Starting the playoffs in one of my worlds so was scanning the rosters of potential opponents, and I noticed a team in my league who is using a very good defensive SS, as his catcher, with a 9 pitch calling. And a defensive ERA of 3.11 for the season. That shouldn’t be possible, just curious everyone else’s thoughts on this.

https://www.whatifsports.com/hbd/Pages/Popups/PlayerRatings.aspx?pid=9505481

There was a good thread on this, but I'm too lazy and it's too late to link.

The guy above will have little passed balls, little runners try to run on him and when they do, they'll likely get caught near 50 percent of the time. This helps tremendously. The team has another C that caught the other 400 innings and his CERA is only slightly worse. The team also has plus defense defenders at SS, 3b, 2B, CF where defense matters the most and has great pitchers pitching most of the innings. In a park like Seattle, these combinations add up and you can experiment with low PC C's. However, a hitters park, a team with poor defense or a team with poorly rated pitchers would not bode well with a low PC C.

Supposed to work in the short term; catch up with you in the long term.

Think of it this way, say you have in-game injuries and your backup outfielder has to catch, or a pitcher has to play 2B. It doesn't mean you automatically lose the game; any player can handle a random number of fielding chances. But you shouldn't get away with it for 30 or 40 games and keep winning.

Next you're talking only about Pitch Calling, the merits of which have been long debated. If we can argue the difference between 50 and 75 PC, then what's the practical effect between 25 and 50? Also as tlowster said, this player will blow away any other C in his other fielding skills.

Also as he said, in a pitcher's park with good pitching and fielding, you can mitigate the effects of low PC. I've used good hitting catchers for full seasons in Portland and Seattle with PCs in the low 40s with very little effect on CERA.

My play style is usually offense at the expense of defense, but I'm interested in having some fun experimenting with this guy - SS with a 45 PC

Posted by brianplath on 7/10/2021 2:14:00 PM (view original):
My play style is usually offense at the expense of defense, but I'm interested in having some fun experimenting with this guy - SS with a 45 PC

Sounds fun.

I've long thought PC is very very overrated.

https://www.whatifsports.com/forums/Posts.aspx?topicID=515383 might even be the link tlowster was referencing.