It's long past time for my first Data Table of 2008, no?
It won't be long before Season previews begin to appear at a Batter's Box near you. But before that happens, we have to research and write the darn things. And at this point, we're still divvying up the assignments. But this much is known. Much to my surprise, I will be writing about the Atlanta Braves.
I had naturally expected Liam, my son and heir (sorry, no vast tracts of land...if you like, keep the bass and sell the Strat) to insist on doing the Braves himself. There would be two reasons for this: 1) Liam actually is a Braves fan; 2) Liam has this mysterious power to propel some nondescript loser of a team into the World Series by the mere act of writing a Box Season Preview. It's pretty awesome. He did it with Detroit two years ago. He did it with Colorado last year.
As you can surely imagine, I strongly suggested that he try on the 2008 Blue Jays. "Screw the Round Table!", I said. "You can do this!" But, alas - as you shall see in due course, he's fixed his eye on an even Bigger Challenge.
So I took up the torch with my aging and infirm hand, and dutifully started doing some Braves research. And in the natural course of events, I started thinking about Brian McCann. Just one year ago, I was noting how he compared to a much more celebrated young catcher, Joe Mauer of the Twins. And why not? Here's how Mauer and McCann performed in 2006
Mauer finished sixth in the MVP voting (and there were many people, myself included, who thought he would have been a most worthy winner - and that he had certainly been a more valuable player than the fellow on his own team who actually won the award.) McCann, meanwhile, received no MVP votes at all. Zero. Bugger-all. Not a sausage. It's true that Mauer has an excellent defensive reputation and McCann does not - but you'd still think a 22 year old catcher who hits .333 with 24 HR and 93 RBI might get a little bit of respect. How bad could his defense be?
McCann's offense fell off drastically in 2007. While he was able to stay in the lineup, he spent almost the entire year battling injuries to his thumb and his ankles. However, the Braves were pleased with his defense. McCann isn't all that great at throwing out base runners (last year, he threw out just 19 of the 89 opponents who tried to steal a base.) His handling of the pitching staff received much better reviews. Mark Bowman at mlb.com noted that:
McCann's knowledge of pitchers allowed Braves pitchers to produce a 3.90 ERA when he was behind the plate. That figure ranked first among all NL catchers.
That would certainly be interesting if it was true, but unfortunately it's not. San Diego pitchers had a 3.44 ERA when Josh Bard was catching. Bard caught more than 100 games, more than 900 innings. I think the guy qualifies. The Braves staff also had the third best ERA (4.11) in the National League last year. It sort of figures that the guy who caught 78% of the innings (McCann was second in the majors in innings behind the plate) for the team with the fourth best ERA in the majors might finish fairly high on any list of Catcher ERAs.
And anyway. Don't you rather expect a team's staff to have a better ERA when the number one catcher is on the job? Don't you think it might be one of the reasons he's the number one guy in the first place? It seems only fair to assume that there's much more familiarity and understanding between a team's number one catcher and the pitchers. On the whole, I'd find it a little disturbing if the team's ERA didn't go up when the backup came in.
Might there be another way we could look at this?
Well, yeah. Many, many ways, I'm sure. But what I thought I'd do is look at the difference between the team's ERA when one catcher is in the game as opposed to the other catchers on his own team, and compare them on that basis. Rather than observe what happens when Josh Bard catches Jake Peavy in Petco Park as opposed to when Yorvit Torrealba catches Josh Towers at Coors Field. (Yeah, I want to see that too!)
Where to get Catcher ERA data... most of what's needed can be found over at the Hardball Times. What they actually have are the team's ERAs for each catcher, along with how many innings caught by said catcher. But it's enough - from there, we can figure out the earned runs. And then, from these humble beginnings, we can compare each catcher with the other catchers on his own team. And hope that levels the playing field a little. We'll get a Data Table to look at, and maybe there will be something strange and wonderful to be found....
There were 31 catchers who caught more then 500 innings for their team in 2007 (Oakland and Arizona had two; the Cubs had none). Russel Martin of the Dodgers caught more innings than any other catcher in baseball last year, and Dodgers pitchers posted a 3.95 ERA when he was behind the plate. When someone else was catching, the Dodger ERA was 5.83, and they're probably glad to see the last of Mike Lieberthal. Anyway, that's a difference of -1.88 in staff ERA with Martin catching. Which also leads the majors. Here's the list:.
