Great article on evaluating value of Catchers.
- Thread starter The Tariff King
- Start date
Southcack77
Well-known member
That did a pretty good job of outting everything in perspective.
nsacpi
Expects Yuge Games
There is a brief mention in the article of the mystery tool: game management.
Very difficult to quantify. I think one way to look at it is how two catchers handle the same staff. We've had that in recent years with Flowers and Suzuki and now Flowers and McCann.
I have a relatively strong prior regarding the game management skills of Flowers and McCann. I think one is significantly better. And I've checked on which one has produced better results in terms of runs scored against when he is catching.
Before revealing the results, I was wondering if others on the boards have a view on the game management skills of Flowers and McCann.
Very difficult to quantify. I think one way to look at it is how two catchers handle the same staff. We've had that in recent years with Flowers and Suzuki and now Flowers and McCann.
I have a relatively strong prior regarding the game management skills of Flowers and McCann. I think one is significantly better. And I've checked on which one has produced better results in terms of runs scored against when he is catching.
Before revealing the results, I was wondering if others on the boards have a view on the game management skills of Flowers and McCann.
Game management would be harder to assess. I'd think the best way might be just to get pitchers to score the catcher. If you try to use ERA, etc it would take a few years of data to really make it reliable. But I'd definitely guess pitchers trust McCann more than practically any catcher out there.
nsacpi
Expects Yuge Games
Catcher's ERA
2017
Suzuki 4.50
Flowers 4.87
2018
Suzuki 3.81
Flowers 3.80
Even though Flowers is a vastly superior pitch framer over Suzuki, he doesn't seem to have had an overall edge in run prevention. I didn't have a strong view on which one called a better game or was better at handling pitchers. But it seems that Kurt was doing something better to overcome the fact that Flowers had a big edge in framing.
2017
Suzuki 4.50
Flowers 4.87
2018
Suzuki 3.81
Flowers 3.80
Even though Flowers is a vastly superior pitch framer over Suzuki, he doesn't seem to have had an overall edge in run prevention. I didn't have a strong view on which one called a better game or was better at handling pitchers. But it seems that Kurt was doing something better to overcome the fact that Flowers had a big edge in framing.
nsacpi
Expects Yuge Games
Catcher's ERA
2019 (first half)
McCann 3.86
Flowers 4.60
Here I did have a strong view before looking at the data. Which was that McCann is better at game management. Maybe the best in the game. This difficult to quantify part of catching might be as important as framing. Flowers is the superior framer. But McCann seems to be doing better at game management. I plan to revisit this and look at the second half of the season results to see if they are similar to the first half.
2019 (first half)
McCann 3.86
Flowers 4.60
Here I did have a strong view before looking at the data. Which was that McCann is better at game management. Maybe the best in the game. This difficult to quantify part of catching might be as important as framing. Flowers is the superior framer. But McCann seems to be doing better at game management. I plan to revisit this and look at the second half of the season results to see if they are similar to the first half.
nsacpi
Expects Yuge Games
Catcher's ERA
2016
Flowers 4.57
Pierzynski 4.06
So maybe Flowers is bad at game management (which more than offsets his superiority as a pitch framer). He has been outperformed by 3 different catchers while splitting time about equally with them during the past four years. I don't believe the Braves have systematically assigned inferior pitchers for Flowers to catch during this period.
2016
Flowers 4.57
Pierzynski 4.06
So maybe Flowers is bad at game management (which more than offsets his superiority as a pitch framer). He has been outperformed by 3 different catchers while splitting time about equally with them during the past four years. I don't believe the Braves have systematically assigned inferior pitchers for Flowers to catch during this period.
nsacpi
Expects Yuge Games
Of course. The question is are the Braves assigning inferior pitchers to Flowers. I don't think they have been doing that. With McCann and AJ I think it has been largely a platoon based on the handedness of the opposing pitchers. I don't recall during the two Suzuki years that Kurt had certain pitchers and Flowers another group.
Southcack77
Well-known member
I still struggle internalizing how a net of 3.5+ pitches a game yields 3.5+ wins.
