Stolen base experts

Question for the SB experts in our community:

How do you get the most out of your SB guys? I see some teams steal a ton of bases but also at a 67% clip. I cant afford to lose that many baserunners. I guess I am looking for as many sb's within a 75% success rate as possible. How do you guys achieve that in terms of your settings?

I appreciate any help you can give as I have tried a few things but unsuccessfully. Do you think it might have more to do with the lead numbers than just the settings or maybe the back numbers?

If you dont want to share your knowledge publicly you can pm me.

The way you get the success rate up is to go more conservative stealing in team strategy--that will yield fewer attempts, but a higher success rate. The more aggressive you go the more HAL will attempt to steal with lower odds of success and also more attempts to steal 3rd, (which is based on the lower steal rating)

I really don't think you can steal a lot of bases and keep the success rate high, unless you have a bunch of 18/15 or 19/15 guys.

I kind of like the 18/13 guys 19/12 guys (as they will stay put if they don't get a good lead, instead of going on the lower steal number) for higher success rates.

In short it is a balancing act and different teams need different settings. If your team is dependent on the SB you just have to go with lower success odds sometimes.

In strategy settings you have 5 settings, Very Aggressive to extra conservative--also in hitters prefs you have a steal more check box, or a don't steal check box-- in my opinion (I don't know for sure) checking the steal more box moves the general strategy setting up a notch for that player--So if you have Normal steal setting in Strategy, checking the steal more box moves that player to Aggressive. A player will never steal if the "don't steal" box is checked.

The don't steal box has its advantages, The player will never get picked off, but if he has an * rating he will always be held, giving you an extra 10% advantage on some GBX results of a single.

Pickoffs figure in too, though they are not counted as a caught stealing in the stats--if you attempt to get the lead you could get picked off and the odds of getting back to the bag safely is the second steal number--so that guy that stole 1 base all year and has the 2,- (20/6) rating is actually more likely to get picked off than steal the base.

Milleram, thank you for your response. I had gotten to the point where I thought nobody read these posts anymore. Everything you stated, I am aware of and agree. I was just hoping to have some people give some specific examples that have worked for them. I usually just go extra conservative but was considering a 1971 league and was thinking of making the SB a big part of my offense. Again, thank you for your response.

I wish they would incorporate the windows version of the running/stealing settings into online--there you have settings for all kinds of situations, though it is pretty complicated to set up.

You actually do have more controls available, too.

In the hitter prefs, for example, I set guys with A or B steal ratings to More, the ones with D or E ratings to Don't, and leave those with C ratings with no box checked.

And then when I look at the next night's opponent, I first review the opposing catcher's defensive ratings. If he looks pretty good, then I just set my base running and base stealing strategy for that series to Conservative.

On the other hand, if the likely starting catcher appears to be a weak fielder, then I review the Hold ratings for the likely opposing starters. As above, if the starters have minus ratings, then I still go Conservative.

If the starters have plus ratings, though, to go along with poor-fielding catchers, then I move to Aggressive settings.

Success rates will certainly vary with the talents of your runners, but I've had some teams do well at this recently. The best was one that just finished my first season in the current (2022) card set, with a league-leading 164 steals and a success rate of .800.

Thanks for your insight. I have tried some variations of what you suggest but I have never made changes based upon my opponents. I always figured HAL's formula would take into account hold ratings, throwing arms and basestealing numbers. Maybe I shouldnt leave it up to HAL?

Thanks for your insight. I have tried some variations of what you suggest but I have never made changes based upon my opponents. I always figured HAL's formula would take into account hold ratings, throwing arms and basestealing numbers. Maybe I shouldnt leave it up to HAL?

HAL's a bit of a wanker. Fine-tune the settings yourself to hit 80% success.

One setting I wish online had was how agressive to steal 3rd. I love getting a guy to 2nd, but why kill the momentum trying to steal third if it's not smart strategy? Like in Zero or 1 out situations vs 2 out scenarios. Checking the game replays reveals many instances I would not have tried to steal 3rd, even with a great base stealer. IMO it's stealing attempts at third where the current settings fail the most.

One setting I wish online had was how agressive to steal 3rd. I love getting a guy to 2nd, but why kill the momentum trying to steal third if it's not smart strategy? Like in Zero or 1 out situations vs 2 out scenarios. Checking the game replays reveals many instances I would not have tried to steal 3rd, even with a great base stealer. IMO it's stealing attempts at third where the current settings fail the most.

This my number one complaint in the entire game. Seems separating out stealing second versus stealing third would be an easy fix, but maybe the technical aspects are more complicated than one would think.