Catcher question

[Jasper70]

Can a really top flight catcher impact a pitching staff in OOTP?

[Rondor]

Originally Posted by Jasper70

Can a really top flight catcher impact a pitching staff in OOTP?

I watched an entire YouTube video from SgtMushroom claiming that it absolutely did based on data in an earlier version of OOTP. That was before they added blocking and framing to the defensive stats for a catcher. He ran 1000's of sims.

Framing would be the statistic it seems for '25 unless it has no meaning at all.

[md40022]

Originally Posted by Jasper70

Can a really top flight catcher impact a pitching staff in OOTP?

I've always operated under the impression that a highly rated defensive catcher would help a pitching staff. Specifically the arm rating to help limit the running game and the 'catcher ability' rating kind of being his rating when it came to overall defense, game calling, framing, pitch receiving, etc.

I've never been someone who runs sims just for testing purposes, but in my many years of playing the game yes this seems to hold true in my experience.

they won't make bad pitchers magically become good pitchers, but over the course of 162 your staff ERA should benefit

[Pdubya64]

Originally Posted by Jasper70

Can a really top flight catcher impact a pitching staff in OOTP?

Although this is one of those questions we can't know due to it being "behind the curtain" of the OOTP game engine, I do believe that it has a reasonably good impact on your pitching staff, perhaps in a number of ways.
Honestly to me it's fun to play as if it IS important, so I choose to do so. FWIW, I tend to be a more Defense-oriented player if I have the choice, so I am biased towards good catchers.