I'm curious to get everyone's thoughts on how important pitch calling is in this game.  Hardball Dynasty – Fantasy Baseball Sim Games - Player Profile: Raul Mercado is a stud hitter with great defensive attributes for a catcher except for pitch calling.  Thanks.

I'd try to use him as a DH, but if you are a NL team or already have a good DH, its worth the trade off of PC for his hitting skills

I am in the AL, but the only other catcher I have is Hardball Dynasty – Fantasy Baseball Sim Games - Player Profile: Alfonso Reynoso who obviously can't hit a lick.  I'm going to try an experiment and platoon them the next few weeks (Mercado is fatigued anyway so it will help him) and see what the team ERA is with each catcher respectively....I'll report back.

I don't think you are allowing yourself enough data to support any conclusions. FWIW, if those are my two options I play the first guy - and that's coming from someone who strongly prefers high PC catchers.

I would search the forumns to find one of the in depth discussions, but it bascially comes down to is the potential runs allowed on defense outweighed by the offensive production.

I'd say his stellar arm and offensive ratings make up for the middling PC.  It's not like he has a 20 PC.

Play him every day, use the other guy as your defensive replacement.

I play this guy every day...and his PC is just a bit than your guy's. His arm is somewhat worse....but how do you sit a .303-.382-.470 guy

ClaytonRollins

btw, I've looked at Rollins and his back-up guys (I've used two over his career).  Except for this year, I haven't seen much PC link to their cERA.  This year my backup gets the advantage of a great bullpen/

I platooned two guys last season...one who could hit with a PC of 62 and another weak hitter with a PC of 91.  They got similar amounts of playing time....the difference in cERA was negligable between the two PC's 62 and 91.  So this season the hitter plays more.  I try to find guys with PC over 90 but am not convinced yet it means anything once you get over 60.

I use this guy a C all season, I've never had an excellent PC cather so I dont know the difference. .. Josias Cedeno

Posted by willsauve on 12/12/2011 5:23:00 PM (view original):
I use this guy a C all season, I've never had an excellent PC cather so I dont know the difference. .. Josias Cedeno

Career cERA of 4.00.  Maybe that could be 3.65 if his PC was higher (and that is a pretty big difference in team ERA)....but would/does his offense offset it?  I don't know.

I do know that having good pitchers is the majority influence on Team ERA, with defense second and PC a distant third is what I have seen.

I have a belief and its more of a hope than a belief, and i don't have enough data to support it.  Here goes:

PC is more important for pitchers that have more pitches and a greater discrepency between the pitches. 

So, I have a pitcher Carlos Duran who has 3 great pitches and then a fourth that is bad.  The catcher has a choice of these four pitches and based on his PC he will call the right pitch.  Now, since Duran has a lot of great pitches, almost any catcher can catch him, and will get it right most of the time.

I have another pitcher  Mendy Seung he is a good pitcher but has 1 great pitch, 2 medium ones and a bad one.  I try to put my defensive catcher in for him, since picking the right pitch is more important for him.

My starting catcher  Pablo Torres has a 75 PC, so I am not afraid to have him start with any pitcher, but when I need to rest him, I put my  Rafael Ortiz  89 PC catcher in with one of my starters that get the most out of PC and when I am facing a right hander (both catchers splits are good for that).

I'm probably over thinking it.

Wow, great feedback from everyone!  I did a little experiment over the past week and so far Hardball Dynasty – Fantasy Baseball Sim Games - Player Profile: Alfonso Reynoso's cERA is 2.73 and Hardball Dynasty – Fantasy Baseball Sim Games - Player Profile: Raul Mercado's is 4.68.  I know that this is a VERY small sample size, but I think I will use Mercado as a DH the rest of the year and see how it plays out.  In those 7 games, however, we are 5-2 with a team ERA of 4.10 which is much lower than our 4.44 ERA on the season.  I'll report back to everyone in a few weeks.  Thanks again for all of your help and comments!  JJ

I kind of approach it the way tommy does.  I have a prime C with a not terrible PC that can contribute offensively, and when he needs to rest I put in a pure defensive catcher for a game or two.  They seem to be more easily available than a secondary catcher that bangs (who usually gets snatched up for either a DH role by another team or some team that disregards PC entirely) so that is what I fill the roster with.

Another approach would be to look for similar PC catchers (not terrible), one of whom hits RH pitching well and the other LH well.  Then just juggle them.

The happiest I have been is a team of mine with a catcher at slightly above average hitting ratings, a PC of 70 and, most importantly to me, durability of 98.  I just stick him at C and let him play every inning all season long and don't worry about it.  

If pc factors into which pitch, it would seem to suggest a pitcher with a number of bad pitches will get those pitches picked more often by the low PC pitcher...

We've been told that individual pitches are not thrown. 

As I understand it, all the pitchers pitches are combined into a weighted average, with P1 > P2 > P3 > P4 > P5. 

The catcher's PC rating supposedly impacts OAV, so I suspect that it is a modifier on the pitcher's splits.