Jeff Sackmann has distilled extremely useful statistics on minor league catchers from his minorleaguesplits.com website, and reported them in today's THT. First off, to have this information publicly available is a real stride forward. For Jay fans, the news on Curtis Thigpen is not great. 76.1% of prospective basestealers succeeded in 92 attempts off Thigpen. He did however throw well in the Arizona Fall League, and earned the start in the championship game over Landon Powell who has one of the stronger arms in the minors.
I watched that stat this year in Lansing. Mainly becaucse Brian Bormaster was around the 65% mark in throwing out attempting base stealers. He kind of tired toward the end though and that combined with some slower deliveries to the plate knocked him down to about 50%. I think (if memory serves me right), Josh Bell in Lansing was around 35 or 40% in throwing base runners out.
From watching Thigpen the brief time that I did, he needs to work on his foot work a little bit and making that a little quicker and working on his release. He had a bit of a long throwing motion for a catcher and needs to work on snapping his throws off a little better.
Mike, good point about Thigpen starting the final game of the AFL season. Minor league baseball had an interview with Thigpen's AFL manager whose name escapes me now. In the interview he praised Thigpen without being asked by the hosts, it struck me as a great endorsement. I am not sure if the interview is still available.