Also, I am not sure, but i would bet that there is a mechanic in place that lowers the amount of steal attempts a baserunner will try against an elite arm like Atchley. Like how elite an QB knew not to throw in the direction of a guy like Deion Sanders. Atchley had 167 steal attempts against him in 3500 innings whereas Douglas had 594 steal attempts against him in 5750 innings.

So, I would argue that a defensive catcher with an elite arm/elite arm accuracy is a more transparent way to understand what a defensive C gives you.

tlowster I actually agree with you 100% on the arm strength/accuracy argument. Looking at that, it's pretty easy to see a statistical difference in stolen bases attempted and also in CS%. The initial post was to argue that PC isn't as important as people make it out to be, but that arm strength/accuracy is underrated (hence why I sometimes play SS at C). You have my complete buy-in on the importance of those factors.

As for the WIS guidelines, I take them with a grain of salt based on all the other times I've seen them not reflect accurately what occurs. More than that, "Over the long haul, having a catcher with a low pitch calling rating is going to cost his staff .005 - .015 points in batting average allowed which is very significant" is pretty vague since it's not clear what low pitch calling entails. Is that the difference between a a 0 and 100 PC? Or between 78 and 82 (opposite sides of the WIS published "threshold")?

Posted by McGirkTheJer on 12/19/2020 2:55:00 PM (view original):
You have inspired me to try it out. I have a team that is rebuilding, but I am gunning for the leagues SB record (got to have something to play for in rebuild years), so I'm going to be alternating between these two guys at Catcher. Player Profile: Luis Ortiz - Hardball Dynasty Baseball | WhatIfSports
and Player Profile: Javier Duran - Hardball Dynasty Baseball | WhatIfSports

Ortiz has played 25 Games at C the team has allowed 109 R 208 Hits 89 Walks and 155 K's
Duran is up next...

McGirk, I'd definitely love to see how this ends up. 'Please do come back and let us know when you get results. If more people are seeing the same thing I am, that opens up some real possibilities behind the plate, especially if others keep such a high emphasis on PC.

Posted by krindor on 12/21/2020 12:08:00 PM (view original):

Posted by McGirkTheJer on 12/19/2020 2:55:00 PM (view original):
You have inspired me to try it out. I have a team that is rebuilding, but I am gunning for the leagues SB record (got to have something to play for in rebuild years), so I'm going to be alternating between these two guys at Catcher. Player Profile: Luis Ortiz - Hardball Dynasty Baseball | WhatIfSports
and Player Profile: Javier Duran - Hardball Dynasty Baseball | WhatIfSports

Ortiz has played 25 Games at C the team has allowed 109 R 208 Hits 89 Walks and 155 K's
Duran is up next...

McGirk, I'd definitely love to see how this ends up. 'Please do come back and let us know when you get results. If more people are seeing the same thing I am, that opens up some real possibilities behind the plate, especially if others keep such a high emphasis on PC.

I am also curious how this turns out. However, do you take a guy that is great at playing the infield and put him at C on a regular basis? I am not sure if that is an efficient thing to do from a $ perspective or a franchise roster building perspective. The C position is nice because you can pay him under $6MM during his prime. Maybe if you're deep at SS within your organization and you just can't find that C, it might work for a few seasons, but I don't think I will be changing my strategy by plugging a SS type player in at C.

I certainly appreciate this post though because it is has made me look closer at my C's defensive statistics. I have mostly signed a cheap 34 year old C that can hit, but now that I see a huge difference between the young Cs with cannon arms vs. the older Cs with puny arms, I may think twice.

25 Game update:

Player	R	Hits	Walks	K's
Luis Ortiz (Catcher)	109	208	89	155
Javier Duran (3B being used as Catcher)	110	241	83	170

I wish I would have been keeping track of HR's just to see if those were effected. So now I will go back to Luis Ortiz for another 25 games and see where that goes.

