Is it just me or are catchers still crazy under-abled?

[Syd Thrift]

Maybe I'm reading too much into this but when the game came out this year I noticed that a *lot* of starting-level catchers were simply not very good hitting-wise, like "hitting under .200" levels of bad, perhaps even at "I'm going to convert my first baseman to catcher and live with the steals" levels of bad. Now, several iterations in I started a new league and am still noticing the same thing, to the point that 11 years in the 15th "best" hitting catcher of "all time" (in terms of career BA) has a sub-.200 average.

Is anyone else noticing this or do I just have fantastically bad luck with backstops?

[Orcin]

Is this a fictional league?

[Syd Thrift]

Yes, both the thing I started doing with v19 and that faster replay were fictional leagues, albeit based on historical situations (the first is set in 1946 and started in 1939, the second is currently in 1887 and started in 1876).

[koohead]

I actually have the opposite problem. After an initial 30 year sim to build up history, 3 of the top 5 batters (in terms of WAR and HOF standards) were catchers. There's always a catcher in the top 10 of batters every year. I know they are suppose to fatigue quicker than other position players, but it seems as if they have the same longevity as other positions, which doesn't really make sense.
But back to your point, no I'm definitely not seeing the lack of offensive talent

[RchW]

In my experience with several fictional MLB clone leagues set in the modern era there are more good to dominant offensive catchers than IRL. The bigger problem IMO is the survival of poor hit/poor field catchers through the minor leagues and sometimes into MLB. this defies logic (see my avatar) as all poor hit/poor field players (Q4) should be culled ruthlessly early on.

When I say "poor field" I mean below acceptable levels of defense to where they would have to be an above average hitter to justify their use.

[koohead]

Originally Posted by RchW

In my experience with several fictional MLB clone leagues set in the modern era there are more good to dominant offensive catchers than IRL. The bigger problem IMO is the survival of poor hit/poor field catchers through the minor leagues and sometimes into MLB. this defies logic (see my avatar) as all poor hit/poor field players (Q4) should be culled ruthlessly early on.

When I say "poor field" I mean below acceptable levels of defense to where they would have to be an above average hitter to justify their use.

Yeah, to me it doesn't seem as if the frequency of offensive dominant catchers should be as high as any other position. My assumption (could be completely off here) is the probability of a MVP or All-Star catcher is the same as an OF or 3B or 1B?? In theory that makes sense (esp after this years amateur draft!) but it doesn't pass the gut check. Maybe coming out of the draft it's all equal...just seems as if the wear and tear of the position should impact their ability to stay dominant over 10-15 years.

[Dyzalot]

Originally Posted by koohead

Yeah, to me it doesn't seem as if the frequency of offensive dominant catchers should be as high as any other position. My assumption (could be completely off here) is the probability of a MVP or All-Star catcher is the same as an OF or 3B or 1B?? In theory that makes sense (esp after this years amateur draft!) but it doesn't pass the gut check. Maybe coming out of the draft it's all equal...just seems as if the wear and tear of the position should impact their ability to stay dominant over 10-15 years.

Since catchers compete with catchers, the fact that catchers diminish in ability faster than outfielders shouldn't affect the ratio of all stars between catchers and outfielders.

[Cobby]

My experience was that in OOTP17 there seemed to be too many strong offensive catchers. In OOTP18 there seemed to be too few. I'm guessing that the paucity of good catchers in OOTP18 was a tweak that overcompensated for the plethora in OOTP17.

In OOTP18 I played a fictional league from 1871-2017, with a statistical environment that mimicked real-life baseball and ended up with exactly zero hall-of-fame catchers.

As for OOTP19, it seems about right so far to me. (right now I'm in 1916, having started in 1871 - so I've got a ways to go before I reach my final conclusion however)

[koohead]

Originally Posted by Dyzalot

Since catchers compete with catchers, the fact that catchers diminish in ability faster than outfielders shouldn't affect the ratio of all stars between catchers and outfielders.

