I'm not sure you are getting what I'm saying. It doesn't matter who is behind Nate, that's irrelevant to my point. If he gets caught stealing, that lowers the team's effective OBP. But if he successfully steals a base, it raises the team's effective slugging. This team doesn't need to be in the business of gambling OBP to try and get more SLG. We've got the SLG covered.
Aside from specific situations where the benefit of that extra base is greater (tight game) and/or the cost of losing that baserunner is lower (2 outs / 2 strikes), I think it's a smart decision by Buck and Nate to be running less. I wouldn't be having anybody other than Nate be stealing bases regularly at this point, since he's the only guy on the team that's even decent at it.
I guess we just have a different opinion on the matter. I do want to say I enjoy reading your thoughts on the subject and I get what you're saying. I just don't think it's a coincidence that once he stopped running Machado's numbers went down and Machado has hit a lot better with a man on 2nd opposed to a man on 1st.
