What are your thoughts on base stealing.  Sometimes I wonder if it is worth it to try and steal.  Especially when I look at all the 1 run games I'm involved in.  I'm looking for some feedback.  

Id say <60% set to 0, 60-69.9% set to 1 or 2, 70-79.9% set to 3 or 4, 80%+ set to 5 would be a decent guide.

Unless someone is just awful, I won't go below 1.  Steals are just too important in close games.  I'd modify NC's guidelines a bit.

<50% 0
<60% 1
<67% 2
<73% 3
<80% 4

I've found that if you have the time to micro manage your base stealers according to the particular catcher they are facing in a series, your success rate goes up and CS goes down. It is a tad tedious however and as a rule of thumb I think zubinsum has it as close to correct as possible for auto settings.

I've always thought steals were overrated, though I've softened my opinion because I see speed teams winning. don't know if it's because of the steals or simply because baserunning speed is underrated.
Steals are more important in low scoring games. Run often if you expect a lot of 2-1 games. Don't risk outs on the bases when your team is designed to score in bunches.

Unless the theme requires it, I hardly ever draft for stolen bases. Unless a player has a lot of steals and at least a 75% success rate, I set them to "0" in the advanced settings. Generally my entire team will have less than 5 attempts per season and often it will have none at all. I'm sure many will disagree, but I think they are too expensive and too easily countered by drafting a catcher with a killer arm.

Three things:

1) Steals are over rated in real life baseball, and are probably not worth putting a lot of effort into in progressives or certain kinds of theme leagues

2) the base stealing strategy, based on the use of high powered speedsters (people with %s higher than those minimum percentages referred to by contrarian23, is dominant in OL leagues and a pain in the neck, requiring investment in a catcher with a good A+ arm, limiting other strategies thereby.

3) I thought boogerlips was hibernating for the Winter. And what do those percentages and number refer to anyway BL ? The setting for base stealing for each percentage of successful steals I imagine. Thanks. Thought you were hibernating. You are gettting sleepy....

Put me in the depends category.

If it's a typical league where  my team averages 5ish runs per game, I am pretty conservative.   I go with 1 or 0 for anyone under 75%.   I usually go with a 5 for guys over 85% and more than 20 RL attempts.   Those in between I go with a 3.

If I have a masher offense, I usually set every one to zero unless they are above the 85% threshold.


If it is a 1908 or 1968 type league I set the bar lower.

I'll side with others in that it highly depends on park and cap, but I'm not a fan of SBs myself, unless I'm in an extreme pitchers park. If you're offense has a ton of high sluggers, I'd think a majority of their RBIs come off 2B/3B/HRs rather than a single with a guy on 2nd or 3rd.

I factor in a number of variables, but generally...

under 70% = 0 (maybe 1 if they are over 90 SPD and between 60-70%)
70 - 80% = 3 (unless they are under 70 SPD, then 1)
80%+ = 5

I never play high caps so YMMV.