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Old 07-01-2019, 05:49 PM   #2
BirdWatcher
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Join Date: Mar 2018
Location: Denver, Colorado
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This is an intriguing idea to me.
I've always been fascinated when a great pitcher especially always pitches to a back-up catcher who becomes famous mostly for being the personal catcher to a HOF'er. (See Greg Maddux and Eddie Perez.)

Not sure how this would be incorporated into the game but I would certainly think it would have to involve a relationship building over time. And I would hope that personal catchers would tend to be players who didn't provide a great deal of value other than strong catching skills and a great rapport with one important starting pitcher. There should be some trade off in developing a personal catcher and inserting him into the lineup every 5th game or so. In other words, I wouldn't want a Mike Piazza-type to earn this distinction.
How do you balance out a small bump in performance then for an already great pitcher getting a boost from working with his personal catcher? I suppose the bump would have to be pretty subtle and if there are games where that catcher isn't available there should perhaps be a bit of a negative impact to the pitcher?

(I'm thinking primarily in terms of fictional play as that is my main bag. Even though I'm giving real-life examples. But also intriguing would be how to incorporate IRL examples of this, like Maddux/Perez.)
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