How important is pitch calling? Topic

Right, but my point is that almost no one plays an offense-first catcher every inning, they use a high PC backup for rest and defensive replacements, meaning not ever available defensive inning will be played at a deficit.

Also, my 33 PC catcher and my 85 PC backup have not produced as marked a gap in ERA as your numbers suppose.
7/26/2012 2:31 PM
Right, and back to my sample size;

I do play 2. Pitchers parks. Above avg D. I'm seeing .5

Hard to put PC in a vacuum though. Deano and I had this go around in circles too.
7/26/2012 2:35 PM
I am having a hard time understanding you:

You have two high PC catchers, let's just say both 85. I have one low PC catcher and one high PC catcher, let's say 85 for him. You get a defensive bump in every inning my low PC catcher plays defense, but not in the remaining. How again do you get to 162 games' worth of a PC bump (because, to refresh, assuming a difference of -0.250 ERA, you need a full 162 games to get to 41 runs)?
7/26/2012 2:57 PM
To find a middle ground of what I want to give away in terms of strategic advantage (since I have no advantage anywhere else in this game, as you can see) vs giving enough away that you actually think I have a brain.....

Find examples of 85ish PC in a certain pitcher's park, find examples of 50ish pitch calling in the same certain parks (enough that the sample size is large enough, and eliminate the "85ish sub" factor), take the difference in catcher ERA.

The noise is; differences in away parks, differences in pitching quality (especially control), differences in defensive quality. Opposition batting differences are not significant when you have 15 other teams in the same league; it all seems to be close league to league when to take the sum of all competition.
7/26/2012 3:12 PM
Or....

Season 22 team ERA, Ks count and number of pitches per game for my team in Coop. 2nd in ERA, last in Ks, first in least # of pitches per game. That's reduced OAV in a pitchers park with good D at work, and allows you to build a scenario where you still have acceptable offense (hopefully) and almost never leave yourself without the high PC catcher.
7/26/2012 3:20 PM
I think the discussion is moving in a new direction, but I get what you are saying: These are all reasons I have typically used a high PC catcher, with mid-60s as my floor, but I am finding that my pitching has remained effective and efficient n New Orleans (not a pitcher's park) even with my 33 PC guy. This could no doubt be improved with a higher PC catcher, but looking at results over the past three seasons I am finding that the degradation in pitching is much less than I expected.
7/26/2012 3:37 PM
Logically, the gap should widen, not narrow, in a hitters park.

Alas, try finding anyone playing an 85ish enough innings over enough seasons (even a collection of anyones) in a hitters park to do any sort of analysis on it.
7/26/2012 3:41 PM
Posted by tedwmoore on 7/26/2012 2:57:00 PM (view original):
I am having a hard time understanding you:

You have two high PC catchers, let's just say both 85. I have one low PC catcher and one high PC catcher, let's say 85 for him. You get a defensive bump in every inning my low PC catcher plays defense, but not in the remaining. How again do you get to 162 games' worth of a PC bump (because, to refresh, assuming a difference of -0.250 ERA, you need a full 162 games to get to 41 runs)?
But, because of the subsititution of the high D C, you're not getting full benefit of the hitting C, right?

So, really, you need to pro-rate the RC27 to the full 162 and the runs saved(0.25 ERA) to the full 162 to get the "real" number, right?

7/26/2012 3:42 PM
Using catcher ERA eliminates the need to get the "real" ERA.

Yes to the RC27...although, when I think that I'm saving 81 runs between 85 PC and 50 PC, and I'm not willing to spend what it would take to get a hitting 60-70 PC (either IFA or FA), it's moot for my purposes.
7/26/2012 4:01 PM
Well, I guess you're right about CERA.   Just multiply by 162 and you have a runs number.    Duh.

I think I mentioned earlier that a similar number of runs saved+runs created could be slightly less than runs created for the "hitting" catcher simply due to the stress on a pitching staff.   It's all a +/- proposition but, if I'm giving up more runs, I'm throwing more pitches.   And pitches don't grow on trees.