Incidentally, this speed team is an eye opener for me. This was supposed to be season 2 of a what to me seems like a 4 season rebuild instead we are 8 games over .500 and sitting on a wild card spot and on pace for 440 SB (which is still shy of the league record by about 20 I think)

******There are too many moving pieces to determine so I simply go with what the FAQ reads, Over the long haul, having a catcher with a low pitch calling rating is going to cost his staff .005 - .015 points in batting average allowed which is very significant. *****

.260 average over 600 at bats is 156 hits. .275 average over 600 at bats is 165 hits.
.015 points in batting average is only a difference of 9 hits over the course of an entire season. That is NOT very significant in my opinion. That said, if the extra 9 hits giving up by your SP in a season are mostly XBHs, I can see where that could lead to changing the outcome of a game now and then..

Posted by dyoungquist on 12/28/2020 11:24:00 PM (view original):
******There are too many moving pieces to determine so I simply go with what the FAQ reads, Over the long haul, having a catcher with a low pitch calling rating is going to cost his staff .005 - .015 points in batting average allowed which is very significant. *****

.260 average over 600 at bats is 156 hits. .275 average over 600 at bats is 165 hits.
.015 points in batting average is only a difference of 9 hits over the course of an entire season. That is NOT very significant in my opinion. That said, if the extra 9 hits giving up by your SP in a season are mostly XBHs, I can see where that could lead to changing the outcome of a game now and then..

I wonder if it's that simple though?

If 70 pitch calling is the benchmark, is a 40 pitch calling rating going to cost your pitching the .015 in BAA? If so, when you compare a 40 pitch calling catcher to a 90 pitch calling catcher, is it a difference of .025 BAA. Also, I would think BAA difference would be over approximately 6,200 plate appearances as opposed to just one batter's 600+ plate appearances.

I am still curious if a big arm SS/3b would be better than a75 pitch calling C with an arm rating and an arm accuracy rating of below 70. The 85/85 C that I have has a caught stealing rate of 50 percent over his career.

Posted by tlowster on 12/29/2020 4:38:00 PM (view original):

Posted by dyoungquist on 12/28/2020 11:24:00 PM (view original):
******There are too many moving pieces to determine so I simply go with what the FAQ reads, Over the long haul, having a catcher with a low pitch calling rating is going to cost his staff .005 - .015 points in batting average allowed which is very significant. *****

.260 average over 600 at bats is 156 hits. .275 average over 600 at bats is 165 hits.
.015 points in batting average is only a difference of 9 hits over the course of an entire season. That is NOT very significant in my opinion. That said, if the extra 9 hits giving up by your SP in a season are mostly XBHs, I can see where that could lead to changing the outcome of a game now and then..

I wonder if it's that simple though?

If 70 pitch calling is the benchmark, is a 40 pitch calling rating going to cost your pitching the .015 in BAA? If so, when you compare a 40 pitch calling catcher to a 90 pitch calling catcher, is it a difference of .025 BAA. Also, I would think BAA difference would be over approximately 6,200 plate appearances as opposed to just one batter's 600+ plate appearances.

I am still curious if a big arm SS/3b would be better than a75 pitch calling C with an arm rating and an arm accuracy rating of below 70. The 85/85 C that I have has a caught stealing rate of 50 percent over his career.

My recollection is those #'s -- 0.005-.015 and .01 ERA -- were for every 10 pts of PC. So the difference between a 70 PC and 40 PC would actually be 0.45, which does seem significant to me (and I may be simplifying and mixing the #'s; still I fall in the would rather have the 70 PC than not until I see more to the contrary). And really what is the difference between a bad hitting SS playing C and a bad hitting C playing C?

Posted by 2xRedRaider on 12/29/2020 4:56:00 PM (view original):

Posted by tlowster on 12/29/2020 4:38:00 PM (view original):

Posted by dyoungquist on 12/28/2020 11:24:00 PM (view original):
******There are too many moving pieces to determine so I simply go with what the FAQ reads, Over the long haul, having a catcher with a low pitch calling rating is going to cost his staff .005 - .015 points in batting average allowed which is very significant. *****

.260 average over 600 at bats is 156 hits. .275 average over 600 at bats is 165 hits.
.015 points in batting average is only a difference of 9 hits over the course of an entire season. That is NOT very significant in my opinion. That said, if the extra 9 hits giving up by your SP in a season are mostly XBHs, I can see where that could lead to changing the outcome of a game now and then..

