How important is defense at catcher?

[Stick50]

In the perfect league and trying to tinker/upgrade. Current catcher has a 69 defense, 65 ability, 62 arm.

If i get a catcher who is an 80 or 90 defense, or 80 or 90 ability, will my pitching staff improve? There arm i would imagine is mainly for throwing guys out.

[joehart]

I guess it all depends.
There is a correlation in ability to CERA (if I remember the graphs correctly that people posted in the forums).

But some teams prefer the offense (Cochrane/Berra/Bench/...) over defense (Molina, LaValliere).

Personally, I try to have both on my team. One that can backup the other or some great ones on the reserve for when I believe I need the exact opposite.
Some people dial up stealing if they see your team has terrible catchers.

Good luck in your adjustments...

[Stick50]

Originally Posted by joehart

I guess it all depends.
There is a correlation in ability to CERA (if I remember the graphs correctly that people posted in the forums).

But some teams prefer the offense (Cochrane/Berra/Bench/...) over defense (Molina, LaValliere).

Personally, I try to have both on my team. One that can backup the other or some great ones on the reserve for when I believe I need the exact opposite.
Some people dial up stealing if they see your team has terrible catchers.

Good luck in your adjustments...

Thanks for the feedback. What im specifically trying to figure out is how defense effects pitchers stats (whip, era, BABIP etc) or... as in.. Does a catch with a higher defensive rating "call a better game" which could lead to better pitcher stats (and justifying the catcher hitting .210 or something)

[matingly23]

Originally Posted by Stick50

Thanks for the feedback. What im specifically trying to figure out is how defense effects pitchers stats (whip, era, BABIP etc) or... as in.. Does a catch with a higher defensive rating "call a better game" which could lead to better pitcher stats (and justifying the catcher hitting .210 or something)

You can experiment with a couple of different ones to see if you get a noticeable difference in their CERA.

AFAIK, the catcher rating would mostly effect error rate, passed ball rate, and the ability to save some wild pitches, things like that. Catcher ability I think is more the game calling/pitch framing. But catcher rating may bleed in to those areas a little bit as well. Arm is for stolen base attempts, although I think the hold runner rating of the pitcher is also important for that.

I don't check it during the regular season, but for sure in the PS I look at the other team's catcher to see how he is at controlling the running game. So people may amp up running against you if your C's arm rating is low, and/or if your pitchers can't hold runners well.

[One Great Matrix]

I...guess the catcher's summary number is best to go by since there are a few catcher's (Bench, Campanella, Piazza, Rodriguez) that could/can really hit but defense alone usually suffices at C. If you're just looking for D, one of Posey's cards is pretty good, plus some not bad offense from him. If you can't afford the higher-rated Bench, Campanella, Piazzas, then you can get a different one.

There's probably a lot of catchers that could fit your ballclub if you really have a preference one way or another.... they're all major leaguers, with the exception of a few live cards, who are youngsters that may or may not pan out.

[<Pion>]

Originally Posted by Stick50

Thanks for the feedback. What im specifically trying to figure out is how defense effects pitchers stats (whip, era, BABIP etc) or... as in.. Does a catch with a higher defensive rating "call a better game" which could lead to better pitcher stats (and justifying the catcher hitting .210 or something)

It's a tough call because for everyone that would say yes it matters, there are those who think it doesn't. Also, it seems like what I've been seeing people talk about, that PT19 was thought to be more important for the catchers defense and PT20 less so.

That being said, most times I check, the defense seems to matter. For example, my best team has a platoon of Lavalliere and Bench, but I also have played Burgess. Catcher's ERA has been as follows:

Catcher/Defense/CERA in Perfect/CERA overall:
Burgess 43 4.95/4.27
Bench 116 3.56/3.87
Lava 115 3.67/3.67 (All his games at Perfect)

F2P Team:
Barnes 75 4.56
Lava 115 4.55

Just two examples, but on the one team it's been a huge difference. On the other, no difference at all. I can certainly understand why people take a different stance on the topic seeing results similar to these.

[chazzycat]

It's a pretty confusing topic for sure. I've come down on both sides of the debate at different times myself. Currently I'm thinking it does matter on the low end (avoid horrible "catcher ability" guys) but not as much on the high end. Guys we think of as "average" like a Buster Posey with his 86 catcher ability are just fine and dandy.

I'm only in my 4th season in perfect so it's not a ton of data, but I've consistently been running a LaValliere / Posey tandem the whole time. Posey's numbers are actually better:

Posey CERA 4.27, ZR +3.5
LaValliere CERA 4.48 ZR +1.0

Regarding the low end, I was curious about Smoky Burgess so cloned him and ran some simulations (20,000 games at a time). His defense cost a lot more runs than his offense contributed, vs. a LaValliere clone. That was even with maxed out gap factors to help Burgess' offensive profile as much as possible. So that is why I'm fairly confident it does matter a lot on the lower end.

