How important is catcher defense/game calling in PT 2.0?
 

I'm no expert, but it's hard to tell. I'm not seeing a big difference in CERA between a middling C and a great C on my current Diamond team, and I've seen many veteran players here infer that catcher defense is not all that important. Experiences/thoughts/hard data?

tbh I think the only thing that matters is the arm rating to throw out baserunners. I've had Lavalliere for 15+ seasons (can you believe that he never won a gold glove for me?) and before that I had a silver catcher (forgot his name but he won 2 gold gloves) with C ratings below 60. I didn't notice any difference in terms of ERA. Lavalliere threw out more baserunners but that's it.

I'd like to see some league-wide data on this as I think it's important. But that would be tough to do given that teams may have the same catcher, but will likely have totally different pitchers. Data presented on the forums seems to have mixed conclusions. None of the stats that the game tracks for catchers can really be used without some caveats.

Anyway, my approach is to go with mostly defensive catchers (80+ rating) because it makes sense to me logically. You won't find Smoky in my house.

Catcher ability gets you more strikeouts. If you want more Corner Painter achievements use a catcher with high catcher ability.

My personal guess is that catcher ability is implemented by sometimes changing a ball into a strike, so it plays into control a bit (pitch framing). This is consistent with what devs have said in the past. Maybe for pitchers with exceptionally low control it makes a difference, but in general I can't tell.

Smokey does bring in the accolades though, maybe more so than an other player.

Josh Gibson is calling, would you like to take the call?

:p

I've always been a little curious why ootp includes a stat like CERA in the first place.

Bill James says CERA doesn't appear to actually measure anything.

CERA may not measure anything in real baseball, but it is possible that this game is modeled so that it plays a role.

It is a descriptive statistic, it literally measures the ERA for a catcher. No more no less, you can infer from it whatever you want.

Does it have predictive value year after year? Maybe or maybe not. But it is an output not an input to the game engine.

One of those questions that makes your fingers itch for access to server data sets.

Could just cheat and look at the code, but where's the fun in that?

Or you could sim millions of games between identical teams, except that one team has the catcher ability at 100 and the other team has one at 50.
I think you can do it; I would do it, but I don't know how.

The simulation module loves Catcher Defense. Ability moreso than Arm.

I just looked at the 1997 Texas Rangers and simulated 10,000 games against the Milwaukee Brewers. Then I crippled Pudge's Ability/Arm and simulated 10,000 more.

It was actually kind of eerie, as Texas had a mirror image record:

Normal Pudge: 5093-4907
Crippled Pudge: 4907-5093

Other stats:

Normal Pudge: 4.72 ERA, 5.41 K/9, 2.56 BB/9, 3218 SB
Crippled Pudge: 4.89 ERA, 5.11 K/9, 2.75 BB/9, 5835 SB

But does the importance of Catcher Defense translate to Perfect Team? I dunno. A lot of teams do just fine with Smoky Burgess. But if they had a more defensive catcher would they do even better? I can't say for certain, even after testing. There's lots of quirks in Perfect Team that make it a different experience than regular OOTP.

yeah the sim module does love catcher defense, especially "catcher ability."

But there is little evidence of this translating to PT, in my opinion.

Do you know coball?

Not too long ago I was messing around with the 1996 Rangers trying to get a challenge pack. Though I forget the precise stat, Rusty Greer batted over .410.

I don't play the main game much, but anecdotal experiences such as that lead me start to questioning the actual veracity of the potential data sets.

Have DEVS actually ran test seasons with any variance of catchers & pitcher to say much into this Thread. I personally dont put any stock into ratings. As odd as it may seems I've had Mike Lavalliere out hit a Mike Piazza card year in & year out. Now look at Mike L hitting ability ratings vs Piazza hitting ability...It's crazily dont make sense. And defensive numbers not much difference to seem to matter. a couple of years Piazza had higher caught stealing %

Unless you are talking about the Piazza peak card, then Spanky outhitting him is not surprising. Against rhp Spanky has a 69 contact and a 73 avoid K, while, for example, an 87 Piazza has a 70/51. It´s a perfect example of how avoid Ks can affect batting average.
Now if Spanky out homered Piazza, that would be news.

As for CS%, it varies from year to year based on the competition in the league, pitcher hold ratings, and of course dumb luck.

I would also guess that the weaker runners won´t attempt to steal against strong-armed catchers as often as guys like Henderson, Raines, and so on, so that would skew the numbers as well. That is mere speculation mind you, I have no idea if the AI works in that way.