1901 Lajoie stole 27 bases and was caught 29 times. If those 56 attempts were made against a catcher with a D- arm in WIS, how might the proportions shift? Would he be 56-0?

I have guys who were never caught stealing get caught stealing on a regular basis, so it makes perfect sense to me that WIS would have a guy who was caught 29 times not get caught at all.

Posted by bebechacha on 9/10/2011 11:54:00 PM (view original):
1901 Lajoie stole 27 bases and was caught 29 times. If those 56 attempts were made against a catcher with a D- arm in WIS, how might the proportions shift? Would he be 56-0?

Do the math:
Let's say he only steals aginst the worst arms in WIS which catch runners 4% of the time.  His sucess rate will be (27/56*96/100) / (27/56*96/100+29/56*4/100) = 95.7% or ~54/56.  This is darn good, but not quite 100%. 

Thanks for your responses. I feel like I have seen the stat "success rate" somewhere before but am not sure where to find it. Is it available in the draft center or does it need to be calculated? Also thanks for the formula zubinsum. I tried to plug in craztstengel's 21% to get a range of possibility. After a couple of mathphobic attempts I came up with 80% or - 45/56. Was that close?

I found the parameter item "CSPCT " (Caught Stealing Percentage) in the draft center. I knew I'd seen it somewhere before. That not only answers my questions but also allows me to avid the math for another day. Sorry zubinsum, you probably love it.

I have the 7 SB and 0 CS Rodney Scott on a team to be a pinch runner. For the season he has 1 SB and has been caught stealing 3 times.

I may be mistaken on this, but I seem to recall that if a player had fewer than 20 attempts in RL, his effectiveness is significantly reduced.

Why? If the game isn't based on statistics what's the point?

In that season Scott hit 10 singles and walked 7 times and stole 7 bases. He should be an excellent pinch runner. WIS charges us for his stolen bases. Why should they charge for his base stealing ability, only to make him a lousy base stealer?

Posted by Midge on 9/15/2011 12:21:00 PM (view original):
In that season Scott hit 10 singles and walked 7 times and stole 7 bases. He should be an excellent pinch runner. WIS charges us for his stolen bases. Why should they charge for his base stealing ability, only to make him a lousy base stealer?

Should a guy who went 1 for 1 also be invincible?

Midge, I don't write the code; I'm just telling you my understanding of how it works.

My first guess is that, as boogerlips suggests, they don't want small sample sizes to create dominant players. 

In the same vein, pitcher's hitting stats are reduced if the pitcher had fewer than 50AB. 

For what it's worth, I set all guys with fewer than 20 actual stolen base attempts to zero, regardless of their actual success rate.

I think it's at least 15 steals for a full-time player, and it definitely doesn't apply identically to players with small sample sizes.  Jose Morban (8/8 in RL and used to be $200k) can definitely steal some bases.  Performance history shows an average performance over 21 seasons of 9 stolen bases and only 1 CS.  Your Rodney Scott, assuming it's the slightly cheaper version, shows an average of 7 steals and 1 CS over 6 uses.  That's not a lousy base stealer at all.  You've clearly just gotten somewhat unlucky and maybe have been running against above-average catchers...

Well, I left this open since I read contrarian's post, looks like crazy already cleared that up for me...