Not exactly Around Baseball today, but wondered if anyone else has any thoughts on the following look at baseball history from another discussion group regarding SB success rates and in articular Ty Cobb:
Cobb would have a huge statistical advantage in calculating his career SB success rate compared to more recent players because during several of the years Cobb played there were no records kept of being caught stealing. For years when BOTH figures were available his record was only 388 SB and 212 CS, which is a low enough rate that Cobb may well have actually been reducing his team's chance of scoring when he stole, not increasing the chance. Counter-intuitive, but true.
https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/c/cobbty01.shtmlStealing is not just a matter of getting a base closer to home and increasing the likelihood of scoring. It is also a matter of each time the runner is caught giving up one of the three precious outs the team at bat has each inning. Generally speaking it is accepted than a SB success rate below 75% is hurting a team at bat more than it is helping the team at bat.... and, for the years with both SB and CS stats, which include Cobb's seasons at ages 18-24, 26, and 30-32, you see he had a success rate of 64.6%.... which simply is NOT very good and is clearly below the break even point.
In fact, if you look at his four seasons at ages 25, 27, 28 and 29, years when he presumably would presumably have been in his prime on the basepaths and for which CS stats are available, you find he had 260 SB and 113 CS, or a success rate of 69.7%, better than his career as a whole, but STILL below the break even point.
Sorry Cobb fans, but Ty simply was not only not helping his team by stealing, and also giving up those outs, he was HURTING hiis team.
For the analysis of the break even point --
https://www.fangraphs.com/.../breaking-down-stolen-base.../ and
https://www.beyondtheboxscore.com/.../stolen-bases-lack...