Assessing Catchers

[kroney37]

I've been looking at how teams choose catchers, and I've been trying to figure out to to do my own assessment. I've come up with a few ways teams look for guys IRL, and I was wondering if people had suggestions.

I'm thinking teams would look at (and in no particular order)

Offense
Calling a good game
Arm (Especially throwing guys out/making them think twice about stealing)
Other defense - passed balls, errors, etc

Am I missing anything?

[Kelric]

IRL? No, that seems about right. Offense is the #1 priority for most franchises at the catcher position if a guy is available.

As for within OOTP, I look at Offense as #1 and defense as #1a if I have offense elsewhere on the diamond.

[Underlined.i]

I think you have your real life assessments in order. The only thing I would say is if a guy is mediocre at the plate and has a GREAT arm or something like that, he is probably more valuable than someone like Victor Martinez. In that situation you would want to make sure you have other RBI men on the team though. In the case of Victor Martinez or other exceptional hitting catchers, teams are likely to sacrifice some of that defense/arm skill to get good production at the plate.

I think the rating of any position depends on what else your team has. I.E. a great closer doesn't really matter if your bullpen can never take a game to him.

[StyxNCa]

Do real life teams actually look at defense at any position? That's news to me. Isn't today's baseball all about homeruns?

[zukes]

I had a catcher (31 years old) who was good defensively (80 arm, 75 defense) and he hit .265 with 32 HR and 90 RBI's. He had a talent hit and was batting .210 with 6HR and 25RBI about half way through the season, I traded his ass for a similar hitting and worse defensive guy since my original guy had the rating hit.

My new C is on 50 arm and 50 defense so I grabbed a FA C to back up who I'd be happy if he hit .200 but has 110 arm and 115 defense. He comes in in all close games in the 7th or 8th. This is working fine but if I ever get an injury to my starter, I will basically have Paul Bako as my starting catcher. My minor leagues are littered with journeymen in the upper leagues and future stars that are 3 years away.

[Burgandy]

Originally Posted by StyxNCa

Do real life teams actually loof at defense at any position? That's news to me. Isn't todays baseball all about homeruns?

In IRL, you do have some smart GM's come along and realize what attributes are being under-values... kind of like Billy Beane and "money-ball". His logic was that OBP was getting far less credit than it deserved, and it paid off. You had a small market team get by with good pitching and a team that could get on base. Then they also realized that some defensive gems like Mark Kotsay were being undervalued, and they won with them. It's about recognizing the best value at a position.

For catchers, I believe the best RL value is a guy that can both handle pitchers and shut down a running game. I'd prefer to have an Omar Vizquel or Ozzie Smith at short and a Brad Ausmus at catcher and keep my defensive liability slugger at first base or even hide him in the outfield. If you can get a Ryne Sandberg, Cal Ripken or Johnny Bench up the middle, you can't argue with that either. But to me, the last thing you want is a defensive liability up the middle. Sorry Piazza!

As a royals fan, I look at the last time they were competitive. They had Frank White and all his gold gloves at 2B, various light-hitting SS's that could play defense, and a really fast guy in CF (Wilson). Sundberg was also more of a defensive catcher, and it helped to have him back there with such a young pitching staff. Times have changed a lot since then, but those early-mid 80's Royals teams would still be competitive if they were in this era. They'd probably have a more physically fit Balboni, and Biancalana would have been a lot better on steroids!

[canadiancreed]

To me I usually value defense more in the centre of the field (2B, SS, CF) more then the corners, with the guys that have noodle arms stuck at 1B, LF, and 2B if they have good range and I cnat' find anyone better. If hitting suffers at these positions then so be it.

For catching in partuclar hitting is second to a good arm. If they have a moodle arm I look to see if I can train them at 1B

[kroney37]

Knowing that the game probably can't handle the emergence of Moneyball per se, (i.e. OBP. doesn't suddenly get valued by GMs by X year), is it safe to say that RL valuations for catchers has been steady over the past, say 30 years? I'm figuring that catchers may be more valued for power and OBP recently, but that's more indicative of the game as a whole and not catchers specifically.