[Stick50]

Originally Posted by <Pion>

For example, my best team has a platoon of Lavalliere and Bench, but I also have played Burgess. Catcher's ERA has been as follows:

Catcher/Defense/CERA in Perfect/CERA overall:
Burgess 43 4.95/4.27
Bench 116 3.56/3.87
Lava 115 3.67/3.67 (All his games at Perfect)

F2P Team:
Barnes 75 4.56
Lava 115 4.55

Does Lavalliere in perfect HIT .150? I dont mind sacrificing offense, but its to a point.

I currently have Berra (1956 i THINK... im at work) and Posey live... My pitchers are doing OK but not as good as i had hoped so i thought maybe bite get a great catcher if it meant... lowering an ERA by .25 or half a run a game...

[<Pion>]

Originally Posted by Stick50

Does Lavalliere in perfect HIT .150? I dont mind sacrificing offense, but its to a point.

I currently have Berra (1956 i THINK... im at work) and Posey live... My pitchers are doing OK but not as good as i had hoped so i thought maybe bite get a great catcher if it meant... lowering an ERA by .25 or half a run a game...

Lavalliere is platooning and hits against RHP. His average (at the Perfect level) is .279 but with only a .671 OPS. Bench (100) is hitting .226 against primarily LHP but with .754 OPS. I don't have the breakdown for their career, but when I was keeping track of it, Lavalliere had a higher OPS against RHP than Bench. This year is like most other years I've checked as Bench has a .599 OPS against RHP and Lavalliere is .706.

[<Pion>]

I plan on doing a more thorough test (unless someone beats me to it), but I ran some 20000 game simulations with both catchers having identical Catching Ability to see how much the ERA difference was. I left the Catcher's Arm the same in order to only see what the CABI ratings effect was on ERA. In preliminary testing, with a CABI of 1, the team ERA was 4.20. When CABI was 60, it was 3.98, and when CABI was 127 (the max I could get it to), the ERA was 3.84. So far it looks like the results (I've tested other ratings like 50 and 100) have resulted in a fairly even decrease in ERA as the CABI went up. I'd like to do the test with the CARM being identical all the way through for both catchers and the CABI going up in consistent increments (either 10 or 25) and see how it turns out.

[chazzycat]

I have done some tests along those lines, but the approach you outlined is more thorough. I'd be curious to see the results.

The numbers you mentioned do kind of support my theory that it matters more on the low end than the high end:

1-60 (59 points) improves ERA by .22 = .0037 points of ERA improvement per point of ability
60-127 (67 points) improves ERA by .14 = .0021 points of ERA improvement per point of ability.

That's not linear.

[Stick50]

Originally Posted by <Pion>

I plan on doing a more thorough test (unless someone beats me to it), but I ran some 20000 game simulations with both catchers having identical Catching Ability to see how much the ERA difference was. I left the Catcher's Arm the same in order to only see what the CABI ratings effect was on ERA. In preliminary testing, with a CABI of 1, the team ERA was 4.20. When CABI was 60, it was 3.98, and when CABI was 127 (the max I could get it to), the ERA was 3.84. So far it looks like the results (I've tested other ratings like 50 and 100) have resulted in a fairly even decrease in ERA as the CABI went up. I'd like to do the test with the CARM being identical all the way through for both catchers and the CABI going up in consistent increments (either 10 or 25) and see how it turns out.

So CABL (not rating) was the more telling rating?

[<Pion>]

Originally Posted by Stick50

So CABL (not rating) was the more telling rating?

The overall defensive rating of a catcher is determined based on both the CABI (Catcher's Ability), and CARM (Catcher's Arm). The overall defense would be a better number to look at if you want the overall effect to ERA since it would take into account both pitch framing (and other abilities in the CABI) and the ability to shut down the running game (based on strength of catcher's arm). I was trying to isolate the effect of just the catcher's ability rather than arm on the overall ERA to see how important pitch framing is in the game. Determining the effect over overall defense on ERA would be a little more complicated due to the same defensive rating being determined based on two numbers rather than one. So for example, a specific overall rating could be because a catcher has a great arm and average CABI, or it could be because they have great CABI and average arm. There is a formula that was once posted that showed the interaction of the two ratings in coming up with the overall rating.

In addition to studying the change in CABI when CARM stays the same and its effect on ERA, it would be interesting to do the opposite and see how much the running game gets shutdown when the CABI stays the same and the CARM is changed. The simulations would be complicated based on what team they face as a team that doesn't steal much would be affected less by the change in CARM than run with a bunch of base stealers.