Yeah sorry I get what you are saying...there will always be 4-6 all-star catchers every year. What I was trying to go for is that the 10 OF's who make it onto the All Star team would generally be All Stars regardless of what position they played (offensively speaking)...whereas catchers are only making the team because of the position they play. But for me, at least in my OOTP universe, the catchers that make it year in and year out and over 10-15 year careers are putting up numbers that would have them voted into the All-Star game even if they were OFs.

[pgjocki]

I went to Statcast on the MLB to look at 2018 catchers and here is a list of catchers batting over .250 with at least 350 at bats:

Posey, 398 AB and a .284 average, 5 HR
Realmuto, 393 AB an a .282 average, 16 HR (27 years old)
Contreras, 394 AB and a .264 average, 9 HR
Molina, 377 AB and a .273 average, 16 HR (36 years old)

I called out the ages of Molina and Realmuto to point out just how much a stud Molina is that he is doing this after 15k innings behind the plate.

But it does show that when I filter for OF's with 350 AB's I get 63 guys with an average greater than .250. So, you should expect (with this sample size only) a far greater number of OF's than C's batting for high average and high to moderate power.

[NoOne]

piazza piaza? whatever, and guys like pudge rodriguez were juiced out of their minds. if you look at catchers before them, you didn't see much. even the great ones are palty ops+ compared to peers of that time relative to the term "great".

just like ss... it has greater athletic and/or mental requirements than other positions. fewer people will have both the batting ability and the fielding ability. in ootp18 over 100 years i saw what i consider 2 great hitting catchers. ~80/100contact and almost 80/100power. if any catcher breached 70/80power, they were typically junky otherwise. i'm hoping that was bumped a bit, but not much... the middle is fine but maybe 3-4 'great' catchers in 100 years -- or whatever history dictates to be a good #.

[Dyzalot]

Just a few good hitting catchers off the top of my head that played prior to the steroid era.

Gary Carter, Johnny Bench, Ted Simmons, Darrel Porter, Thurman Munson, Carlton Fisk

[Syd Thrift]

Originally Posted by RchW

In my experience with several fictional MLB clone leagues set in the modern era there are more good to dominant offensive catchers than IRL. The bigger problem IMO is the survival of poor hit/poor field catchers through the minor leagues and sometimes into MLB. this defies logic (see my avatar) as all poor hit/poor field players (Q4) should be culled ruthlessly early on.

When I say "poor field" I mean below acceptable levels of defense to where they would have to be an above average hitter to justify their use.

I guess the things about catching are:

a. A lot of players just won't do it. I mean, according to the unwritten rules you can't catch if you're left-handed, period (which probably has more to do with the fact that a third of all pitchers are left-handed, but still), but beyond that, it seems to take a specific type to don the "tools of ignorance" and even at that, guys who have range and who teams want to see not break down early get moved out to the infield or outfield early on (examples: Craig Biggio, Manny Trillo).

b. A lot of "fielding ability" that keeps guys in the position doesn't seem to be related to the ability to throw runners out or prevent passed balls or whatever. Pitch framing was kind of a big thing when it was discovered by stat guys early-ish on but since that discovery teams closed that loophole fairly quickly and nowadays there's not a lot of difference between a good signal caller and a bad one.

All that is to say, you absolutely *can* have catchers in the major leagues who both can't hit and who suck at traditional fielding skills. The guy who immediately comes to mind is Rob Johnson, who played for the Mariners about a decade ago, hit .200ish with no power or patience, threw out 27% of attempted steals in his career and once led the league in passed balls in a season where he started *50* games. He played in the league for like 7 years in spite of literally being bad at everything you can measure in baseball.

I don't know, other people are saying that catchers are overpowered in their fictional leagues so maybe I just need to mentally recalibrate or something...

[Syd Thrift]

Originally Posted by Cobby

My experience was that in OOTP17 there seemed to be too many strong offensive catchers. In OOTP18 there seemed to be too few. I'm guessing that the paucity of good catchers in OOTP18 was a tweak that overcompensated for the plethora in OOTP17.

In OOTP18 I played a fictional league from 1871-2017, with a statistical environment that mimicked real-life baseball and ended up with exactly zero hall-of-fame catchers.

