I've always been a defensive and pitch calling first, but a recent prospect has caught my eye...

He projects as an only average defender with a 77 PC, but his offensive stats are:
70 contact
100 power
87 vL
61 vR
98 eye

I feel like that more than makes up for any defensive runs he gives up right?

That looks to me like about .280/.380/.550, raise it by about 15 across the board if you rest him 40 games a year with a defensive catcher who can hit RHP and be his defensive replacement. If he can throw at all-- 60/60 or better-- he's well worth the lack of glove. If he can't throw a lick I'd DH him, and use him as a backup catcher every now and then.

A lot to like about that bat, I'd probably gamble on him and would take the .285 / 45+ HR. Definitely agreed about the DH with him as a backup if you can go that route, but even if with a 77 PC; I'd likely be fine with it. Sure it's on the lower end, and even if he allows a few passed balls; he'll more than make up for it at the plate.

Closest comp in Cobbfather is Bennie Serra, and he's a 65, 97, 81/70, 77.

This guy is a stud.. 77 PC is good enough..

Yeah, I'd take that guy in a heartbeat. I throw C's out there all the time with PC in the 30's and 40's. My C, DH, and RF spots are almost always fielded by catchers with huge bats since everyone else seems to pass them up for all those mediocre 3B's with high OVR but meh hitting ratings. I just don't see much value in defensive C's unless they've got a large bat to go with it.

I'm not gonna say Pitch Calling is overrated... But. Take a look at player generation. The game generates a True STUD C maybe once every 20 seasons. Look through any set of draft prospects or IFAs and you'll see Glove guys who can't hit (Defensive Catcher), Hitters whose PC maxes out in the 60s, and the occasional unicorn with super low Durability who can only play 50 games a season.
Bottom line, you have to compromise somewhere. Especially in the National League where you can't DH a bad C, and if you don't have a hitting shortstop then you've basically got three lineup Mendozas.

When I started, I was a big pitch calling guy. But there have been some threads in this forum that PC doesn't mean as much as you think to a team's ERA. I try to get higher PC guys in the minors for pitcher development, but not as much in the majors.

I'm not necessarily going to endorse the "PC is fake" theory, though I've definitely started guys with PC in the 40s or 50s (and sometimes the low 30s) before. But I've never considered 77 to be "too low" by any means, especially for a bat-first type. Generally my floor to consider a guy a bona fide catcher is around 60-65 PC--lower than that is a DH who can catch in a pinch.

the offensive projections immediately made me think of Player Profile: Eddie Jensen - Hardball Dynasty Baseball | WhatIfSports, though Jensen had about half the pitch calling rating. 2 MVPs later and a CERA of around 4.00 when he was on a team with an above average pitching staff - he may be my all-time favorite draft pick.

I am a firm believer that the PC rating is a small modifier on a pitcher's individual pitch ratings, but has little to no impact on anything else.

Posted by loudawg10 on 4/30/2024 5:25:00 PM (view original):
the offensive projections immediately made me think of Player Profile: Eddie Jensen - Hardball Dynasty Baseball | WhatIfSports, though Jensen had about half the pitch calling rating. 2 MVPs later and a CERA of around 4.00 when he was on a team with an above average pitching staff - he may be my all-time favorite draft pick.

I am a firm believer that the PC rating is a small modifier on a pitcher's individual pitch ratings, but has little to no impact on anything else.

I must have been doing something wrong, when I ran a high PC the first half of the season and a low PC but high defensive rating SS the second half; so same pitching staff, I saw a 1.50+ CERA difference, and obviously a lot more caught stealing - though crazy enough still just as many attempts against the shortstop. Difference was a 4 PC and a 77 PC. VERY SMALL SAMPLE SIZE says every 10 PC is about 0.25 CERA. Perhaps that shakes out to your comment if weighing options between a 75 and an 85 PC catcher. To put that into perspective, that's ~50 runs over 162 games = 4 runs every 12 games. .

Who would you want? Fella1, fella2, fella3, fella4, fella5, fella6. I think all of them are better than the C that you typically find in free agency, but like anything else, if you don't have one of these guys on your team or in your farm, you're stuck with what's out there in free agency. I know that PC matters, but I won't run a 600 OPS guy out there just to get those 80+ defensive ratings behind the plate.

I recently traded away an older Ditr C in a World. He was the type of C mentioned above -- could hit decently and had defensive ratings in the 75 to 93 range, but could only play 50 percentof the time.. I traded him at the beginning of the season and by the end of the season there was a noticeable difference in the overall performance of my pitching staff. All the other defensive players on the team remained the same, but I had a below defensive rec C behind the plate for the entire season.

I also did the opposite in a separate World. I had a big time hitting C that wasn't terrible defensively, but I put him at DH or RF for the season and used my C that was much better as a pitch caller and it made a significant difference in how well my pitcher's performed.

I did this because I noticed one of my competitors in a World consistently used defensive C's and he consistently has pitchers that have only average pitching ratings, but somehow perform better than I expect. We both run defense first teams at the SS, 2b, CF positions, but he always runs a good defensive C and he seems to always have better team pitching peripherals than my teams despite having inferior overall pitching ratings.

As mentioned above by many users, there is usually a trade off. You need to decide if you prefer higher performance in your lineup or on your staff. For me, id prefer higher performance on my staff during the season and higher performance in the lineup during the playoffs.