For the base stealing question, you can refer to this thread:

http://www.whatifsports.com/forums/Posts.aspx?topicID=433762&page=1

As for your second question, about budgets, here's part of the problem with that:

Year one: you decide to go with an advanced scouting budget of 18m to see pretty accurate projected ratings.  You cut and paste projected ratings of all the players in the world into a spreadsheet (takes around 45 minutes to do).  The next season, your bring your ADV down to $2m and use that $16m elsewhere.  Now you still have the benefit of $18m ADV (via the spreadsheet) without spending the money, and can probably run that way for a couple of seasons before biting the bullet and doing it again.

I do think new owners should be allowed to set the budgets where they want, but the movement limitation should stay after that...or give them the choice of starting where the prior owner was or the 10-10-10...

Why? Well, it takes time in the majors to build an organization...you can't go from no scouts, bird dogs, etc. to a top-notch staff in a single off season.