Posted by sergei91 on 6/10/2011 8:34:00 AM (view original):
Posted by rbedwell on 6/10/2011 2:14:00 AM (view original):
How much difference does catcher arm actually make? I'm trying to decide whether to resign a C whose arm has fellen from 61 to 57 in the past two seasons. He's still a fine hitter, but I wonder if he is now at the point where his lack of arm strength will be too costly.
you don't think 61 is a weak arm to begin with?
Sure, 61 was weak to begin with, but it was passable given the guy's good offense.
To address the larger question, last season I platooned the C in question with another, younger C. Here's the breakdown:
Catcher A: 81 arm strength, 874.2 innings, 68 SBA, 27 CS, (.08 SBA per inning)
Catcher B: 59 arm strength, 588.1 innings, 81 SBA, 14 CS. (.13 SBA per inning)
I did nothing to manipulate which teams they played against; it was strictly Catcher A against RSP, Catcher B against LSP.
My conclusion based on the above data is that catcher arm strength DOES seem to influence the number of SBA.