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Post by sierchio on Oct 31, 2019 17:55:33 GMT -5
Jorgie was a HOF.. you can't change my mind.. he was definitely one of the top 3 catchers in the game during the era he played... he was consistent throughout his career as well. Piazza and Pudge are the only two catchers that you can argue were better during the time period.. and you can argue Posada topped them, especially if you look at it season by season. The 3 P's of the C's belong in the Hall... Posada, Piazza, Pudge... He just couldn't catch to save his life. He was the catcher on 4 World Series teams and caught a perfect game... I don't think his catching hurt the Yankees at all and I've certainly seen worse catchers. |
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Post by sierchio on Oct 31, 2019 18:04:56 GMT -5
According to this persons research... from 2002-2009 Posada was pretty much middle of the pack defensively among catchers www.blessyouboys.com/2010/4/27/1445619/quantifying-catchers-the-best-andAlso in that study... between 02-09, Posada had the 10th best single season for his 2003 season... None of his single seasons were ranked among the 15 worse This data starts in 02 when Jorgie was already 30.. so maybe he ranked higher the prior seasons because of better agility or on the flip side maybe he ranked worse because of experience... either way, I think Jorgie was perfectly adequate on defense... not spectacular but not horrible.. and his offense more than made up for any flaws. |
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Post by noetsi on Oct 31, 2019 18:45:08 GMT -5
That is not how I remember Posada. Craig Nettles could have stolen a base on him...in his wheel chair. And he had this thing about blocking the plate.
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Post by inger on Oct 31, 2019 18:54:01 GMT -5
Sort of wandering g off the subject a teensy bit here, which is the Greatest YANKEE Catchers. We all know I would never wander off the subject of a thread đź‘ą.
Kind of a bit of a bummer here, because even though I haven’t posted the numbers yet, I have already looked at the Yankee catchers with an eye for the same sort of peer-related rankings. The one difference was that I didn’t pretend to know how many runs were saved or lost like this author did with his arbitrary assignments of such. (I doubt he was close, but at least he threw the dart, right?).
So, I agree with much of what this guy wrote, sierchio. In far too many HOF discussions, a group of people will begin to lean very heavily on OPS+. The reason is that defense has no real quantification/qualification process. So we get lazy, or simply don’t have the ammunition to look at defense.
When we finally DO look at defense, suddenly the Doug Mirabelli’s of the world can get a pass because we recall that there was a knuckleballer on the staff. That’s really not true. A guy that tosses a couple hundred innings might hurt your stats, but not enough to make you look horrible.
I agree that Jorge was about an average defensive catcher at the peak of his career. The problems were at the beginning, when he was still being tutored at the finer points of catching, and the end, when he was losing flexibility and his arm was shot.
Now back to the YANKEES portion of our scheduled program. Sorry I’ve been moving like a snail. There are reasons.
1. Regular season was more interesting.
2. Doing opposing pitcher scouting reports was more relevant.
3. Not really certain the subject matter is interesting the group.
4. Battling sinus, ear and throat infections for over a month now. The infections are still somewhat winning. Tired almost all the time. Yuck...
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Post by inger on Oct 31, 2019 19:01:01 GMT -5
That is not how I remember Posada. Craig Nettles could have stolen a base on him...in his wheel chair. And he had this thing about blocking the plate. What Posada did with the tag play at the plate eventually became what baseball mandated. He left a clear running lane, and applied a tag. A man ahead of his time, though we certainly didn’t appreciate it at the time, it kept him off the disabled list until he was 36 years old. That added to his consistency with the bat allowing him to remain in the lineup... He was simply smart enough to know that if runners didn’t fear a collision with Posada’s body, they would still dread being tagged by urine-drenched fists of fury... (Bet he soaked his mitt in pee to break it in, too)... 🤮 |
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Post by inger on Oct 31, 2019 20:11:47 GMT -5
That is not how I remember Posada. Craig Nettles could have stolen a base on him...in his wheel chair. And he had this thing about blocking the plate. During Posada’s career, he threw out 28% of runners attempting to steal vs. a league average of 30%. No attempts using ambulatory assistance devices were ever attempted...His best season he threw out 37% vs. a league average of 30%...A 7% differential is excellent... |
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Post by inger on Oct 31, 2019 22:54:04 GMT -5
We already have an ordered list of the catchers by OPS+, which is proclaimed as the best measure of offensive production. I thought it might be interesting to list them by separate rate stats of BA/OBP/SLG while with the Yankees.
BA
1. Dickey .313
2. Schang .297
3. Munson .292
4. Berra / Stanley (tie) .285
6. Howard .279
7. Posada .273
8. Wynegar .259
OBP
1. Schang .390
2. Dickey .382
3. Stanley .377
4. Posada .374
5. Wynegar .368
6. Berra .348
7. Munson .346
8. Howard .324
SLG
1. Stanley .504
2. Dickey .486
3. Berra .482
4. Posada .474
5. Howard .436
6. Munson .410
7. Schang .406
8. Wynegar .363
While these are all interesting, the meanings are cloaked within how we value each skill. They’re further cloaked within the context of the era in which they occurred.
For instance, what was the league batting average during the eras that Bill Dickey and Wally Schang played in vs. that of Thurman Munson? What about the League SLG ave?
Do we really accept the Mike Stanley with a 134 OPS+ was a better hitter than Bill Dickey at 127+, even for just a few seasons?
