Catcher fatigue

[Number4]

Would it be possible to track catcher fatigue similar to pitcher fatigue? The catcher gets a stat for "pitches caught", and this determines his fatigue the same way "pitches thrown" determines pitcher fatigue. Then, if a game goes deep to extra innings our catcher will be fatigued as he should be, as well as if he's catching a lot of games without rest, but we could rest him by allowing him to DH or play first base if he's a good hitter instead of having him sit out entirely.

[RchW]

Catchers do get fatigued more quickly than other position players. I doubt you could go more than 8-9 games with no off day without a drop off. I give my catcher Saturdays or Sundays off in weeks with no off day.

Just my opinion of course but a "pitches caught"=fatigue model is simplistic. Catcher fatigue is more likely to be affected by the number of plays a catcher participates in. In that way a 12 inning 1-0 game may be far less fatiguing than a 9 inning 8-7 game where 6 runs involve some activity at HP and where more running and backing up 1B is done. A catcher having a 4 hit day with 3 runs scored is going to be more fatigued.

YMMV

[Number4]

Well, I would love to be able to track tiring plays, but I don't think that would be possible. I'd say "pitches caught" would be a nice approximation of the fatigue a players gets by catching duties, as the more you crouch behind the plate, the more tired you'd get.
I know that well-hitting catchers get "rest days" at 1B or DH if they are hitting well enough, for example Posey:
Buster Posey Statistics and History | Baseball-Reference.com
More or less every 5th game at 1B.

However I cannot "rest" a catcher if he's at 1B or DH, because that is still considered playing time. With my suggestion, you could actually give him off days behind the plate and still keep his bat in the lineup.

[thriller13]

Originally Posted by Number4

However I cannot "rest" a catcher if he's at 1B or DH, because that is still considered playing time.

Is this true? I usually create my leagues without the DH but in my current league I added the DH for a change and I am trying it out and frequently "rest" position players by letting them just DH. Am I not accomplishing anything?

[blasek0]

Originally Posted by thriller13

Is this true? I usually create my leagues without the DH but in my current league I added the DH for a change and I am trying it out and frequently "rest" position players by letting them just DH. Am I not accomplishing anything?

Players will get fatigued playing DH, but the rate is a lot, lot slower. In my 200 game season league, my everyday DH typically starts 198-199 games if I completely automate the season, all depends on how the off days worked out.

I'm not 100% sure how OOTP handles position players taking a day at DH, but I still think they need an actual day out of the lineup (or a day without a game at all) to recover fatigue, moving them to DH just slows the rate at which they get fatigued down. With proper rotation and planning of where the off days in the schedule fall, rotating players through DH should work, but it's not guaranteed to.

[RchW]

Originally Posted by Number4

Well, I would love to be able to track tiring plays, but I don't think that would be possible. I'd say "pitches caught" would be a nice approximation of the fatigue a players gets by catching duties, as the more you crouch behind the plate, the more tired you'd get.
I know that well-hitting catchers get "rest days" at 1B or DH if they are hitting well enough, for example Posey:
Buster Posey Statistics and History | Baseball-Reference.com
More or less every 5th game at 1B.

However I cannot "rest" a catcher if he's at 1B or DH, because that is still considered playing time. With my suggestion, you could actually give him off days behind the plate and still keep his bat in the lineup.

Not sure where you get that idea. I indicated above the catcher fatigue model is different so when a catcher plays 1B he won't get so tired. My experience is that the catcher fatigue model works well in OOTP. A pitches caught fatigue model just doesn't make sense to me. Keep in mind that Posey only played in 142 games all year so that means every 8 games he had a full day off and of that 8 games 1.5 per week or 3 every 16 games was at 1B. Every 3.24 games Posey had a day off or played 1B. That agrees quite well with my earlier post about resting good starting catchers once a week assuming they don't play another position.

[Number4]

Look at other catchers that are good with the bat, lets say Mauer and Martinez before their permanent moves to 1B/DH, they also had about 1/5 games at first and DH.
Victor Martinez Statistics and History | Baseball-Reference.com
Joe Mauer Statistics and History | Baseball-Reference.com

Now tell me, why do managers play those catchers there? Certainly not because they think the bat of the backup catcher is more valuable then the bat of the starting 1b/DH. They might want to keep the catchers bat in the lineup, and that is also why both Mauer and Martinez were converted permanently and I guess Posey will also follow at some point in the future.

However, with the fatigue model we have right now, this move would make no sense. Assuming you want to have your catcher catching as many games as possible, games at first or DH neither help nor remove you from that goal. So if you want to rest your catcher, you rest him, if you think he's more valuable at first/DH, you might as well play him there all the way.
But in real life, I can't imagine at least DHing doesn't rest a catcher.
You're crouching behind the plate for hours four days straight, on the fifth you spend most of your day in the dugout, getting out to swing the bat 5 times, run the bases maybe twice, and after this day he should be as tired as after the previous day? But if he would not swing the bat, if he would be sitting in the dugout all the way, he'd be fully rested?

That is not a good representation of catcher fatigue. I'm not saying that my model is perfect, there might be other ways. But if my catcher is tired from crouching behind the plate and I give him a day off catching duties, I want him more, not less rested.

[RchW]

Originally Posted by Number4

Look at other catchers that are good with the bat, lets say Mauer and Martinez before their permanent moves to 1B/DH, they also had about 1/5 games at first and DH.
Victor Martinez Statistics and History | Baseball-Reference.com
Joe Mauer Statistics and History | Baseball-Reference.com

Now tell me, why do managers play those catchers there? Certainly not because they think the bat of the backup catcher is more valuable then the bat of the starting 1b/DH. They might want to keep the catchers bat in the lineup, and that is also why both Mauer and Martinez were converted permanently and I guess Posey will also follow at some point in the future.