I wonder if it's that simple though?

If 70 pitch calling is the benchmark, is a 40 pitch calling rating going to cost your pitching the .015 in BAA? If so, when you compare a 40 pitch calling catcher to a 90 pitch calling catcher, is it a difference of .025 BAA. Also, I would think BAA difference would be over approximately 6,200 plate appearances as opposed to just one batter's 600+ plate appearances.

I am still curious if a big arm SS/3b would be better than a75 pitch calling C with an arm rating and an arm accuracy rating of below 70. The 85/85 C that I have has a caught stealing rate of 50 percent over his career.

My recollection is those #'s -- 0.005-.015 and .01 ERA -- were for every 10 pts of PC. So the difference between a 70 PC and 40 PC would actually be 0.45, which does seem significant to me (and I may be simplifying and mixing the #'s; still I fall in the would rather have the 70 PC than not until I see more to the contrary). And really what is the difference between a bad hitting SS playing C and a bad hitting C playing C?

To answer your question regarding the difference between a bad hitting SS and a bad hitting C is probably about 2.5 million in salary during their post arb prime. I am just wondering if the 85 arm/85 arm accuracy defensive SS or 3b is transparently better at playing C than the 70 arm, 70 arm accuracy, 70 pitch calling defensive C. Turning baserunners into outs is huge and is easier to decipher from a performance perspective. I know the defensive C that the sim populates with 80+ defensive ratings across the board can get the job done defensively at C, but their hitting and durability are usually God awful. The 85 arm 85 arm accuracy infielder that the sim populates usually hit a bit better and can play in more games.

Ok bripat, I can see that. My big question is what a "low pitch calling rating is". From my own repeated measurements it seems like a difference of 10 PC corresponds to about 2.5 runs/season.

You're arguing that a bad PC could result in 10-30 runs per season. I'd agree with that, but only in the case that we're talking a PC difference of 40-100 points. It just doesn't seem to make that much difference until you get to huge amounts. I'll take a bat or a strong arm every time.

All other things being equal, I'd rather have the high PC, but for the cost (whether money, draft capital or trade pieces), it's just not worth it

That's fair - my point was more that those numbers (0.005-0.015 OAV) might well line up with the numbers I've seen.

Like you said, those numbers end up being 10-30 runs per season. And I could see that 100% being true for the difference between 100 PC catchers with 70 to 0 PC. My numbers would show a 70 PC catcher allowing an extra 8 runs and a 0 PC allowing an extra 25, which is pretty close to those numbers you calculated

That's fair - my point was more that those numbers (0.005-0.015 OAV) might well line up with the numbers I've seen.

Like you said, those numbers end up being 10-30 runs per season. And I could see that 100% being true for the difference between 100 PC catchers with 70 to 0 PC. My numbers would show a 70 PC catcher allowing an extra 8 runs and a 0 PC allowing an extra 25, which is pretty close to those numbers you calculated

Tiny sample size, but my defensive minded SS with a 4 PC has a 5.03 CERA in 143 Innings (18 games) compared to the 4.02 CERA with my 77 PC through 400 innings (46 starts - 8 off bench). We'll see how the next 250 innings work out.

Here is another update (although I kind of fell asleep at the wheel and let my player go 29 games instead of 25).

Player	Games Played	Runs	HIts	BB's	K's
Luis Ortiz	25	109	208	89	155
Javier Duran	25	110	241	83	170
Luis Ortiz	29	109	225	86	195

Update on my test. Crazy how different it is from McGirkTheJer's.
SS - PC 4 - 415 Innings, 0 passed balls, 2 pick offs, .464 CS%, 5.608 CERA
C - PC 77 - 419 Innings, 2 passed balls, 0 pick offs, .263 CS%, 4.038 CERA

My team did start the season hot, so I'm going to take another 150 innings for the C, we'll see if his CERA starts bumping up.