Two Weeks of Stolen Bases

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RonCo
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Two Weeks of Stolen Bases

Post by RonCo » Mon Sep 06, 2021 2:05 pm

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If I’ve had fixations within a fixation when it comes to OOTP, it would be defense and the stolen base. You’ve seen lots of different posts here regarding those two things, and, well, here’s one more—this time expressly about steals.

I admit I like stolen bases—even though the Saber guys are wrongly attributed as saying they aren’t worth your time. They are. It’s just that to make them worth your time you have to make sure you’re succeeding at a reasonable rate, and you’d prefer your steals to come when they actually add to your chance of winning—specifically late in close games. At least that’s how I read the stolen tea leaves.

So during the times that I set my various team and player strategies I am working to do just that—try to limit times various players are running while letting my better base stealers go when it matters more.

Just as a refresher, I have in the past used my little game log script to look at when stolen bases are happening. I’m looking at it again.

For example, here is a chart of what inning and out situation is in existence when stolen bases have attempted in the first two weeks of 2048.


STOLEN BASE ATTEMPTS
Inning >1234567891011121314151617Total
None Out239161320201311512000001134
1 Out3712352328253625944030000241
2 Outs3321242517201512421111000177
93427561656564481877141001552
It seems that most occur with one out, followed by two outs, and then none. I also find it interesting the SBA tend to decline as the game goes along. I’m not sure why that is—are our GMs setting it that way, or is it in the nature of the game algorithms? One would expect batting orders to influence this, too. It’s of interest to me, for example that second inning steals are so rare. I suspect that has to do with the kinds of players who tend to be on base during that time of the game. I note, too, that two weeks of sample size is not huge.

Another interesting little tidbit—there have been 14 throwing errors on successful attempts of second base. That “added value” of the chance of gaining an extra base on an attempt is, to me, a hidden value of the steal—meaning I don’t thing things like WAR calculations include it. Not that it’s huge…but 14 is essentially one per day across the league.


Case Study: YS9 Deep Dive

Anyway, I got to looking at YS9 more closely, because, of course that’s what one does. We have attempted 10 steals on the year and been caught two of those times. That’s 80% success, a number that means we’re adding runs with out feet. A scan of Stats+ shows this to be true, as we sit at a wSB of .62, which is positive and puts us in the upper half of the league.

Still, I want to know more.

I want to know who is running, and when they are running. So I took the base output of my script, which provides all this data above, plus who the pitcher and catcher was, then added some more information—what count we ran on, what runners were on base, what the score was, and the various ratings of all the players involved. Then created the following table.

2048-YS9-Steals-2-wk.PNG

At this point I’ll look at each attempt and judge whether Alberto Sanchez—our manager—made a good call to send the guy.

STEALS OF SECOND BASE

We’ve tried to steal second 8 times and been thrown out twice. The first two of those attempts came on Opening Day, against Louisville.

1 – Fourth Inning, two outs, 0-0 count, tie score: Sawyer Slizz steals second base on pitcher Luis Gonzáles. Gonzáles does not hold runners particularly well, and though this is earlier than I like, the odds probably were pretty good. A bit later, Javier Rodríguez drove Slizz in, so this steal probably created an actual run. Assessment: Good Decision

2 – Fifth Inning, two outs, 0-0 count, tie score: Derek Cumming steals second, again on Gonzáles. Nothing happens as a result, as Elvan Mâsûki—the team’s #9 hitter—makes the third out later. The only real down side of this decision is that if Cumming got caught then Mâsûki would have led off the next inning. Still, odds were good, and the possibility of scoring a two-out run in a close game is not a bad deal. Assessment: Good Decision.

A day later, we’re back at it with Louisville.

3 - Tenth Inning, no outs, 0-0 count, tie score: Derek Cumming is caught stealing second base. I’m fine with the idea behind the decision. Except…I don’t like it happening with no outs and on the first pitch with Duggan at bat. Duggan is speedy. He’s not likely to hit into a double play. In addition, this one came against lefty pitcher Dave Thompson, who is quite hard for runners to read (Hold = 8). As it turns out, both Duggan and the subsequent batter made outs, so that actual impact of the Caught Stealing was to rob the team of an at-bat. Assessment: Acceptable Decision, but I’m calling the manager after the game to tell him I’d prefer to wait a batter or two.

At that point, Nashville comes into town. We take three more attempts in two different games.

4 - Fourth Inning, two outs, 0-0 count, tie score: Sawyer Slizz steals second on the battery of Kan and Domínguez—neither being particularly brilliant at controlling the running game. Essentially this is the same situation as in Slizz’s first steal, the only difference being that the event did not lead to a score. Still, it set us up for a score, and had good chances of success. Assessment: Good Decision.

