Beyond the Box Score 2011 Catcher Defense Ratings: July Edition

So I guess my plan to do monthly updates of the Catcher Defense Ratings is becoming something closer to bimonthly (a tribute to Bi-Mon-Sci-Fi-Con, uh, yeah). As always, take these with a grain of salt. I do think they do reflect something objective, way of "analyzing" events into defensive contributions (not to mention true talent) has acknowledged limitations. Nonetheless, I do think they reflect actual contributions of catchers in the field adequately to be worth doing.

There's a bit of an added "bonus" in this month's post. In response to questions from some of the nerdier of past comments, I've appended a shortened version of the methodological issues from when I originally did this rankings at the end of the post after the big table. They aren't much, but they give some reasons for doing it the way I've done it. If you're curious, they're worth reading if you have questions along those lines.

First, let's take a look at some of the overall leaders and trailers.

Overall Leaders: The overall leader so far... well, he  hasn't changed from last time: it's still Matt Wieters, whom, despite not living up to the retrospectively ridiculous (but deadly accurate!) expectations placed on his shoulders prior to his major-league debut, is starting to be appreciated as one of the better catchers in baseball anyway. Take a catcher, give him above-average offense, and add in fielding that is 12 runs above average less than two-thirds of the way through the season, and you've got a very valuable player. According to this metric, Wieters does everything well behind the plate, and overall, no one else is even close this season. 

As for the other leaders, Lou Marson is doing quite well at about +7 runs so far this season -- hey, it's a no-hit catcher with a good defensive reputation who is actually good at defense! His defensive abilities make him a real asset for Cleveland, allowing them to put Carlos Santana (who  has actually been about average overall defensively this at catcher season) at first regularly without having a total black hole behind the plate. The player right behind Marson is shocking -- the Rays' Kelly Shoppach at just under 7 runs. It's too bad his bad has completely fallen apart so far this season. There aren't too many other surprises, perhaps Mike Napoli being above average in limited playing time behind the plate. 

Overall Trailers: With Napoli no longer a full-timer, Jorge Posada a full-time DH (the "H" is pretty nominal at this point), and Ryan Doumit also in catching exile, it's a new crowd at the bottom. I just scrolled down to the bottom of my list, and was saddened to see J. P. Arencibia in last at -6.5 runs. His bat is decent for a catcher, but hopefully for Jays fans this is just a small sample blip or something is slipping through the net here, as his only real skill on offense so far his hitting for power. The ageless A.J. Pierzynski's bat is about the same as always, but with the run environment down, it's pretty decent for a catcher, and now with some of the above not catching much or at all, he looks like  he'll be a regular down here, thus fulfilling his destiny. Tied with him is Jonathan Lucroy, which fits right in with the Brewers' tremendous "all bats, no gloves" strategy. Oh, yeah, Hank Conger is pretty bad, too, at about four runs below average, which totally explains why he's still sharing time with Jeff Mathis, whose glove remains awesome at -2.5 runs.

Caught Stealing Notables: Perhaps unsurprisingly, the top three catchers at gunning down runners are the three who lead the overall rankings: Wieters, Marson, and Shoppach. Pierzynski "edges out" Arencibia at the bottom, but Atlanta's Brian McCann pushes his way into third from the worst, just below Josh Thole, who at least has the excuse of having to catch a knuckleballer. 

Passed Ball/Wild Pitch Notables: Wieters leads this category as well at about four runs above average, but a different crowd follows him. The Phillies' underrated Carlos Ruiz has been almost as good. They are followed by Ryan Hanigan, Drew Butera, and Miguel Montero, all at just about two runs above average. The Marlins' John Buck makes up for his problems with baserunners with nice pitch blocking. On the other hand, Miguel Olivo gives away all the value he gets from throwing out baserunners by letting pitches pass by him. What else is new? Well, I guess one thing is new is that Arencibia has been worse than Olivo in terms of pitch blocking. Josh Thole is down there for  understandable reasons, as are Pierzynski, Lucroy, and  Jarrod Saltalamacchia, another guy who has to catcher a knuckleballer from time to time. 

