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.