[bobbycockstrong]

Originally Posted by Matt Arnold

Yeah, as much as having more data can help, maybe it muddies things too. Take my Ramos vs Molina team. I was looking at career numbers for them, but that's not fair to Molina, who was my starter in 2023 (103 GS for him vs 38 for Ramos) and put up a bad CERA (4.36). Taking 2024 to 2027, where each year Ramos starts around 113 games and Molina the other 49, a weighted sum of their CERA actually brings them to 3.97 vs 3.92, or virtually tied.

But even playing for the same team, there's differences. Molina comes in as a defensive sub ~40 times a season, so there's probably 60-100 innings (of his ~500) per year that he's now catching a different quality pitcher than starting the game. Given my team, I'd think that should help him, but maybe not. Also, the fact that this is over 4 seasons with a much changed rotation, and through 3 different league levels.

I'm not going to say it doesn't matter, because I've looked at the code and it does But how much it matters, that is very hard to quantify.

Well I think the "catcher ability" matters for sure, or else whats the point of having it? Is that what impacts the code? Ive always valued ability/arm for catchers. But yeah, the output of that ability is in my opinion too tough to measure because of all the aforementioned variables.