Is a catcher worth buying?

[Dogberry99]

While I do still value high catching ability ratings, I personally believe that it is not a particularly informative stat, that it is a composite of too many different abilities to provide a true indication of a catcher's fielding prowess beyond a highly generalized summary.

[zrog2000]

Originally Posted by Abnerdoubleday

I want to believe that defensive catchers make a difference, but I'm gettting less and less convinced that in PT catchers defensive ratings make any difference whatsoever. I see catchers with terrible defensive ratings putting up excellent ZR and CERA (with run-of-the-mill pitchers) and visa-versa. I'd like to be convinced I'm wrong, but I'm just not seeing it.

I've seen the opposite. My Sundberg's CERA is way lower than my Molina's CERA consistently.

I do wish that fielding stats would carry from year to year to prove that to you.

[Kushiel]

I will keep my Molina and Pudge. I have never won an individual batting award with my team but my pitchers win often. That is all the evidence that I need. Plus as an added bonus I slow down all running teams. We will throw you out over half the time.

[mcdog512]

Originally Posted by Kushiel

I will keep my Molina and Pudge. I have never won an individual batting award with my team but my pitchers win often. That is all the evidence that I need. Plus as an added bonus I slow down all running teams. We will throw you out over half the time.

I'm running Johnny Bench (92) full time who is solid defensively and has a good arm. Sanguillen is his backup, good bat average arm.

[Orcin]

Originally Posted by zrog2000

I've seen the opposite. My Sundberg's CERA is way lower than my Molina's CERA consistently.

I do wish that fielding stats would carry from year to year to prove that to you.

They do carry over. They are listed under career fielding stats.

From my Perfect League team:

Earl Battey, C-Ability=90, Innings=1993, CERA=4.61
T.McCarver C-Ability=80, Innings=1416, CERA=4.05

I don't see a correlation myself.

[Kushiel]

Yadier Molina: C-Ability=129, Innings=2191.1, CERA=3.28
Ivan Rodriguez- C-Ability=130, Innings=1966.2, CERA=3.38

[chazzycat]

The stats do carry over for individuals, but I don't think you can get the aggregate league-wide stats for previous years defensive stats. Or at least I couldn't figure out how...

[zrog2000]

Originally Posted by Kushiel

Yadier Molina: C-Ability=129, Innings=2191.1, CERA=3.28
Ivan Rodriguez- C-Ability=130, Innings=1966.2, CERA=3.38

Hard to compare two guys with almost identical ratings. Not surprisingly, their CERA is almost identical as well.

Would be more interesting to see two catchers with drastically different ratings and the same pitching staff and the same league level.

[zrog2000]

Originally Posted by chazzycat

The stats do carry over for individuals, but I don't think you can get the aggregate league-wide stats for previous years defensive stats. Or at least I couldn't figure out how...

That wouldn't be incredibly useful for CERA, since the pitchers are different on different teams.

[zrog2000]

I do have a question. Has anyone tried changing catchers every game so they are never tired to see if they hit better?

[Kushiel]

Originally Posted by zrog2000

Hard to compare two guys with almost identical ratings. Not surprisingly, their CERA is almost identical as well.

Would be more interesting to see two catchers with drastically different ratings and the same pitching staff and the same league level.

Ah, but it shows that the ratings work over the long haul and those 2 should show that the catcher matters as this thread is about.

[zrog2000]

Originally Posted by Orcin

They do carry over. They are listed under career fielding stats.

From my Perfect League team:

Earl Battey, C-Ability=90, Innings=1993, CERA=4.61
T.McCarver C-Ability=80, Innings=1416, CERA=4.05

I don't see a correlation myself.

From my Diamond League team:

Molina C Ability=86, Innings=2960, CERA=4.24
Sundberg C Ability=107, Innings=846, CERA=3.49

I have added a few pitchers in all those innings, but in Molina's last two seasons when he shared the job with Sundberg, his CERA was 4.26 and 3.60 vs 3.68 and 3.25 for Sundberg.

I definitely see the correlation. In fact, I'm going to change all of my catchers beside Sundberg right now because of how much of a correlation I'm seeing.

