Evaluating CatchersA revolutionary concept to evaluating catchers© Tangotiger
Note: I really have no idea if it's revolutionary. It's a catchy word, and it seems that headlines are a big deal to catch people's attention. Replace revolutionary with cool, and let's get on with it. Also keep in mind that all PAs exclude bunts and IBB.
Genesis
Craig Burley was writing about Charlie Hough and how much all his WP and PB must have cost his team, and how they would taint the way we view his catchers. He suggested that we should look at catchers totals only after removing knuckleballers. But, if we remove knuckleballers, why not other pitchers who are also wild, but for other reasons? So, that got me thinking.
Gary Carter and Steve Rogers were mates for 8104 PAs. During that time, there were 51 WP and 7 PB. Is that alot or a litte? Steve Rogers, throughout his entire career, whether with the Expos or not (though he was a lifetime member of the Expos), and whether Gary Carter was on the team or not (like 1985), had 3598 other PAs with someone other than Carter behind the plate.
With Rogers in these cases, there were 37 WP and 8 PB. Prorating these numbers up from 3598 PA to 8104 PA (by multiplying everything by 2.25), and we get 83 WP and 18 PB. That is, with Gary Carter behind the plate, and in 8104 PAs, Rogers had 51 WP and 7 PB. Without Carter, and in the same number of PAs, Rogers had 83 and 18. Therefore, we can say that Gary Carter was 32 WP and 11 PB better than the catchers that Steve Rogers had.
But, why stop there? Why not repeat the process with Charlie Lea, Ross Grimsley, Dwight Gooden, Bobby Ojeda, and.... heck, why not repeat the process with all 152 pitchers that Gary Carter has caught? Here we go:
Results of pitchers, with and without Gary Carter
In 72,385 PAs with Carter behind the plate, there were 464 WP and 85 PB. Looking at every single matchup as we did with Rogers, meaning that we looked at how other catchers caught those pitchers that Carter caught (and prorated to the same number of PAs), there were 578 WP and 161 PB. Carter was 114 WP and 76 PB better than the other catchers who caught his pitchers.
In case you missed it, this is the cool part...
Remember, we are not talking about Carter's backups, but ALL catchers who have ever caught any of his pitchers at any point in their careers.
All catchers, 1972-1992
Well, why stop there? Why not do this for all 430 catchers who caught between 1972 and 1992? And why stop with WP and PB? Why not include SB, CS, Pickoffs, Errors, and Balks?
Glad you asked.
(Interlude: I am forever grateful to the incredible efforts at Retrosheet. The work in this paper, and in most of my papers, would not have been possible without their work. And a big thanks to Ray Kerby for writing the best software anyone could ever hope for in parsing the Retrosheet data. )
Here is a table that goes through this entire process, and presents the "deltas" on a per season basis (about 148 games) for the 29 catchers with the most playing time. That last column is the linear weight run value of all those events.
And of course, we can do the same thing with pitchers too! Joe Niekro, Bobby Witt, Charlie Hough, and Tom Candiotti bring up the rear with 8 runs worse than the average pitcher their catchers faced.
Conclusion
I'm not including blocking the plate or framing the pitches, though that last part might be doable (though I'd have to look at the pitcher's age as well; I'm guessing that the above numbers aren't too dependent on the pitcher's age, which may or may not be a good guess.)
You may also be asking, "Well, I get it. You compared Carter to all other catchers who have ever caught his pitchers. But, were those catchers, when weighted by how often Carter caught those pitchers, league average catchers? Maybe some catchers are being compared against a different baseline?"
Well, that's a great question. So, I went back, and using the run values of all 430 catchers (that last column in the above chart), I redid the whole thing to figure out what the "strength of other catchers" each of these catchers was up against. For 28 of the 29 catchers, the "other catchers" was between -1 to +1. Benedict was compared to a +2 baseline. In essence, by doing this huge meshing, we are just about capturing a league average baseline.
Anyway, just treat this as another tool to use to evaluate your catchers. I don't think it's revolutionary, but it is kinda cool.
P.S.: After I did all this, I then looked for other articles that I remembered reading on catchers, namely by Chris Dial, Tom Ruane, and Keith Woolner. And, lo and behold, the process that I followed, albeit only for SB, was put forth by Tom Ruane at the end of his article. I'm glad that I tripped my way over to Tom Ruane's line of thinking, as that usually tells me that I'm doing something right.
Here are other articles that may interest readers on catcher evaluation.
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