Jeff Mathis 1.81 net 14.1 runs
Salvador Perez -1.76 net -22.6 runs
Looking at your numbers for 2018:
Tyler Flowers .55 5.1 runs 3.81 ERA
Kurt Suzuki -1.49 -17.3 runs 3.80 ERA
It's just a lot easier to see the bats, I guess.
not really wanting to argue about this, I'll accept that numbers and conclude that MLB clubs basing decisions off of it is reasonable evidence that my lay impressions are not well tuned.
Ncaspi, can you give a comparison of CERA for both catchers for each individual starting pitcher for 2019?
I also think Eddie was one of the best pitch framers of his era. His set up and receive was very smooth even on days he wasn't catching Maddux.
Bako I think was ok as a receiver. Blanco I don't remember him being a great receiver but we all know JS got him for his arm to compensate for Maddux's slow delivery.
Southcack77
Well-known member
the impression I got from Maddux was that he just didn't like working with Javy much. I doubt Javy cost any of the other Hall of Famers much in the way of outcomes..
I do wonder whether if "game management" exists, it's mostly a function of interpersonal relationships between pitcher and catcher.
pitch selection certainly seems like a promising place to look. I'm sure there must be work on it. I would guess that having a genius for knowing just what your pitcher can throw in a given count that the hitter is likely to struggle with might be a real skill the same way as reading hands and tendencies in power might be. In part it's simply having done the work and knowing the situation cold. But perhaps there is a feel to it that some people are never going to have. Similar to the way some offensive coordinators can process internally what a defense is thinking.
Nerfherders
Well-known member
I kinda feel like we should be concentrating on hard hit rate and HR rate more than ERA for game management analysis. Shouldn't the catcher calling a superior game be tied to how often he keeps the hitter guessing and avoiding pitches over the plate?
nsacpi
Expects Yuge Games
It will take a little time. Let me give you this for now which will give you who caught our starters in each start (the letter after each date indicates the catcher). And you can take it from there:
Teheran starts: 3/28M, 4/3F, 4/8 (throw out, Alex Jackson), 4/14F, 4/20F, 4/25M, 4/30M, 5/5F, 5/10F, 5/16M, 5/21M, 5/26M, 6/2F, 6/8F, 6/13M, 6/18M, 6/24F, 6/29F
Fried: 4/4M, 4/9F, 4/16F, 4/21M, 4/26F, 5/1M, 5/7F, 5/12F, 5/17F, 5/22M, 5/28M, 6/4F, 6/9F, 6/14M, 6/19F, 6/25M, 6/30F
Soroka: 4/18F, 4/24M, 4/29F, 5/4M, 5/9M, 5/15F, 5/20F, 5/25F, 6/1F, 6/7M, 6/12F, 6/17M, 6/23M, 6/28M
Gausman: 4/5F, 4/11F, 4/17M, 4/23F, 4/28F, 5/3M, 5/6M, 5/11M, 5/18M, 5/23F, 5/29F, 6/5M, 6/10M
Folty: 4/27M, 5/2F, 5/8F, 5/14M, 5/19F, 5/24M, 5/31M, 6/6M, 6/11M, 6/16F, 6/22F
Keuchel: 6/21M, 6/26M
Wilson: 3/30F, 6/27F
nsacpi
Expects Yuge Games
ERA does converge with other measures of pitching effectiveness when you are looking at data over 4 seasons.
nsacpi
Expects Yuge Games
I'm sure a significant part of it is personality driven. A catcher is part shrink, part coach, part older brother to the pitcher. He's gotta know which guys respond to a pat on the back and which guys to cuss out, and when to do each.
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I like to do thought experiments on topics like these by thinking about the extremes.
What if every single stolen strike happened on a 3-2 count? That's 3 base runners turned into 3 outs every single game. Add that up over a 100+ games, and it would be a huge number of wins.
What if every single stolen strike happened on a 0-0 count? That's 3 times a 1-0 count became a 0-1 count. We know the OPS difference between a 1-0 and 0-1 count is about 100 points of OPS, and that pretty much holds true for all non 2 strike counts. Not as huge, but still significant.
I don't think it's hard at all to understand why a handful of stolen strikes per game is so valuable.