THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

Don’t tell that to this guy http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CCEQFjAA&url=http://www.halosheaven.com/2011/8/16/2367207/lyle-spencer-twitter-orgy-of-jeff-mathis-love-embarrasses-all-who&ei=U9TjTtXdB8jo0QHI4KSABg&usg=AFQjCNFDoMF7zpXXHO8gLWommj4cSel0LQ

I’m not on the love or hate bandwagon for Mathis. His offense is what it is.  We pretty much know what he brings to the table there.  Catcher defense is not yet quantified well, especially pitch calling, pitch framing, and whatever other psychological influence he has on his pitchers. It is unlikely that whatever positives that Mathis possesses in that regard elevates him to that of an above-average catcher overall, but it is possible. Since Mathis apparently is regarded as excellent in those regards by Scioscia and the rest of the Angels managment, we have to assume that he excels at those qualities. By how much in runs/wins? Who knows? 5 runs? 10 runs? 20 runs? I think all of those are possible. I think about the only things we can assume with any certainty is that Mathis is above average at those qualities, such that his value is not as negative as his offensive production suggests, and his defensive prowess does not elevate him to the level of an above-average catcher overall (otherwise he would be paid a lot more).

What would be nice would be for someone to take all of the bad hitting regular catchers in history and to do a with and without you for runs against, the assumption being that the only reason they are playing full-time is because of their defense and “pitcher” skills.

Catcher defense is not yet quantified well, especially pitch calling, pitch framing, and whatever other psychological influence he has on his pitchers.

Haven’t we quantified catcher defense at this point almost as well as or better than the defense of the other fielders?

I’ll grant you we don’t know much about pitch calling and other coaching type influences on the pitchers.

But pitch framing and pitch blocking we have a pretty good handle on. While we haven’t really cracked the valuation of the running game yet, I’d say we have as good a handle on that as we do on most player fielding measures. (In other words, we can measure the total thing fairly well, but we do don’t do a good job of separating out individual effects from team effects.)

Sean Smith did an excellent job of talking about and quantifying the defensive value of Mathis in his 2011 THT Annual article on catcher ERA.  The work that Max, Bojan, and I have done since then has only helped to increase our understanding.

Right, I agree that pitch framing has been as well-covered as anything else we have, like, for example, 1B scoops, if not better.

Running game, pitch blocking, etc, we’ve got a great handle on, and have for years.

Pitch calling, obviously, not.

Interesting, but I am doubtful that Abreu is the one losing the most at bats from the Pujols signing.  I think at bats will be lost from multiple players, yet to be determined.  Could see at bats lost from (Callaspo, Trumbo, Abreu, Wells, Hunter) among a few others.

Tango/4, you think we have a great handle on the running game?

I say we have as good a handle on it as we do for fielding in general mostly because I am pessimistic about how well we measure individual fielding in general.  For example, I don’t think we know very well how the interaction between infielders affects our measures of them, though it appears to be significant.

So maybe we can do WOWY or something like that to separate the effect of the pitchers and catchers on the running game.  But in practice, I don’t remember seeing anyone do that.  The effect of the pitcher is huge.  It’s like doing pitch framing without accounting for the pitcher.

Also, we have a very poor idea of how the hit-and-run effects the running game and whether strong-armed catchers prevent runners from taking the extra base because they aren’t running with the pitch or they are taking shorter leads.

I think we have an okay handle on the running game, but I see a ton of uncertainty and much room for improvement.  I’d say we have a better handle on pitch framing and pitch blocking than we do on the running game aspect of catcher defense.

So maybe we can do WOWY or something like that to separate the effect of the pitchers and catchers on the running game.  But in practice, I don’t remember seeing anyone do that.

That’s how I do WOWY, in both the THT Annual, and here:
http://www.tangotiger.net/catchers.html

A shortcut to the full WOWY for catcher SB/CS is just to split by pitcher handedness.  That’s how the ratings for BB-ref are done, and the difference is minimal.

Rally, not sure what you mean…

He means that doing a WOWY (identity of catcher-pitcher pair) adds little to our understanding of SB/CS skill of the catcher.  That just doing a pairing of catcher-pitchHand is sufficient.

You can similarly argue that to figure out the opportunities for a SS, you just need the batter’s hand and the GB/FB tendency of the pitcher.  That you don’t actually have to know the identity of the pitcher (or batter), nor do you even have to know the location of the batted ball.

Compare a catcher’s SB/CS with LHP to the league average for LHP.  Compare his SB/CS with RHP to the league average for RHP.

Much better than just looking at his overall SB/CS allowed, since pitching staffs vary quite a bit in how many innings are thrown by lefties.

Last year with LHP catchers threw out 31%, with RHP they threw out 26%.

That is what I thought you meant.  Doesn’t get us much closer to separating pitcher and catcher responsibility…