THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

There’s a piece in this month’s Baseball Digest in which one of the Atlanta catchers makes exactly this claim--being a catcher, with all of its physical rigors, has a negative effect on your hitting.  I remember seeing an interview with Joe Mauer a few years back, I think at BPro, where he makes the same claim. 

It’s something I’d like to see further research on.  For example, does the gap between catcher hitting and other position hitting get worse in the hotter months?  Does the gap get larger later in the game (as catchers get tired)?  This is on my list to look at.  But if someone wants to run with it before I am able to--which might be months/years from now--be my guest.  I just want to see the results.

I wonder how good of a hitter Mauer would be if he wasn’t catching.
-j

I wonder how good of a hitter Mauer would be if he wasn’t catching.

Obvious sample size issue apply, but in his career Mauer’s hit .321/.401/.472 as a C (2209 PA) and .336/.438/.495 as a DH (258 PA).  For some reason I thought he’d DH’d a lot more than that.

And DH’s don’t hit as well as they do when playing a position either. -j

Justin,

Dave Smith has written about how the gap between position players and catchers gets larger later in the game: http://www.retrosheet.org/Research/SmithD/batlearn.pdf

David,

Thanks for that!  I might have never seen it.  I’ll give it a read and probably will do a quick write-up on it, as it’s old enough that I think most of us will have never seen it.
-j

There is absolutely no doubt in my mind without seeing any research that catching has to take a toll on a player’s hitting both in the short and long runs.  I mean, he is pretty much the only player on the team who is going to be exhausted during and after a game on a hot day or even on a not so hot day. Plus you get beaten up with foul tips and runners crashing into you.  Not to mention crouching behind the plate for a couple of hours per game.  That HAS to take a large toll on a player.  It would definitely be interesting to see the nuances of that toll as others have stated above.

Given that SOMEONE has to catch, I don’t know that we can draw any conclusions about whether a good or bad hitter should catch.  What if a replacement level catcher AND an excellent hitter like Mauer both lose 30 points in OPS.  It would not make a difference who caught.  On the other hand, if you can keep Mauer in the game for 160 games a year and then simply rotate in replacement (or just worse hitting) catchers, that would make sense.  In other words since a catcher can only catch for 130 games a year or so, it makes sense not to have a very good hitter as a catcher.  At least not in the NL.  On the other other hand, if that good hitting catcher cannot play another position well…