5- Sixth Inning, two outs, 0-0 count, YS9 up 6-0: A couple innings later with the team well ahead and Dong-po Thum at bat, Derek Cumming decides to take off for second base and gets thrown out. There is so, so, so much wrong with this. First off, bonehead, we are ahead 6-0. No reason to take that chance. Second, Bron Cortez is on the mound, and Cortez is damned hard to steal against—so hard that even noodle-armed Domínguez can mange it. And, third, why are you taking the bat out of the hands of what is arguably one of the top two or four hitters in the league? Seriousl. Haruumpf. Assessment: Fine Cumming $100 in kangaroo court and (again) call the manager to see what the hell was going on.

6 – Eighth Inning, 1 out, 0-0 count, YS9 up 6-2: The next day Cumming does it again. This time it’s against Robinson Valdéz and Angel Rodríguez, a bit of a lesser pair, and this time he’s successful. At least there’s that. Still, I don’t like it. John Weber is at the plate, and Weber can run—hence running to avoid the DP isn’t a big need. You’re also up four runs. Why risk it? As the game flow … umm … flowed, it didn’t matter. Cumming was stranded anyway. Assessment: Bad Decision

No we hit the road and go to Chicago, where we will see only one attempt.

7 – Fifth Inning, 1 out, 1-0 count, tie game: Derek Cumming steals second. Subsequent events leave him stranded, so it doesn’t matter. But it was a close game and the 7 hold rating of pitcher José Arellano made it tempting enough. I note somewhat in passing that this is the first time we’ve attempted a steal of second base on a pitch that was not the first of the at-bat. The fifth inning is still al little earlier than I’d like the call to happen, but in the end I can dig it. Assessment: Good Decision.

Back home to Ohio to face Madison.

8 – Fourth Inning, two outs, 0-0 count. Down 3 runs to 2, Arvin Duggan takes advantage of Juan López’s 4 Hold rating to steal second. Nothing will come of it (John Weber will be retired to strand Duggan. But again, the general match-ups meant the odds were in our favor, and we needed another run. I can’t complain about it. Assessment: Good Decision

Overview of Attempted Steals of Second

Six Successes in eight attempts works well enough. That said, there are items to discuss.

First, my strategy settings are set to never steal in innings 1-6, regardless of score—so one of the first things I note is that (1) we have not attempted to steal in innings 1-3, but six of our attempts have happened in innings 4-6. This makes my spider sense tingle. I wonder if the game is actually using those inning 1-6 settings to mean 1-3. Dunno.

Second, I note that only my better runners are running—and their settings are set to adjust the team’s strategy rather than over-ride it. I’d read this to say perhaps that is why we’re stealing in the middle innings, but again, I dunno. Regardless, I do like that so far I’ve been able to limit who runs.

Third, as an oddity, I not that steals of second base seem to happen on the first pitch most of the time (or at least seven of eight in this very tiny sample size). This feels “wrong” to my view of how baseball works—in that a runner will often wait out a pitcher to see their move a time or two before running. Who am I to say, though.

STEALS OF THIRD BASE

I pulled out steals of third because it felt right. These are different beasts in a way, and I wanted to see if they had a different flavor in OOTP. YS9 has attempted to steal third base twice, and both times have been successful. Let’s look at them.

The first came against Madison:

1 – Sixth Inning, 0 Out, count 1-1, YS9 up 6-4: Derek Cumming steals third against Keith Howard and Angelo Dellucio, neither of whom are great against the running game. Cumming later scored, but probably would have even if he hadn’t stolen the base. Again, the sixth is a little earlier than I like given my settings, and with first base open I’d probably like to wait for two outs before risking things, but I can live with it. Assessment: Workable Decision

Then came Nashville.

2 – Seventh Inning, 1 out, 2-1 count, Nashville up 1-0: Dong-po Thum steals third off Chris Moran (who is just flat-out bad at holding runners). I like this decision a lot. We’re down a run, and the steal puts a runner at third with only one out. The matchup is about as good as you’ll ever get. As fate has it, the steal does not result in a run, but that’s life: Assessment: Good Decision


Overview of Attempted Steals of Third

First thing I notice is that unlike steals of second, the Nine’s attempts to pilfer third came on the third or fourth pitch of the inning. I note that both came on pretty favorable match-ups of runners/pitchers. I like, also, that they’ve come later in games.

Putting data from both steals of second and third together makes me generally happy with the decisions we’ve seen so far. Yeah, maybe run a little less in blowout games, but you gotta let the kids play, right?
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Re: Two Weeks of Stolen Bases

Post by mragland » Mon Sep 06, 2021 9:49 pm

I've used the 'Sabermetric' template for team strategy, which I'm not entirely happy with because it doesn't appear to account for leverage at all, but I have no desire to micromanage team strategy beyond that (though if somebody has a better strategy template I'm all ears), and it's so far resulted in an acceptable wSB. The usual small sample size caveats notwithstanding.
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