[Stick50]

Originally Posted by <Pion>

, and when CABI was 127 (the max I could get it to), the ERA was 3.84.

Who had the 127? and is there a list of the top 10 or 20 in the game somewhere? You cant search the AH based on defense

[<Pion>]

Originally Posted by Stick50

Who had the 127? and is there a list of the top 10 or 20 in the game somewhere? You cant search the AH based on defense

It isn't a number that was in PT, but rather I used the commish mode in OOTP to edit a player's ratings to get them at the different values and used the simulator option to sim 20K games of the same two teams playing each other. The highest rating in PT for a catcher is 120 I believe (Tom Pagnozzi 63)

[matingly23]

Originally Posted by Stick50

Who had the 127? and is there a list of the top 10 or 20 in the game somewhere? You cant search the AH based on defense

You can at least see all the ratings for the catchers in your current league and can sort them, it's under League -> Player Search and Compare.

Pretty good way in general to see how different cards perform at different levels as you can see their career stats there as well.

[<Pion>]

Finished a study on Catcher's Ability ratings. As mentioned, I set the Arm Ratings in the middle (internal rating of 125 out of 250 translated to a CARM of 63) for both catchers, then I started the CABI at 1 and worked my way up at 10% increases up to 250 internal (which is a 127 CABI). I used the internal ratings which are on a 1 to 250 scale as it allowed me to more precisely increase by 10%. I simmed 100K games at each level. So below is the Percentile and the ERA followed by the decrease over the previous percentile ERA...

0 / 4.25
10 / 4.13 / 0.12
20 / 4.04 / 0.09
30 / 4.02 / 0.02
40 / 3.98 / 0.04
50 / 3.96 / 0.02
60 / 3.95 / 0.01
70 / 3.93 / 0.02
80 / 3.90 / 0.03
90 / 3.89 / 0.01
100 / 3.88 / 0.01

It definitely flattened out from the halfway point and on, but the biggest movement was at the beginning. From 30% to the end, it remained fairly consistent. That means from approx a CABI of 38 and above, the changes were fairly consistent at 0.01 to 0.02 except at 40 (CABI of 51) and 80 (CABI of 101) where there was a slight increase. In the end, the ERA for a catcher with a 51 CABI was only 0.06 higher than a CABI of 88. A Smokey Burgess type CABI would be 0.13 runs higher than a Perfect Bench CABI.

[pappyzan]

Originally Posted by <Pion>

Finished a study on Catcher's Ability ratings. As mentioned, I set the Arm Ratings in the middle (internal rating of 125 out of 250 translated to a CARM of 63) for both catchers, then I started the CABI at 1 and worked my way up at 10% increases up to 250 internal (which is a 127 CABI). I used the internal ratings which are on a 1 to 250 scale as it allowed me to more precisely increase by 10%. I simmed 100K games at each level. So below is the Percentile and the ERA followed by the decrease over the previous percentile ERA...

0 / 4.25
10 / 4.13 / 0.12
20 / 4.04 / 0.09
30 / 4.02 / 0.02
40 / 3.98 / 0.04
50 / 3.96 / 0.02
60 / 3.95 / 0.01
70 / 3.93 / 0.02
80 / 3.90 / 0.03
90 / 3.89 / 0.01
100 / 3.88 / 0.01

It definitely flattened out from the halfway point and on, but the biggest movement was at the beginning. From 30% to the end, it remained fairly consistent. That means from approx a CABI of 38 and above, the changes were fairly consistent at 0.01 to 0.02 except at 40 (CABI of 51) and 80 (CABI of 101) where there was a slight increase. In the end, the ERA for a catcher with a 51 CABI was only 0.06 higher than a CABI of 88. A Smokey Burgess type CABI would be 0.13 runs higher than a Perfect Bench CABI.

Great info, thanks Pion.

[Goliathus]

I thought catcher ability affects defensive plays as well? I meant those stats left off PB, from TC to ZR. I thought those stats are important part of fielding as well? Or the significance of those stats for a C is much lower than the in and outfielder so it's not worth the discussion? I have seen clear difference between a 100+ C and an average 50+ C on those numbers.

[<Pion>]

Originally Posted by Goliathus

I thought catcher ability affects defensive plays as well? I meant those stats left off PB, from TC to ZR. I thought those stats are important part of fielding as well? Or the significance of those stats for a C is much lower than the in and outfielder so it's not worth the discussion? I have seen clear difference between a 100+ C and an average 50+ C on those numbers.

They might be interesting to know, but there are two reasons I used Team ERA. First, what I was trying to find was the bottom line as to how much CABI affects results, runs scored (wish I had used runs scored instead of ERA, but that's another point). Second, I don't believe you can get those other stats when fast simulating games in OOTP. But I'm new to fast simulating, so I could be wrong.