The difference between Gedman and Ramos on my perfect league team is severe for almost every season.

edit- just replaced Ramos with Santiago.

[Janks]

Diamond team 1
Johnny Bench 1970AS (92 OVR): C-Ability=108, Innings=362, CERA=3.67
Gabby Hartnett: C-Ability=80, Innings=227, CERA=4.60

Diamond team 2
Gary Carter 1986AS (74 OVR): C-Ability=89, Innings=271, CERA=3.54
Todd Hundley: C-Ability=82, Innings=323, CERA=4.81

[Matt Arnold]

I've got one team that shows a clear correlation (Carter around a 3.85 CERA, Ramos at 4) over about 4 seasons with both C together on the squad. Got another team with a reverse correlation (Ramos 3.75, Molina at 4.1) over about the same timeframe. Not sure why they show such differences - over that long I would expect things to smooth out, but this is also over multiple levels and multiple seasons, and with Molina (and Carter) being set as late game defensive subs, maybe that's throwing things off too since they'll decidedly not be in front of the same pitching staffs for all those innings.

[rudel.dietrich]

I have never seen one, but does PT have a good version of Mike Piazza?

Seems like you could also go the other way and say '**** defense, I want my catcher to create as many runs as possible'

[bobbycockstrong]

CERA probably isnt really the worlds great indicator because the pitchers performances are always variable. I think its tough to use it as a comparison unless your pitcher(s) pitched exactly the same every single game - which they never do, let alone when everyone making comparisons has different sets of pitchers.

If player A has the best rotation/bullpen in teh world and player B has the worst rotation/bullpen, but player A has an awful 45 rated catcher and player B has the best catcher ability in the game - its still possible (likely even, I would suspect) for catcher A to have a better catcher ERA. Its too variable to really matter.

Even if you had the same exact rotation/bullpen for 2 full seasons - and season 1 has catcher X and season 2 catcher Z, its still not a great comparison because the pitchers performances are going to be different regardless of catcher ability, not to mention your pitchers are going to face different lineups/opponents in seasons 1 and 2.

The point is, stats probably wont tell you too much here via catcher ERA.

[mcdog512]

Originally Posted by rudel.dietrich

I have never seen one, but does PT have a good version of Mike Piazza?

Seems like you could also go the other way and say '**** defense, I want my catcher to create as many runs as possible'

Defense and also handling pitchers, although I still don't know how much that's modeled in OOTP.

[zrog2000]

Originally Posted by rudel.dietrich

I have never seen one, but does PT have a good version of Mike Piazza?

Seems like you could also go the other way and say '**** defense, I want my catcher to create as many runs as possible'

Catchers always underperform offensively though because they're always battling fatigue.

[chazzycat]

Originally Posted by zrog2000

That wouldn't be incredibly useful for CERA, since the pitchers are different on different teams.

still would be on much firmer ground (statistically) than attempting to find correlation in just 2 data points...

[zrog2000]

Originally Posted by bobbycockstrong

CERA probably isnt really the worlds great indicator because the pitchers performances are always variable. I think its tough to use it as a comparison unless your pitcher(s) pitched exactly the same every single game - which they never do, let alone when everyone making comparisons has different sets of pitchers.

If player A has the best rotation/bullpen in teh world and player B has the worst rotation/bullpen, but player A has an awful 45 rated catcher and player B has the best catcher ability in the game - its still possible (likely even, I would suspect) for catcher A to have a better catcher ERA. Its too variable to really matter.

Even if you had the same exact rotation/bullpen for 2 full seasons - and season 1 has catcher X and season 2 catcher Z, its still not a great comparison because the pitchers performances are going to be different regardless of catcher ability, not to mention your pitchers are going to face different lineups/opponents in seasons 1 and 2.

The point is, stats probably wont tell you too much here via catcher ERA.

Over a large enough sample size using identical cards which do not change, you would definitely get your answer. You can't compare different teams in different parks in different leagues. But you can definitely do it for each team with the same pitchers, the same park and same league. It probably takes several seasons to be meaningful.