Evaluating Catcher Throwing Ability
Our last post was on an evaluation of outfielder throwing ability, where success/failure on individual throwing events were tabulated for each outfielder in terms of runs saved/cost. We now apply the same methodology to catchers: the Run Expectancy Matrix provides us with expected runs for each game situation, which we can use to calculate a runs saved/cost value for a particular successful or unsuccessful play. For catchers, this is the ability to throw out base stealers as well as keeping players from trying to steal. We tabulate the runs saved/cost for every catcher in each of four seasons of ball-in-play data (2002-2005) and then average across all four seasons (taking into account differences in opportunities between seasons).
The table below gives the five best and five worst catchers, in terms of average runs saved/cost in throwing events.
| Name | Runs Saved |
| 1 . Schneider Brian | 6.554 |
| 2 . Molina Yadier | 4.406 |
| 3 . Hall Toby | 4.258 |
| 4 . Ardoin Danny | 3.669 |
| 5 . Miller Damian | 2.998 |
| 6 . Molina Bengie | 2.835 |
| 7 . Blanco Henry | 2.377 |
| 8 . Rodriguez Ivan | 2.372 |
| 9 . LaRue Jason | 1.816 |
| 10 . Wilson Vance | 1.772 |
| Name | Runs Cost |
| 1 . Piazza Mike | -4.975 |
| 2 . Varitek Jason | -3.199 |
| 3 . Martinez Victor | -3.001 |
| 4 . Zaun Gregg | -2.78 |
| 5 . Fordyce Brook | -2.679 |
| 6 . Fasano Sal | -2.61 |
| 7 . Lieberthal Mike | -2.505 |
| 8 . Bennett Gary | -2.231 |
| 9 . Wilson Tom | -2.111 |
| 10 . Hundley Todd | -1.87 |
The full results for catchers can be downloaded here.
The use of the expected run matrix to evaluate the run consequence of stolen bases leads to an interesting consequence: in terms of expected runs, it is more valuable to throw out a baserunner attempting to steal than preventing a baserunner from attempting to steal. Catchers that have a reputation for throwing out baserunners will not have a great run contribution because baserunners will attempt to steal less often. An example is Ivan Rodriguez who is considered to be the best catcher in the game. However, Rodriguez is ranked as only the eighth best catcher by our analysis, in part because he has one of the lowest proportion of steal attempts against him (3.5% of baserunning opportunities) among regular catchers. Clearly, the optimal situation for a catcher is to have a high success rate on throwing out baserunners but without the reputation for doing so, so that baserunners still attempt to steal at a substantial rate. An extreme (and not recommended) implementation of this strategy would suggest that catchers could deliberately fail on a throwing attempt in an relatively unimportant game situation in the hopes that baserunners would then be more likely to attempt (and be thrown out) in a more important situation.
posted by Shane @ 7:30 PM
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