A few quick and shallow observations:
The magic of Jason Kendall didn't prove to be portable. Cubs pitchers had a 4.29 ERA over 432 innings pitching to Kendall, a 3.94 ERA in more than 1000 innings with the other guys.
Gregg Zaun, of course, had the great good fortune to be on the Disabled List during the never-to-be-forgotten Zambrano Era.
And Brian McCann, the point of this whole exercise, does come out looking rather well. The Braves ERA was a full run better with him behind the plate.
It won't be long before Season previews begin to appear at a Batter's Box near you. But before that happens, we have to research and write the darn things. And at this point, we're still divvying up the assignments. But this much is known. Much to my surprise, I will be writing about the Atlanta Braves.
I had naturally expected Liam, my son and heir (sorry, no vast tracts of land...if you like, keep the bass and sell the Strat) to insist on doing the Braves himself. There would be two reasons for this: 1) Liam actually is a Braves fan; 2) Liam has this mysterious power to propel some nondescript loser of a team into the World Series by the mere act of writing a Box Season Preview. It's pretty awesome. He did it with Detroit two years ago. He did it with Colorado last year.
As you can surely imagine, I strongly suggested that he try on the 2008 Blue Jays. "Screw the Round Table!", I said. "You can do this!" But, alas - as you shall see in due course, he's fixed his eye on an even Bigger Challenge.
So I took up the torch with my aging and infirm hand, and dutifully started doing some Braves research. And in the natural course of events, I started thinking about Brian McCann. Just one year ago, I was noting how he compared to a much more celebrated young catcher, Joe Mauer of the Twins. And why not? Here's how Mauer and McCann performed in 2006
Player Ag G AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB SO BAV OBP SLG SB CS GDP HBP SH SF IBB OPS+
Mauer 23 140 521 86 181 36 4 13 84 79 54 .347 .429 .507 8 3 24 1 0 7 21 144
McCann 22 130 442 61 147 34 0 24 93 41 54 .333 .388 .572 2 0 12 3 0 6 8 146
Mauer finished sixth in the MVP voting (and there were many people, myself included, who thought he would have been a most worthy winner - and that he had certainly been a more valuable player than the fellow on his own team who actually won the award.) McCann, meanwhile, received no MVP votes at all. Zero. Bugger-all. Not a sausage. It's true that Mauer has an excellent defensive reputation and McCann does not - but you'd still think a 22 year old catcher who hits .333 with 24 HR and 93 RBI might get a little bit of respect. How bad could his defense be?
McCann's offense fell off drastically in 2007. While he was able to stay in the lineup, he spent almost the entire year battling injuries to his thumb and his ankles. However, the Braves were pleased with his defense. McCann isn't all that great at throwing out base runners (last year, he threw out just 19 of the 89 opponents who tried to steal a base.) His handling of the pitching staff received much better reviews. Mark Bowman at mlb.com noted that:
McCann's knowledge of pitchers allowed Braves pitchers to produce a 3.90 ERA when he was behind the plate. That figure ranked first among all NL catchers.
That would certainly be interesting if it was true, but unfortunately it's not. San Diego pitchers had a 3.44 ERA when Josh Bard was catching. Bard caught more than 100 games, more than 900 innings. I think the guy qualifies. The Braves staff also had the third best ERA (4.11) in the National League last year. It sort of figures that the guy who caught 78% of the innings (McCann was second in the majors in innings behind the plate) for the team with the fourth best ERA in the majors might finish fairly high on any list of Catcher ERAs.
And anyway. Don't you rather expect a team's staff to have a better ERA when the number one catcher is on the job? Don't you think it might be one of the reasons he's the number one guy in the first place? It seems only fair to assume that there's much more familiarity and understanding between a team's number one catcher and the pitchers. On the whole, I'd find it a little disturbing if the team's ERA didn't go up when the backup came in.
Might there be another way we could look at this?
Well, yeah. Many, many ways, I'm sure. But what I thought I'd do is look at the difference between the team's ERA when one catcher is in the game as opposed to the other catchers on his own team, and compare them on that basis. Rather than observe what happens when Josh Bard catches Jake Peavy in Petco Park as opposed to when Yorvit Torrealba catches Josh Towers at Coors Field. (Yeah, I want to see that too!)
