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Please Everyone, Stop Using Catcher ERA

Non-defensive catcher.

More photos » by Tony Gutierrez - AP

Non-defensive catcher.

The Nichols Law of catcher defense states the inverse relationship that exists between offensive abilities and perceived defensive performance. Take Paul Bako. More than 2,300 plate appearances with an OPS in the .620s. He is not, nor has he ever, been a good offensive player. Bako's longevity reigns from, uh, well...Greg Maddux.  After Eddie Perez, Maddux's personal catcher, went down in 2000, the Braves acquired Bako from Florida. Maddux absolutely loved Bako, probably because Bako was the bottom in the relationship and easily manipulated to calling whatever it is Maddux wanted to throw.

Star-divide

So after a season and a half as Maddux's personal caddy, Milwaukee scooped Bako up and gave him nearly 260 plate appearances. The Brewers saw their pitching staff benefit greatly from Bako's game calling and presence. They improved their FIP from 4.9 to 4.86. Woo. If every 10 runs is worth 4.5 million, and Bako was worth 0.04 runs per nine, well, you get the point. Bako wasn't very valuable, but teams kept giving him shots.

Fans seem to fall in with reserve catchers. I don't know why. I suspect it has to do with the mystique of being a defensive stalwart, one immeasurable by metrics known to man. Perhaps having to sit in the bullpen and warm pitchers up is something worthwhile.  These guys are usually horrible hitters, the worst bats on the team that actually get paid to hit. Why? Because if they hit well, they would be playing.

So, you have a player on each team who has writers, fans, and television folk talking up his game calling abilities and whatnot because saying that his entire value comes from squatting for four hours a week isn't something you take pride in.  Eventually it melts in. People start looking for things that feed this confirmation bias of Johnny McBackstop being a human computer. It becomes mainstay knowledge, and now every team in the league needs one of these veteran catchers, good at absolutely nothing outside of history lessons.

People have tried measuring the defensive contributions of catchers and it usually goes nowhere. The most common being Catcher's ERA. Perhaps even more flawed than pitcher ERA. Consider all of the variables thrown in:

1. Ballpark

2. Pitcher

3. Defense

You get the point, but let's take it a step further. Jason Varitek is the role model for catcher's defense. Creating a list of compliments and flattering comparisons for Varitek's apparent savvy would take a while. Michael Barrett has almost never been praised for his defensive ability. He's been known to get into fights with his pitchers, so un-Varitek-like, he's never lead his team to the title, and he's not wired like a computer.

Using both of their top 10 catching time seasons, we get these CERA:

Cera_medium

The averages over these 10 seasons are pretty minimal in difference, same with career averages. This is ignoring that Barrett played on worst teams and that Varitek caught in Fenway, and so on. These results would make Tim McCarver go into convulsions. There's not a member of the BBWAA who would accept the idea that Michael Barrett and Jason Varitek handle pitchers on a similar level. That's good, because sometimes it takes an extreme case to get a point across.

Don't use Catcher's ERA. It's useless. We know this from studies in the past, not just from anecdotal comparisons.

1 recs  |  Comment 19 comments |

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Here here to RJ

Aaron King is still my homeboy... iffy mechanics and all

If Dustin Pedroia played in Seattle, not many people would be talking about him.

GET THAT VORP SH!T OUTTA HERE!!!

by baetown415 on Jun 19, 2009 10:13 PM EDT reply actions   0 recs

I love the snark. I think this is the first article I’ve ever read at Beyond the Box Score that has actually made me laugh.

by Crashburn Alley on Jun 19, 2009 10:52 PM EDT reply actions   0 recs

Obviously catcher ERA is stupid

But I would like to see an extensive study on pitch calling/ whatever, using PITCHfx to see if catchers do have an impact on his performance.

St. Louis relievers... defying win expectancy since 2008
http://www.drivelinemechanics.com/

by vivaelpujols on Jun 20, 2009 2:17 AM EDT reply actions   0 recs

You're right.

We should go by how many no-hitters he’s caught instead.

Decrease runs scored?
Maybe.

Decrease winning? Never seen that proven.
-SFTU

by hazel on Jun 20, 2009 3:12 AM EDT reply actions   0 recs

WRONG R.J. WRONG

MIGUEL OLIVO IS AN EXCELLENT GAMECALLER I DON’T KNOW HOW ELSE ANYONE COULD POSSIBLY EXPLAIN ZACK GREINKE’S MONSTER SEASON SO FAR YOU STATHEADS NEED TO WATCH SOME BASEBALL

I'm not a sabermetrician, but I do play one at Driveline Mechanics.

by devil_fingers on Jun 20, 2009 11:41 AM EDT reply actions   0 recs

Grienke has yet to throw a no-no

I put all the blame on the catcher! With ZGs stuff… blah blah blah…

Coffee. The NEW Performance Enhancing drug for Sport's Writers. Just ask Ken Rosenthal.

by 306008 on Jun 21, 2009 10:40 AM EDT up reply actions   0 recs

Great stuff, RJ

Unfortunately, I know blogs where stuff like this would be considered heresy — for teams whose catchers are universally lauded for their defense, for example.

by chuckb on Jun 20, 2009 1:13 PM EDT reply actions   0 recs

to be fair

Yadi is lauded for his actual defense for the most part. Dave Duncan gets all the credit (fair or not) for pitcher success in STL.

by stlhulsey on Jun 22, 2009 12:16 PM EDT up reply actions   0 recs

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