Plenty of deadball era hitters have huge SBs totals. Since CS were not recorded accurately (for some reason?) back then, their CS numbers are estimated by WIS if I remember correctly. This leaves the vast majority of them with horrible SB% and basically requires that you set their SB setting to 0 (high number of SBs means they will steal often otherwise, bad % means they will often be caught).

How expensive are these dud-SBs?

It seems like the price of stolen bases in the sim is A) not very high and B) largely dependent on success rate.  I don't think you're paying very much for useless SBs, probably only 1-2% of the total price of the players, but it's hard to say for sure without knowing more about the player pricing formulas.

definitely not high premium..just look at the bargain price for great seasons of lou brock or maury wills or henderson with very high sb and very low cs. and great speed....it is just inclusive of overall run production in my opinion but can be an edge stat depending on circumstances.

I think on some level everybody recognizes that stolen bases would be a bargain in the sim if they weren't so easy to counter.  But everybody shells out the money for great-armed catchers, so steals aren't worth much.

I wouldn't mind if that price got redistributed to an extent, so that A+ arms cost somewhat less, but great base thieves cost somewhat more...

I don't focus on caught stealing. I usually have succes looking at the speed. For example, a deadball hitter with 97 speed I set to stealing at 5. And usually have success

even with a-a plus arms a top base stealer will be successful more then 50 %. and a high percentage..a top catcher is lucky to have a 50% success meaning the top stealers are the ones successful most of the time...find evidence to counter that.

Posted by d_rock97 on 1/16/2016 1:20:00 PM (view original):
I don't focus on caught stealing. I usually have succes looking at the speed. For example, a deadball hitter with 97 speed I set to stealing at 5. And usually have success

What do you define as success, in terms of percentage?

I define success as 75% for the base stealer...I also see a correlation between speed and ultimate success..it seems to enhance the probability of success. a high % stealer who has..80 speed and higher.

Oz - Good questions posed in this thread. I have found ways where the dead ball players who have big SB numbers but also big CS numbers can be a productive player. In addition to the SBs, most of those players do not strike out all that much. If you draft the players who also have decent speed...say ratings over 70...you can formulate a very aggressive hit and run team. If the hitter strikes out...which isn't often, the batter may still steal the bag. Oftentimes the hit and run works out. You avoid a double play or you get the hit and it works out.

Some of these players who have very good speed, say over 85 can steal bases too. Bob Bescher comes to mind. Also Walt Wilmot...LOVE Walt Wilmot. Just set their SB tendency to a lower setting like 1 or 2 and they tend to run more efficiently.

You may already know all this but it's something I've experimented with recently and have had some good success with it. I'm not sure how inaccurate the SB/CS numbers are...I expect those old school players did get caught a decent amount. Almost all the players tried stealing bases back then to generate runs and a lot of them may not have been very fast runners.

A good catcher can neutralize the running game, but the SB is still a deadly weapon in this game. But the catcher's CSPCT must be pretty high to completely neutralize the running attack. Not all A+ arms are created equal.

We are on the same page, I think. I very frequently use the hit and run strategy you described (except with a stolen base setting of 0 instead of 1 or 2) in high cap leagues. At lower caps, Bescher is solid, as are guys like Dummy Hoy, John Reilly, and Burt Shotton. Never used Whilmot but I will check him out. I wasn't aware speed had an impact on SB success, that's good info. I thought it only impacted the frequency of attempting a SB.

The amount of salary that's wasted on these SBs is probably pretty negligible, I just hate wasting anything.

But, if your SB% is less than 70%, it's generally not helping your offense. It's obviously true that dead ball pitchers are too cheap relative to their ability to stop HRs, which is why teams in lower cap leagues tend to be built around more speed than power. Dynamic pricing should mitigate this impact and make modern HR hitters a more viable option.

Posted by ozomatli on 1/16/2016 5:02:00 PM (view original):

Posted by d_rock97 on 1/16/2016 1:20:00 PM (view original):
I don't focus on caught stealing. I usually have succes looking at the speed. For example, a deadball hitter with 97 speed I set to stealing at 5. And usually have success

What do you define as success, in terms of percentage?

My rule is anyone under 79 speed doesn't steal at all. 79-85 hardly steal. 86-90 steal around irl attempts but I set at 2 if they have 100 attempts like most deadball hitters. 91-94 steal a lot. 95+ steal a lot a lot. I set at 5 (I usually have base running aggressiveness really high cuz I like speed). So I can get around 170 stolen base attempts with 95+ speed guys. And by success, 75-85% depending on the cap. The only flaw is every once in a while, Billy Hamilton or Ty Cobb tries to steal home. So it has its flaws. But it doesn't happen often

PennQuaker I'm not sure the dynamic pricing will allow for more HRs. A lot of the deadball pitchers' prices will rise, but then there will always be other deadball pitchers to use. It will price a guy like Joss high enough where he won't be used in OLs anymore because he won't be cost effective. But some other dead ball pitcher will take his place.

The only detriment from choosing the deadball pitchers is it hurts your defense a little...but not enough to be much of an issue at all.

Oz - I too will set often set my SBs to 0 when doing the hit and run strategy, but on a failed hit and run sometimes those guys steal the bag outright due to their speed. A guy like Wilmot or Bescher you can just set to 1 and it usually helps his percentage. A guy like Raines you can set to 5 because his percentage is so good.

That's a good point!