Where to get Catcher ERA data... most of what's needed can be found over at the Hardball Times. What they actually have are the team's ERAs for each catcher, along with how many innings caught by said catcher. But it's enough - from there, we can figure out the earned runs. And then, from these humble beginnings, we can compare each catcher with the other catchers on his own team. And hope that levels the playing field a little. We'll get a Data Table to look at, and maybe there will be something strange and wonderful to be found....
There were 31 catchers who caught more then 500 innings for their team in 2007 (Oakland and Arizona had two; the Cubs had none). Russel Martin of the Dodgers caught more innings than any other catcher in baseball last year, and Dodgers pitchers posted a 3.95 ERA when he was behind the plate. When someone else was catching, the Dodger ERA was 5.83, and they're probably glad to see the last of Mike Lieberthal. Anyway, that's a difference of -1.88 in staff ERA with Martin catching. Which also leads the majors. Here's the list:.
Catcher Catcher ERA +/-
Last Tm Lg Innings ERA Innings ERA Impact
Martin LAN NL 1254.0 3.95 Other Catchers 196.0 5.83 -1.88
Kendall OAK AL 714.0 3.40 Other Catchers 734.0 5.18 -1.78
Pierzynski CHA AL 1058.0 4.41 Other Catchers 383.0 5.76 -1.35
Paulino PIT NL 1088.0 4.61 Other Catchers 360.0 5.95 -1.34
Ausmus HOU NL 907.0 4.29 Other Catchers 558.0 5.37 -1.08
Snyder ARI NL 891.0 3.73 Other Catchers 550.0 4.80 -1.07
Zaun TOR AL 838.0 3.55 Other Catchers 610.0 4.62 -1.07
McCann ATL NL 1139.0 3.89 Other Catchers 317.0 4.91 -1.02
Ross CIN NL 837.0 4.57 Other Catchers 613.0 5.48 -0.91
Mauer MIN AL 778.0 3.78 Other Catchers 659.0 4.64 -0.86
Molina STL NL 861.0 4.33 Other Catchers 574.0 5.19 -0.86
Bard SD NL 927.0 3.44 Other Catchers 558.0 4.20 -0.76
Rodriguez DET AL 1053.0 4.40 Other Catchers 395.0 5.06 -0.66
Torrealba COL NL 935.0 4.12 Other Catchers 537.0 4.66 -0.54
Ruiz PHI NL 913.0 4.59 Other Catchers 546.0 5.06 -0.47
Lo Duca NYN NL 974.0 4.13 Other Catchers 479.0 4.55 -0.42
Molina SF NL 1104.0 4.11 Other Catchers 349.0 4.46 -0.35
Varitek BOS AL 1064.0 3.80 Other Catchers 375.0 4.06 -0.26
Buck KC AL 924.0 4.43 Other Catchers 513.0 4.63 -0.20
Martinez CLE AL 1043.0 4.01 Other Catchers 420.0 4.16 -0.15
Navarro TB AL 956.0 5.50 Other Catchers 474.0 5.61 -0.11
Estrada MIL NL 961.0 4.44 Other Catchers 483.0 4.45 -0.01
Posada NYA AL 1111.0 4.50 Other Catchers 339.0 4.48 0.02
Hernandez BAL AL 855.0 5.20 Other Catchers 584.0 5.17 0.03
Laird TEX AL 987.0 4.78 Other Catchers 443.0 4.72 0.06
Napoli LAA AL 599.0 4.28 Other Catchers 836.0 4.19 0.09
Olivo FLA NL 990.0 5.04 Other Catchers 454.0 4.77 0.27
Schneider WAS NL 1051.0 4.79 Other Catchers 395.0 4.01 0.78
Montero ARI NL 511.0 4.81 Other Catchers 930.0 3.77 1.04
Johjima SEA AL 1107.0 5.07 Other Catchers 328.0 3.74 1.33
Suzuki OAK AL 539.0 5.31 Other Catchers 909.0 3.70 1.61
A few quick and shallow observations:
The magic of Jason Kendall didn't prove to be portable. Cubs pitchers had a 4.29 ERA over 432 innings pitching to Kendall, a 3.94 ERA in more than 1000 innings with the other guys.
Gregg Zaun, of course, had the great good fortune to be on the Disabled List during the never-to-be-forgotten Zambrano Era.
And Brian McCann, the point of this whole exercise, does come out looking rather well. The Braves ERA was a full run better with him behind the plate.