However, with the fatigue model we have right now, this move would make no sense. Assuming you want to have your catcher catching as many games as possible, games at first or DH neither help nor remove you from that goal. So if you want to rest your catcher, you rest him, if you think he's more valuable at first/DH, you might as well play him there all the way.
But in real life, I can't imagine at least DHing doesn't rest a catcher.
You're crouching behind the plate for hours four days straight, on the fifth you spend most of your day in the dugout, getting out to swing the bat 5 times, run the bases maybe twice, and after this day he should be as tired as after the previous day? But if he would not swing the bat, if he would be sitting in the dugout all the way, he'd be fully rested?

That is not a good representation of catcher fatigue. I'm not saying that my model is perfect, there might be other ways. But if my catcher is tired from crouching behind the plate and I give him a day off catching duties, I want him more, not less rested.

I've lost track of what you are arguing about. If you claim the catcher fatigue model is off or inadequate why not show some examples from an OOTP league. They should be easy to find.

[statfreak]

Originally Posted by Number4

But if my catcher is tired from crouching behind the plate and I give him a day off catching duties, I want him more, not less rested.

That is what currently happens in OOTP. The player will accumulate less fatigue playing 1B or DH than he would if you played him at catcher that game. Of course he'd recover more if he had the day off, but playing him at 1B or DH is a great alternative and allows him to recover more than if he was playing catcher.

The original proposal would be a huge step backward and not make a lot of sense when the current system is working in a realistic and logical fashion.

[frangipard]

Originally Posted by Number4

However, with the fatigue model we have right now, this move would make no sense. Assuming you want to have your catcher catching as many games as possible, games at first or DH neither help nor remove you from that goal. So if you want to rest your catcher, you rest him, if you think he's more valuable at first/DH, you might as well play him there all the way.

But in real life, I can't imagine at least DHing doesn't rest a catcher.

You're crouching behind the plate for hours four days straight, on the fifth you spend most of your day in the dugout, getting out to swing the bat 5 times, run the bases maybe twice, and after this day he should be as tired as after the previous day? But if he would not swing the bat, if he would be sitting in the dugout all the way, he'd be fully rested?

That is not a good representation of catcher fatigue. I'm not saying that my model is perfect, there might be other ways. But if my catcher is tired from crouching behind the plate and I give him a day off catching duties, I want him more, not less rested.

If I can take a guess here -- are you waiting until the guy shows up as "tired" on the roster, and then moving him to DH/1B, and expecting the tiredness to go back to 100% after a day off behind the plate?

If so, that's not going to work. You're letting him get beat up too much, and only giving him half-time work when he's well and truly exhausted and really needs a full day off. You need to give him a break after about 3-4 straight days behind the plate, no matter what his tiredness reading is. If you're truly trying to maximize his availability, and keep him in the lineup for 160 games, I think it'd be more like after 2-3 games.

On OOTP 14 I had a C/1B/DH (Jason Castro) that started ~145-150 games a year, with about 110 behind the plate. The system worked fine for me.

[Number4]

I wouldn't expect all fatigue to go away, however it does exactly nothing.

I waited until the stars aligned so I could set up an example without hurting my team too much - here it is:

This is my catcher. There are many like him, but this one is mine.



He hasn't got the greatest bat in the world, but we don't have good options against lefties, so as he needs rest after 4 games behind the plate and we're up against a lefty, I let him DH.

Well, he went 0-3, reached on an error in the 2nd and got stranded at first, I pinch-hit for him in the 8th, as I had better hitters on the bench against the righty reliever. How much fatigue was removed after most of the day off? Nothing.



I don't expect him to be fully rested after a partial off day. I however expect him to be more rested than "as fatigued as before." The same way if he would catch the 9th after I pinch-hit or -ran for my backup catcher or after a late injury.

Managing catcher fatigue is important, and I feel the game needs a better model here than having catchers recover fatigue only if they are not involved with the game whatsoever.

[gem]

Has anyone studied OOTP numbers to make sure:

Games played at catcher shorten playing careers and/or it causes such a sharp drop in defensive skill behind the plate that players must be moved to 1B/DH?

Reason I ask, I am playing a historical league right now and I have a 34 year old Bench that is still a 4 behind the dish and plays 132 games a year there.

Now I know OOTP doesn't know names and only numbers. But shouldn't catcher ability drop considerably after 10+ years of catcher duty? Maybe even faster? Does OOTP account for that because my (albeit limited) study suggests not.

[RchW]

Originally Posted by gem

Has anyone studied OOTP numbers to make sure:

Games played at catcher shorten playing careers and/or it causes such a sharp drop in defensive skill behind the plate that players must be moved to 1B/DH?

Reason I ask, I am playing a historical league right now and I have a 34 year old Bench that is still a 4 behind the dish and plays 132 games a year there.

Now I know OOTP doesn't know names and only numbers. But shouldn't catcher ability drop considerably after 10+ years of catcher duty? Maybe even faster? Does OOTP account for that because my (albeit limited) study suggests not.

My similarly flawed study shows fairly rapid drop off. The catcher model seems to be one of the better more robust ones in the game.

Edit; does your historical league have development/aging on? If not it isn't a good example for catcher aging.

[gem]

Yeah, I have development on.