As for OOTP19, it seems about right so far to me. (right now I'm in 1916, having started in 1871 - so I've got a ways to go before I reach my final conclusion however)

So TBF though if you look at catchers in the Hall of Fame, I don't know that there's any of them who'd be there if they put up those numbers as, say, corner outfielders:

http://www.baseball-almanac.com/hof/hofstca.shtml

Yogi Berra and Johnny Bench have good-looking if "short" careers ("short" as in not really short in length so much as they both missed the equivalent of a couple seasons at least due to the rigors of catching) and Mickey Cochrane, of course, had one of the great (legit) short careers in baseball history, but otherwise, I mean, Roy Campanella's numbers for example look a little worse than Shawn Green's and nobody is calling for Shawn Green to be in the Hall of Fame.

I think the voting at this stage probably doesn't give enough weight to All-Star game appearances or, in the years before the AS game, Gold Glove / SIlver Slugger awards (which, I know, didn't exist before the AS game either but they're a good way to track this). In his book about the Hall, Bill James proposed a series of questions you ought to ask about whether a guy is HOF talent and one of the first ones was "was the player recognized as the best player at his position for a significant amount of time?". I think that to some degree the game's "voting" ought to weigh that kind of thing really, really heavily, even - especially - if it means adding catchers who hit like Larry Parrish into the Hall if they were widely recognized as being the best in the game for, say, 5 to 7 years.

[SirMichaelJordan]

Originally Posted by Syd Thrift

Maybe I'm reading too much into this but when the game came out this year I noticed that a *lot* of starting-level catchers were simply not very good hitting-wise, like "hitting under .200" levels of bad, perhaps even at "I'm going to convert my first baseman to catcher and live with the steals" levels of bad. Now, several iterations in I started a new league and am still noticing the same thing, to the point that 11 years in the 15th "best" hitting catcher of "all time" (in terms of career BA) has a sub-.200 average.



Is anyone else noticing this or do I just have fantastically bad luck with backstops?

Yes I am noticing this as well. I remember when catchers were too good at hitting in older versions so this adjustment was a breath of fresh air but I am starting to wonder if they were too nerfed. Half the catchers in the league are hitting sub .200 with the very best barely hitting .280 every year.

My league is MLB QS that’s over 100 years old.

It’s also important to point out that the poor hitting catchers in the league aren’t really great defensively.

FWIW, He's considered a top tier catcher in my current league. For context, the best hitter in my league is currently hitting .370



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[SirMichaelJordan]

Originally Posted by koohead

I actually have the opposite problem. After an initial 30 year sim to build up history, 3 of the top 5 batters (in terms of WAR and HOF standards) were catchers. There's always a catcher in the top 10 of batters every year. I know they are suppose to fatigue quicker than other position players, but it seems as if they have the same longevity as other positions, which doesn't really make sense.

But back to your point, no I'm definitely not seeing the lack of offensive talent

Was this a converted league?


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[SirMichaelJordan]

Have catchers been tweaked?

[wallewalls]

I've been able to find decent enough catchers in ootp 19 whereas in ootp 18, i think i just had good luck with my C, as I always seemed to have a great one through 40+ years. you have to damper your expectations when it comes to catchers though. if i have a guy with something like an 80 OPS+ or better and he plays good defense thats a win in my book, as long as thats what my expectations are. if im getting a catcher and expecting him to be one of my biggest offensive threats then my team building logic is flawed in the first place. unless you have a posey, realmuto or sanchez type of catcher, its just not gonna happen

[SidHickenbottom]

It varies. But it seems the typical fictional league is really thin at catcher.

[NoOne]

for the record, i had some bad luck the first 100 years in the post above. after that i saw 1 'great' catcher per 20-30 years or better.

compared to other positions, i drop required power to be 'great to near 70... if he can put up ~20hr/year that's a powerful catcher, and that's about the point required to consistently do so in my league. could be a bit lower with a higher BA etc... i let factors dictate. e.g. the current guy i found is only ~65-68/100 power, but he's keeping a ~300ba with nearly 20-hr and ~35to40-2b per 135gs. he even belted 29hr one year. i've had 2 in ~160+ years that had 80+power to go along with a high BA.