7/26/2012 4:19 PM
Yea. Possible. I'm as simple as "my catcher has a RC of 30. Is there one with an RC of 111? No? OK"
7/26/2012 4:23 PM
Mike, right, the RC needs to acknowledge the lesser offensive production.

Death, Torres will almost certainly amass 111 RC this season. Also, I have used high PC catchers in hitters parks

But through all of this I think what my 33 PC catcher is causing me to suspect is that these numbers are not nearly so precise as maybe we are discussing, and that the PC effect, though substantial, is not (a) linear, or (b) replicable from season to season. Torres should be a mess defensively and my staff's ERA should be at least a half run higher with him behind the plate as with Barker, but that has not proven true. Nor has my pitching staff been much less efficient with Torres as catcher, ranking top 10 in both walks allowed and strikeouts, while also being around average n NPPA. cERA is a bit dicey as stats go...what I guess I am getting at is that the PC rating might not be so universally predictive as I always thought it to be. Of course this is hard to verify: for every inning Torres catches, Barker is on the bench, and sample size is therefore a concern (as with RP ERA). Also, though my staff has remained similar for the past six seasons -- during which I moved from a very high PC catcher to Torres -- it has also been upgraded significantly in the bullpen and with one big addition to the rotation, so not all the moving parts are the same (and of course pitchers can vary by not an insignificant margin from year to year). That said, the defense has remained about the same in quality behind the pitching staff, and yet for those pitchers who have been on my team for tis experiment, I have not seen a jump in ERA for them, nor have I seen any evidence that they are throwing more pitches, allowing more walks, or giving up more home runs.
7/26/2012 5:34 PM
I will never try to disuade you on that. As I said, I won't be shaken on this belief, but I'm always reviewing it.

Torres; probably 111RC easy. Also probably 20+M as in IFA instead of 100K, or if drafted, top 12 pick as opposed to 5th round pick. And once he's gone, you can't find 5-7 of him that you can acquire for a bag of rocks.
7/26/2012 5:41 PM
Posted by deathinahole on 7/26/2012 5:41:00 PM (view original):
I will never try to disuade you on that. As I said, I won't be shaken on this belief, but I'm always reviewing it.

Torres; probably 111RC easy. Also probably 20+M as in IFA instead of 100K, or if drafted, top 12 pick as opposed to 5th round pick. And once he's gone, you can't find 5-7 of him that you can acquire for a bag of rocks.
We basically agree on this, and Torres is the first offense-first catcher I have used. The results are not overwhelmingly in the favor of using Torres, but his offense is so uniquely good, and the defensive numbers are so decidedly mixed, that I will stick with him.
7/26/2012 5:57 PM
I am returning to the game after a hiatus so who knows what has changed. In my HBD experience it is better to use a defensive catcher, including the arm. It's not just the pitch calling. You can not easily calculate the number of runs a strong arm catcher will save. What I found in my previous HBD experience was that teams will actually run less against strong arms. So basically if a catcher throws out 45% of would be stealers, he may have also prevented an additional 30-50 attempts that would have resulted against a lesser catcher. In my experience my teams have traditionally had less attempts against them.  I would compare it to that lock down corner in the NFL who ends the season with 2 INTs, but that's because they are afraid to throw his way. One thing that has not been brought up is unearned runs. I may be wrong on this but if a run scores as a result of a passed ball, I think it is considered unearned. Calculating pitch calling is difficult unless you actually platoon like Mike did. A lot of managers bring a High PC off the bench to rest the starter. When that player comes into the game he may arrive with two or three other defensive replacements and also...the quality of the bullpen v. the starters is a big issue. I also believe that certain pitchers benefit more from high PC catchers. In the end my opinion has always been that cheap defensive catcher are a better value than silver slugger catchers. If for no other reason, consider this... You can spend 8 million on that silver slugger or 500K on the defensive guy. 7.5 million in savings can buy a lot of offense or pitching in other areas. At any rate, no one truly has the answers and it's a fun debate. My best advice is to listen to those guys who actually win and look at how they build their teams.
8/1/2012 7:38 PM
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How important is pitch calling? Topic

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