Based on the records we do have, Ty Cobb was a wildly inefficient base stealer by today's standards. Must have been fun to watch though.
Kind of like watching Russell Westbrook play basketball.
When it doesn't work, it's ugly and chaotic and messy and problematic from an analytics standpoint. When it does work, it's beautiful and violent and effective and scary for their opponents.
Rickey has some fun early years where he got picked off and got caught a lot...because everybody in the ballpark knew he was going. He seemed to get more efficient as he got older and the teams he played on got better.
Ty Cobb, not so much. He ran less as he got older, but he was pretty much just "chaos" for his whole career.