Concluding Methodological Postscript 

I should make clear that for the purposes that I am not including such debated areas a pitch framing or the more amorphous "game calling." I am not taking a position one way or the other on either of those, simply making clear the bounds of these rankings.  When I discuss "catcher defense," like most others, I will be discussing preventing stolen bases, blocking pitches, etc.

One of the difficulties with evaluating catcher defense with regard to even these issues is that, much more than with other fielding positions, the catcher's performance is dependent on another player -- namely, the pitcher. No matter now strong or weak the catcher's arm is, he can't escape the reality that he depends on the pitcher's skill with regard to holding runners, quickness to the plate, etc. While the catcher's skill with regard to blocking pitches that are off the mark is clearly important, catching Tim Wakefield poses a unique challenge (just ask Josh Bard). And so on.

For these reasons, probably the best way of measuring catcher defense is Tom Tango's WOWY (With or Without  You) method of defensive evaluation as detailed the 2008 Hardball Times Annual.  You can read about the details in the links provided. Versions of WOWY for catchers have also been done by Brian Cartwright and Dan Turkenkopf. I would do it that way if I could. The main issue is that 1) it's pretty complicated, and beyond my present capabilities, and 2) it requires something like Retrosheet, which isn't available until after the World Series is over, so even if I could do it, I couldn't get the numbers during the season of even now...

While the method used here is neither terribly subtle nor original, I think when compared to things like the Fans' Scouting Report and WOWY methods, it compares fairly well. Just keep in mind the acknowledged limits (e.g., not taking into account the pitchers' contributions like WOWY does).

The Method Used Here

For non-WOWY catcher defense, the basic idea is to 1) choose what events you're going to deal with, 2) determine each catchers performance with respect to league average, and 3) decide the run value of each event.

Stolen Bases/Caught Stealing (CSRuns): First, we figure out the league rate for caught stealing. One cool thing about the new Baseball Reference is that it separates out the catcher caught stealings from the pitcher pickoffs, so we can exclude the pickoffs (not under the catcher's control) from the equation. So we total the CSctch +SB to get total stolen base attempts (SBA) and then to total CSctch/total SBA for the lgCS rate. We use the weight of .63 runs for each caught stealing, which represents the average linear weight of the caught stealing (.44 runs) plus the weight of the stolen base not achieved (.19 runs). The formula for runs above/below average for each catcher is thus (CS - (lgCSrate) * SBA) * 0.63.

Wild pitches/passed balls (WPPBRuns): The league rate is (WPlg + PBlg)/lgPA. The linear weight for each passed ball/wild pitch is 0.28 runs, which we make negative since the more WP/PBs a catcher has, the worse his defense is. The formula for each player is ((WP + PB) - (lgWPPBrate * PA)) * -0.28.

Errors (FcE and TE Runs): I deal with three different kinds of catcher error recorded by Baseball Reference: throwing errors, catching errors, and fielding errors. I've assimilated catching errors to fielding errors. There are separate linear weights for throwing (including catching) errors (-0.48) and fielding errors (-0.75). The method is the same as above. Get the league rate, then see how far over/under the player is. For throwing errors: (TE - (lgTErate * PA)) * -0.48. Fielding errors: (FE - (lgFErate * PA)) * -0.75.

Then you just add them all up to get the total runs above/below average. It's not perfect, and hopefully, there will be some improved options soon, but the results do seem to reflect reality. I round to one decimal: I aware that gives an illusion of precision that isn't there, I simply do it to expedite sorting and ranking.  I thought about coming up with a "rate" version like UZR/150, but that isn't as simple as prorating for innings caught/PA -- one needs to normalize each sort of event separately, the chart is confusing enough as it is. For now, this is just a value measurement of what each player did this season.