I'm somewhat intrigued by the idea of this particular managerial style, but I'm no entirely sure in what situations you'd set it to particular values. The FAQ says that you'd want to Aggressive Hit and Run with a team of good contact hitters, but at what stage should you consider your contact hitters appropriate good, and if you were trying to build a Hit and Run based team how would you begin? Something like fixing contact rate at >0.9 and choosing hitters based on 1B/100AB#?

I don't use it much because I don't like making outs on the bases and I'm still not sure exactly what hit-and-run means here. appears you'd want some combination of contact and speed. as with any aggressive style it's more useful in low scoring games. I'd think the ideal hit-and-run team would be a pitching-defense-contact-speed team.

I think the way the sim works, hit-and-run is only appropriate for teams with a high sb/sba and at least a moderate sb/sbo.

I put it to "aggressive" only if I have, as zubinsum suggests, high sb/sba ratios and absolute numbers AND a very high ratio of BB/K among my batters. I realize this second is not necessarily a part of how the SIM deals with this - in fact I can't remember seeing a hit and run called for anyway.

But I figure if I have fast baserunners with batters that don't strike out (usually they have to collectively have more walks than strikeouts) than I can safely go with "aggressive" as I like hit and run teams as you do foolishfool. Otherwise I leave it to "average."

On the rare occasion I go with such a HR oriented team that their Ks dwarf their BBs and they have few stolen bases (my "1961" team for a "Year you were one-year old" theme league fits this description, as SBs were unusual then except for M.Wills) I even put it to "infrequent". 

Thanks everyone. Certainly some things here to keep in mind when I'm next drafting a team...

mixtroy, I have a question, because I usually draft in the same way as you - I look for very low K hitters and for more BBs than walks, and then set hit and run to "very aggressive" - but many of those teams lost badly, especially when facing the deadball aces. Now, to be fair, I may have had bad teams for other reasons, especially weak pitching. 

But I wonder, given that deadball pitchers, who dominate OL play always have low strikeouts, and therefore don't care if we hit the ball or not in a sense, are we walking into their trap with low strikeout hitters? 

This seems odd to even ask, and maybe even stupid (no one is slower to grasp certain things than people with PhDs, believe me), but since the SIM first determines whether an out has been registered, and only then determines that it is a strikeout, instead of first determining if the ball has been struck and then whether it is a hit or not (see why the former is more practical given available stats in the thread on strikeouts here in this forum), then are we really gaining anything with low strikeout teams ? 

If we have teams in theme leagues with only post-1919 pitchers, or only 1970s etc. it makes sense, but is this preventing us from getting some good hitters against the deadball hurlers who don't strike out even the Adam Dunns of the world? (I still won't get him - anyone who strikes out 1 of every 4 times at bat shows lack of character). 

Even though there are several HOFs on the site who have much more knowledge and experience about this game than me, but in an effort to answer the questions you asked, in my opinion, as I was taught (by the esteemed Amycox), the very first thing you have to accept is the fact that the 'names' of the players mean absolutely NOTHING!!!!  It's their NUMBERS that count.  More specifically, and generally speaking (with a few exceptions), a player's normalized numbers, in conjunction with their histories, will tell you a lot.  Me, personally, even though I love offense, even at the expense of defense, I more often than not tend to play in offense-oriented parks, e.g., Hilltop, Fenway, Kauffman, etc., I'm a pitching guy who likes to build around top notch starting pitching because, for whatever it's worth, and of course I could be wrong, I just happen to believe that it's all about the pitching in the playoffs.  However, in drafting your teams, you have to also be mindful of the fact that in order to MAKE the playoffs, you have to be able to score enough runs to win games. With this in mind, if you draft the right hitters whose strengths are conducive to potential success at the park you choose to play in, and if have good enough pitching, you should win your share of games. I'm not necessarily of the opinion that you fall into a "trap" when using low strikeout hitters in OLs against low strikeout deadball pitchers. But if you draft wisely and draft GOOD hitters for your park, with a few exceptions, I feel that it doesn't matter who the pitchers are that you're facing. The thing with low strikeout hitters going against low strikeout pitchers, simply means that more balls are put into play, therefore, in theory, resulting in more opportunity for your oppenent's defense to commit errors and minus plays and thus, allowing your team to advance runners. Again...I could be totally wrong.  That's just the way I see it.  But the bottom line is that you have to do what works for YOU and draft your teams in accordance with YOUR particular style of play and YOUR particular managerial mentality.  Guys like Adam Dunn will strikeout a lot. Perhaps a little less in OL's than they did in real life due to the low strikeout pitchers, but they will, nonetheless, still strikeout a lot pursuant to their normalized strikeout ratio.  

