Quote:
Originally Posted by miked
Maybe I'm late to the metrics part of this, is there now data to suggest that catchers calling a game has a significant effect? Can this be separated from luck of the pitchers, or defense when the catcher is playing? I guess the runs he saved by calling a good game (or whatever) somehow cancels out the fact that he allowed 100+ SBs a season and threw out like 15-20% of runners.
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Well let's start with your numbers...his career CS% was 23%. He threw out under 20% of runners four times in his 14 catching seasons: 1996 (18%) and 2002 (18% when he was 33), plus 2005 (14% when he was 35), and in 2006 (12% when he was 36) when he was playing half the year and I think we can all agree he had no business catching then. So he was under 20% in two of his prime years, very conservatively speaking as I don't think most consider 33 to be the prime for a catcher.
He was 8% below the league average of 31%. Using his career numbers, he allowed 142 more guys to steal bases. Some of those may have been stealing 3rd, and I have no idea the breakdown of guys who stole with differing numbers of outs...but let's for argument's sake say the average is with one out. Runners on second with one out score about 45% of the time. So his CS% would, very roughly, have lead to 64 more runs being scored against his pitchers over the course of his 1600+ games caught.
BTW if you pull out those last two terrible years from his career numbers, we're talking a career CS% of 25% and using the assumptions above it would have led to 47 more runs allowed.