Not sure if this has ever been posted before or not. I stumbled across this stat from Cindy Bristow. I found it somewhat surprising to say the least. Study done in 2008 Big 10 & SEC Conference 2179 Stolen Base Attempts 1745 Stolen Bases 80% Success Rate
I would argue that stolen base percentage is somewhat of a self-fulfilling prophecy. Coaches are only going to be willing with a certain level of failure rate. And so they are not going to send runners whose chance of success is less than that rate. 80% feels about right to me ... if I thought a stolen base only had 60-70% chance of succeeding, then I am probably not going to take that chance most of the time. Of course, it always depends on the situation. Do we know how many games those 1745 stolen bases came in and therefore how many per game? That would be an interesting statistic to know. My guess is JoeA will weigh in on this one ... he loves this kind of analysis/strategy!
2012 Stats Big 10 (649 games) - BIG TEN CONFERENCE Official Athletic Site - Softball: - Offense 615-776 79.3% (Purdue 97-117 82.9%) - Defense 492-626 78.6% (Wisconsin 23-37 62.2%) SEC (650 games) - 2012 Southeastern Conference Softball - Team Statistics: - Offense 815-1000 81.5% (Alabama 136-161 84.5%) - Defense 504-676 74.6% (Auburn 24-42 57.1%, Florida 24-41 58.5%) What were you surprised at - the quantity or the success rate? What did you expect it to be?
The best defensive ones are that low. I expect the average is higher because coaches at that level are making very educated decisions on when to run based on their runner's time compared to the time and accuracy of the opponent's pitcher and catcher combo.
SoCal Dad ... exactly ... note that on a per game basis, it's only about 1 stolen base per game per team. Coaches are taking calculated risks on when to steal ... the number could be 60%, if they decided they were willing to live with that risk.