Thanks to Elendil's outstanding work, I've been analyzing what makes a good catcher and looking at the various points to look at. For you stat-heads out there, a few questions:

1) Any idea how many runs an error is 'worth'? I found a figure of .61 but that's it.

2) Same question about passed balls - the same as a SBA or higher?

3) What's the difference between Catcher Ability and Fielding Rating at catcher?

[StyxNCa]

A catcher's arm is only as good as the pitchers will allow it to be (if the catcher is supposed to be strong armed). You can have the strongest throwing arm in the league as a catcher, but if your pitchers don't help by holding runners, it's hard to throw a runner out when he is 3/4 of the way to 2nd by the time you get the ball. Look at the '99 & '00 Orioles. They bought in Charles Johnson specifically for the purpose of being able to throw out runners since none of their other catchers could. Well gee, neither could Johnson, and to this day the Orioles haven't figured out that pitchers play a part in all that.

But then again, the Orioles haven't figured out much in recent years. Angelos, what a great owner.

That is one of the big things I look for in pitchers for my team...holding runners. I dont have one pitcher that is poor at it and it shows in the stats, not only in the % of runners thrown out, but also in the fact that we constantly lead the league by a huge margin on fewest SB attempts against us. I hate those stolen bases. Well, not if it's my offense doing it.

[kroney37]

My research so far has shown that catcher arm contributes to about 1/3 of the variability in stolen base percentage - I'll be looking at effect that pitchers have later on.

Interestingly, and I don't have the numbers in front of me right now, catcher arm has a stronger inverse correlation with stolen base attempts than the positive correlation betwen % thrown out and catcher arm.
In other words, a strong catcher arm contributes more to preventing stolen base attempts than to actually throwing them out.

[Zeyes]

Originally Posted by kroney37

In other words, a strong catcher arm contributes more to preventing stolen base attempts than to actually throwing them out.

That makes sense, I think...only the very best base-stealers will run on catchers with a strong arm, so percentage-wise those catchers' numbers will look worse than for guys who have the whole opposition running on them, but with total chances factored in the strong guys will obviously be much better.

There's a similar thing going (in MLB, that is) with noodle-armed outfielders often having a lot of outfield assists, simply because they're being tested a lot more often.

[RonCo]

Originally Posted by kroney37

In other words, a strong catcher arm contributes more to preventing stolen base attempts than to actually throwing them out.

This is correct per some other work I was doing.

[StyxNCa]

I think one of the benefits of a strong arm catcher is their ability to pick runners off base. I have had fairly weak armed catchers (in the 40's on a 1-100 scale) and I hardly ever saw them pick anyone off. I just recently acquired a catcher (81 arm) and he has picked off 2 runners in 15 games. I don't think any of my previous catchers picked off 2 their entire time with my team.

I do agree runners will tend to shy away from attempting to steal on a strong armed catcher, but I also believe the pitcher has to help on that. If a runner can get a huge lead off some pitcher who doesn't pay attention to him, then the risk of stealing is minimized, so why not try, even against the best catcher?

[kroney37]

I'd love it if the game tracked pickoffs beyond just in the game log/box scores... But it doesn't, which is unfortunate.

My very rough research has also suggested that

Lefties are MUCH more likely to have a good hold rating - which shouldn't be a surprise.

[RonCo]

Originally Posted by kroney37

Lefties are MUCH more likely to have a good hold rating - which shouldn't be a surprise.

This is correct.

[Curtis]

Originally Posted by Burgandy

But to me, the last thing you want is a defensive liability up the middle. Sorry Piazza!

The ONLY thing Piazza was bad at (at least during his Mets years) was throwing out runners. He was good at managing pitchers and very good at blocking the plate and preventing passed balls/wild pitches.

Of course, he was VERY bad at throwing out runners.

[kroney37]

There's a really interesting ESPN site about this subject:

http://espn.go.com/mlb/columns/bp/1202793.html