mixtroy, thanks - a very valuable set of comments. I appreciate your thinking and experience on this. It is a steep learning curve here. I have lately been moving away from obsessing as much about low strikeout batters, allowing me more power with the right kind of park - Kingdome seems to work well, whereas Coors and Fenway damage your own pitching as much or more than your opponents' it seems to me. 

Yes, good point about the errors. 

My Adam Dunn comment was a joke - precisely because "Adam Dunn" is just a SIM set of numbers, my joke about character should have been funnier. Oh well. I won't quit my day job.

Your point about names of players though is important for new players here to learn. I for instance, have stopped paying attention to the names of players I draft. I even call Pete Rose "Joe Pepitone" because I know it irritates him. 

I just started a season with the idea of using a Hit & Run strategy. Actually, it starts tomorrow. I drafted 40 million dollars worth of players with high contact rates (average of about .94) and speed over 86-most in the 90s I think. Starting lineup is all from the 1800s. (That wasn't the original plan, but it was when the vast majority of them were from anyway). I have no idea how this team will do. I kind of expect them to fail. However, my question is, how do I best implement this strategy? Obviously, I need to set hit and run to 5. However, my question is about the SB%. The team stole 611 bases and were caught 320 times. Most of them are in the 60-70% SB success rate. The Advanced Settings defaulted most of them to 3 for SBA tendency. I would normally adjust them down to 1 or 2 because I don't like getting thrown out. However, I'm not sure what I should do with this team. I want to use the hit and run strategy extensively. Should I leave them alone? Or does it even matter bc hit and run is not based on that in the sim?
https://www.whatifsports.com/mlb-l/playerstats.asp?teamid=1672913

I've seen enough players with their SB setting at 0 get thrown out on failed hit and run plays that I'm confident the Hit and Run "activates" independently of the on-base player's individual SB setting.

I would then further assume in a failed hit and run scenario (batter strikes out on the pitch, turning the play into a straight steal attempt) that the runner's actual SB success rate determines whether or not he's safe on the attempt. So if I'm running an aggressive hit and run offense I prefer to have 70%+ SB success rates at most lineup spots, and definitely a team with a low overall K rate.

yeah the SB setting is only for straight steals, doesn't affect hit and runs

Posted by skunk206 on 4/18/2023 1:44:00 PM (view original):
I've seen enough players with their SB setting at 0 get thrown out on failed hit and run plays that I'm confident the Hit and Run "activates" independently of the on-base player's individual SB setting.

I would then further assume in a failed hit and run scenario (batter strikes out on the pitch, turning the play into a straight steal attempt) that the runner's actual SB success rate determines whether or not he's safe on the attempt. So if I'm running an aggressive hit and run offense I prefer to have 70%+ SB success rates at most lineup spots, and definitely a team with a low overall K rate.

Thanks! Really helpful. I will have to make due with my 65% guys this time. I have assumed that setting the likelihood to 1 or 2 will increase percentages by decreasing risky attempts.Not sure if that's right or not.

If you have high Strikeouts then don't Hit & Run. If your team is designed to score 6 runs then don't ever play for one run especially in the early innings. It's a relic from the deadball era.

Posted by rbow923 on 4/19/2023 7:24:00 PM (view original):
If you have high Strikeouts then don't Hit & Run. If your team is designed to score 6 runs then don't ever play for one run especially in the early innings. It's a relic from the deadball era.

Or of what we used to call "baseball". Sigh.