tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23241716.post113138971818525340..comments2023-07-09T11:23:36.355-04:00Comments on On Baseball & The Reds: Player Value, Part 3c: Fielding - Catchersjinazhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07697776280178146413noreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23241716.post-46882908331935314112007-11-07T01:05:00.000-05:002007-11-07T01:05:00.000-05:00Heh, Ivan Rodriguez will keep winning that award f...Heh, Ivan Rodriguez will keep winning that award for as long as he continues to play. :) -jjinazhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07697776280178146413noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23241716.post-43656918160631032782007-11-06T21:01:00.000-05:002007-11-06T21:01:00.000-05:00Great Stuff. Too bad this doesn't get out before ...Great Stuff. Too bad this doesn't get out before the Gold Gloves are issued.ResearchEngineerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09168382159280829020noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23241716.post-68396566492728630392007-11-06T18:33:00.000-05:002007-11-06T18:33:00.000-05:00Funny thing... I was going to say something about ...Funny thing... I was going to say something about the pitchf/x data earlier. It'd be interesting to see the average speed per pitch on each steal attempt. For instance, against one catcher runners may guess right often and go on many curves or off speed stuff, while against another they may happen to go on mostly fastballs. You could probably make an adjustment like that, or do it in a more detailed approach (perhaps based on pitch speed, location,pitch type, as well as handedness as you suggest).<BR/><BR/><BR/>Anyway, great work as usual. I'm glad my comment in the other thread led you to that article, although it looks like you had things mostly finished anyway. I'm not sure about the difference in allowing stolen bases against, like what Chone did. I would think it's a real skill, yet I'm sure there are a lot of variables at play like you suggest (like there are with many of these things).<BR/><BR/>FWIW, on my other blog, I calculated that (just using the number in Chone's article) for Yadier Molina and Russ Martin and the difference was about 3 runs (going in Molina's favor).Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23241716.post-41458450715544839442007-11-06T17:45:00.000-05:002007-11-06T17:45:00.000-05:00Hi Rick,I actually think a bigger problem (and mor...Hi Rick,<BR/><BR/>I actually think a bigger problem (and more easily corrected problem) is the influence of the handedness of pitchers on a staff, as lefties as a whole hold runners much better than righties. David Gassko has apparently worked an adjustment like this into his work on catchers, but I haven't figured out an efficient way to do this. <BR/><BR/>Another big issue has to do with the type of pitches that a catcher is receiving, especially with knuckleballers, but also probably with junkballers vs. hard throwers. The pitchf/x data might help with that eventually.<BR/><BR/>Working around delivery time to the plate would seem to me to be among the hardest issues to deal with. That probably is best solved by comparing catchers within pitchers--how well does Josh Bard, for example, do on CS% with Maddux compared to other Maddux catchers. But that makes season estimates of performance pretty hard to do...<BR/>-jjinazhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07697776280178146413noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23241716.post-70733939922770435392007-11-06T17:34:00.000-05:002007-11-06T17:34:00.000-05:00Justin, any thoughts on adjusting the caught steal...Justin, any thoughts on adjusting the caught stealing numbers based on some sort of staff adjustment. I can't think of how you'd come to that number, but it seems to heavily penalize a catcher who catches a guy like Maddux who is slow to the plate and doesn't do much to hold runners.<BR/><BR/>Certainly the pitcher(s) have some real affect on CS%.RedsManRickhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12585911809169263164noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23241716.post-14126245140560607512007-11-06T13:07:00.000-05:002007-11-06T13:07:00.000-05:00Awesome, obviously.As for the catcher adjustment, ...Awesome, obviously.<BR/><BR/>As for the catcher adjustment, has anyone compared hitting by catchers to seasons when they didn't play catcher? Most of those would come as the catcher got older, but you could apply a generic aging curve. The sample size would be decent, given all the catchers who have become 3B/1B/DHs. Offensive positional adjustments aren't the best route, as we've discussed, but it's probably worth taking a look at for catchers.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23241716.post-76888239954047531462007-11-06T12:29:00.000-05:002007-11-06T12:29:00.000-05:00Yeah, that's a problem. Most analysts seem to agr...Yeah, that's a problem. Most analysts seem to agree that catching is the hardest job on the field, and that there's a very small pool of players that can fill that role adequately.<BR/><BR/>However, because it's such a unique job, and tends to have such unique players, catchers a) don't tend to move positions much, and b) don't tend to do particularly well when moved to another position (Craig Biggios and Brandon Inges aside). So you'll see C/1B's and C/3B's, but rarely are they particularly good when moved to those positions, which means that a position ranking based on changes in performance will rank catchers as a rather "easy" position defensively.<BR/><BR/>Given how terrible their hitting is, we either have to accept that catchers are a massively inferior position in terms of talent, or just try to ballpark our position adjustment. In Tom Tango's post on defensive spectrum, he put catchers at +10 runs/season "purely by intuition," which is twice the adjustment of the next toughest position (CF). That's what I'm using for the time being, as shaky as it is.<BR/><BR/>One thing we could perhaps try to do is look at offensive disparities, because presumably everyone who can play catcher is already playing catcher. And catchers, on average, hit 4.1 r/g, which is ~1 r/g below league average. Over a full season, that translates to ~15 runs per season less. So we could use that number as our adjustment, but it's three times the magnitude of the next largest adjustment...and I'm just not willing to go there yet.<BR/>-jjinazhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07697776280178146413noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23241716.post-60745518540253425162007-11-06T11:46:00.000-05:002007-11-06T11:46:00.000-05:00I was curious about one thing. In an earlier segme...I was curious about one thing. In an earlier segment of this series you ranked the various positions in the context of fielding. For example you indicated that CF was a +5, SS a +4 and so on. You didn't give a +/- for the catching position. Is there one? Maybe I missed it somewhere along the line. And, if there is one, what is it? Thanks.texasdavehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17215541522980498371noreply@blogger.com