I built several teams for the hit-and-run and speed, selecting for contact rates above .900 and speed ratings of 70 and higher. I set them for "very aggressive" both for hit-and-run and for baserunning.

Most of them did well, but crapped out in the playoffs.

I just went through a sampling of games for a team that won 108 games, and found that the hit-and-run was actually in play only 2.15 times per game.

In a fourth of the games, the team had 0 hit-and-run plays.

The team OBP (counting errors by the defense) was .395 on hit-and-run plays, compared to its .390 OBP for the full season. (The league OBP was .379.)

I didn't count the number of times that the strategy appeared to avoid a DP or actually created a DP, but both instances occurred. In one instance, two runners pulled off a double steal.

In the end, I can't say that the hit-and-run is worth bothering with. The same team would have done as well with the average hit-and-run setting.

I did not, though, attempt to discover if the strategy is better in some parks than in others.

thanks for posting

I feel like the managers setting are pretty ineffective.  I already proved that the Double Switch did not work.  This is good info.  I also like to set that to Very Aggressive with high contact teams and don't really notice a difference.  I have never combed it like you did.  I think they need to look at those settings.

So, then I got to wondering what the "Average" setting for hit-and-run means. Well, it apparently means "Never." I picked a power-hitting team with the average setting and checked 20 games without finding a single instance of the hit-and-run play, either for my team or for any of its opponents (whose settings would be unknown to me).

In other words, if you want your team to hit-and-run a little, you have to set "Aggressive" and to do it just a little more then "Very Aggressive."

I can't imagine what "Rare" or "Infrequent" mean, and the "Never" setting must mean that your first born will die a painful, lingering death before Sparky will even think about the hit-and-run...

SHould should drop this in the Suggestions Thread (not that they check it anymore) and maybe send a ticket.  They responded to my ticket about Double Switches and copped to the ineffectiveness.

Not to be a naysayer here, but I think 2.15 hit-and-run attempts per game is actually at the very aggressive end of the MLB spectrum...  I don't have any actual numbers but I do watch quite a few games (as I'm sure many people do) and I would say that the average in the bigs is well under 1 attempt per game...  Probably well under 1 attempt for both teams combined.  So 2.15 is, by my completely rough guesstimate, at least twice and quite possibly 4-5 times or more greater than the MLB average.  Seems pretty "very aggressive" to me.  You were trying to run an offensive style well outside of the scope of anything we've seen in the past 90 years and WiS tamed it down to the far end of the spectrum of what we may have seen.  I know that might feel like it's taking a little bit of the "what if" out of things, but personally I'd prefer that they keep the game within the spectrum of things that appear believable to the casual observer.  Makes the "what ifs" for the other 23 teams in the league much more reasonable and helps keep the game fun for everybody...

IF you attempted the H and R more, you would become predictible and get thrown out. You can't go every time. It has to be a surprise somewhat.

Posted by dahsdebater on 1/31/2011 3:49:00 AM (view original):
Not to be a naysayer here, but I think 2.15 hit-and-run attempts per game is actually at the very aggressive end of the MLB spectrum...  I don't have any actual numbers but I do watch quite a few games (as I'm sure many people do) and I would say that the average in the bigs is well under 1 attempt per game...  Probably well under 1 attempt for both teams combined.  So 2.15 is, by my completely rough guesstimate, at least twice and quite possibly 4-5 times or more greater than the MLB average.  Seems pretty "very aggressive" to me.  You were trying to run an offensive style well outside of the scope of anything we've seen in the past 90 years and WiS tamed it down to the far end of the spectrum of what we may have seen.  I know that might feel like it's taking a little bit of the "what if" out of things, but personally I'd prefer that they keep the game within the spectrum of things that appear believable to the casual observer.  Makes the "what ifs" for the other 23 teams in the league much more reasonable and helps keep the game fun for everybody...

Baseball now and baseball 25 years ago are different animals.   The steroid age killed the H&R.   In the 1980's the H&R and the R&H were used far more frequently.   I think the H&R was on pretty much every time Keith Hernandez was up.

Also, if you read about baseball pre live ball (McGraw's Orioles and Ty Cobb's Tigers) the H&R seems to have been used far more frequently than 2 times a game.

Good points, all. At any rate, I've taken my teams off the aggressive hit-and-run settings, because it didn't seem to be helping -- whether it was once a game or three times a game. And, that's apparently in line with modern analysis showing that the strategy is generally counterproductive.

Note that I said "in the past 90 years."  I think 2.15 would likely be fairly average for the 19teens and perhaps even low before that.  Based entirely on anecdotal evidence of course.

Exactly what i was thinking; that twice a game might be closer to "Average" -- but the Average setting in WIS apparently is the same as never. It would make sense to me if Rare and Infrequent produced an HR play a few times a season, Average an average of once a game, Aggressive twice a game, and Very Aggressive close to 3 times a game.