should reflect how good a pitcher was at picking runners off. It should reflect how good the pitcher was at paying attention to runners and preventing good jumps. At the very least how likely a pitcher or catcher was to be ran on should be as important as outcome percentages when an attempt is made and the two should be somehow separated.

True, the cdrom does have the option to not steal unless it has a 70% or 75% or 80% chance and so on.
But suppose we all set that at 80%. Pudge Rodriguez in his career caught 46% of the runners attempting to steal according to Baseball-Reference.com. How would that translate to everyone having a setting to not steal unless you were guaranteed 75% success rate? Either absolutely nobody would steal or his percentage of throwing runners out would fall to 25%. Net result that great throwing arm's only value would be to reduce stolen base attempts.

Runners would still steal and his throwing rate would probably fall. SOM results rarely match MLB statistics; so, it would be no big deal.

Does that mean I would not want the ability to have that setting/control? No. But I think the time has come for the stolen base system to get an overhaul. We have the basic stealing system. We have the advanced stealing system which is better. Time for the Realistic stealing system.

What exactly would be the "Realistic" stealing system? I hope Valen doesn't want a stealing system that would directly reflect MLB stats. That would take influence of the results out of the hands of the managers.

The role of the catcher has to be more than just a plus or minus some number. There should be some mechanism for showing how frequently that catcher made an accurate throw or something.

There already is this to a degree: the "error-on-throw." rating. Beyond that, I can't see what exactly we would want or need to know about the throw.

Pitcher hold should be more than just a plus or minus some number. It should reflect how good a pitcher was at picking runners off. It should reflect how good the pitcher was at paying attention to runners and preventing good jumps. At the very least how likely a pitcher or catcher was to be ran on should be as important as outcome percentages when an attempt is made and the two should be somehow separated.

The ratings already show, to a degree, how good the pitcher was at picking runners off. Pitchers with low negative hold ratings are those who have been able to hold runners partially through their pick-off efficiency. As to how likely a catcher or pitcher or runner was to be run on, the present ratings will already reflect both to a substantial degree. Beyond that, it would just become extraneous statistical information we wouldn't particularly need to know, nor would we want to have to reproduce.