If we award 1 point for a first place finish in each category and 8 for last place, the ordering of the hitters is a bit different than they were ordered by OPS+ (Lower total is best). It goes this way:
Example:
Dickey 1st in BA, 1st in OBP, 2nd in SLG = 5 points
Dickey- 5
Stanley- 8.5
Schang- 10
Berra- 13
Posada- 15
Munson- 16
Howard- 19
Wynegar- 21
We still see Stanley outperforming stalwarts such as Berra, Posada, Munson. Schang, who only played in 5 Yankee seasons moves way up the list despite being next to last in SLG due to being 2nd in BA and leading in OBP. Don’t forget that Schang is a Hall of Fame member.
Is any of this meaningful? On some level, but since we don’t have any defensive context yet. No need to get over-excited at this point...
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Post by sierchio on Oct 31, 2019 23:14:42 GMT -5
It's definitely interesting if not meaningful
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Post by inger on Oct 31, 2019 23:28:21 GMT -5
It's definitely interesting if not meaningful It’s not just because of this exercise, but I’m finding myself wondering about the accuracy of OPS+. For one thing, I still challenge the fact that OPS itself is an accurate accounting of the three slash line stats. They simply get evaluated as being of equal value and added up together. If those numbers are of equal value, that is a rather odd coincidence. I don’t think they are, but will confess that I don’t have the background to create the accurate equation required... Or maybe I do. I can work basic algebra. So I’ll blame it on time. There would have to be a huge amount of research. Lots of scorecards to examine. Maybe someday I’ll get baseball to turn all of there records over to me and pay me to change the way we judge value. Just keep Russ away from those records... |
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Post by greatfatness on Nov 1, 2019 11:20:31 GMT -5
Do we really accept the Mike Stanley with a 134 OPS+ was a better hitter than Bill Dickey at 127+, even for just a few seasons? Nope. These stats are interesting and meaningful to help understand for people who want analyze the sport but there isn’t any one stat that by itself can really be considered the pure truth about relative value, in my opinion. |
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Post by inger on Nov 1, 2019 12:16:44 GMT -5
* Note: During Dickey’s absolute peak, ages 29-32 he had a 144 OPS+...
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Post by noetsi on Nov 1, 2019 18:44:20 GMT -5
That is not how I remember Posada. Craig Nettles could have stolen a base on him...in his wheel chair. And he had this thing about blocking the plate. During Posada’s career, he threw out 28% of runners attempting to steal vs. a league average of 30%. No attempts using ambulatory assistance devices were ever attempted...His best season he threw out 37% vs. a league average of 30%...A 7% differential is excellent... Its the career average that matters not one year.
I predicted horribly with my time series this month and the year to date error fell from 8.5 to 2.5 percent (which is beyond awesome, 7.5 percent is very good).
What does that prove. Pretty much nothing....
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Post by inger on Nov 1, 2019 19:10:23 GMT -5
During Posada’s career, he threw out 28% of runners attempting to steal vs. a league average of 30%. No attempts using ambulatory assistance devices were ever attempted...His best season he threw out 37% vs. a league average of 30%...A 7% differential is excellent... Its the career average that matters not one year.
I predicted horribly with my time series this month and the year to date error fell from 8.5 to 2.5 percent (which is beyond awesome, 7.5 percent is very good).
What does that prove. Pretty much nothing....
So, the career average differed only 2% negative to the league norms. Not quite incompetent...Not nearly so... |
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Post by inger on Nov 1, 2019 23:43:24 GMT -5
As we move along to discussion and stats related to defensive performance, it’s important to consider what’s important and how important it is.
The truth is that a huge percentage of what catchers do each day is extremely routine and expected to be done. There is after the 98% or so still a body of work that makes the difference between good and bad work.
Categories that can be traced via Baseball Reference include RF/G (range factor per game), RF/9 (range factor per 9 innings). At first blush, it may seem silly to speak of catcher’s range, but there are indeed times that a batter will bunt, or hit a nubber in front of the plate (even popups both fair and foul) The range factor will show which catcher has the best ability to make those plays by utilizing putouts and assists.
I think it can be one of the useful tools. I’ve reviewed the numbers, and In my view, the numbers may not translate well from era to era. Changes in the game, like less bunting in modern baseball have changed the number of plays catchers are responsible for.
What I feel is useable is the difference between a catcher’s performance vs. the league averages during his era. B-R does provide that information.
Secondly, we can get information on CS %. Again we have to compare to the league averages for years and eras. Highly effective catchers used to nab near to 50% of base runners attempting to steal. Now, with spread sheets tell us is that it’s important to be safe close to 75% of the time if you’re going to steal, the running game has been reduced.
We can do a similar exercise with passed balls and wild pitches, but just like the old excuse the author of the previously posted link, we’re always going to have some tie to the oddball pitchers that are extremely hard to catch, so we may have to take some of those numbers with that proverbial grain of salt. Once again, rather than working with raw numbers, I feel it makes more sense to computes differences between the catcher’s performance and the average performance of his league peers.
That’s enough about this for tonight, numbers will follow as I get time, and suggestions to make this better (or numbers and arguments posted by the group) will be welcome...
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Post by kaybli on Nov 2, 2019 1:24:40 GMT -5
Thanks for all information and knowledge in this thread, inger! I wish I could contribute but I only started watching in baseball in 1995 so I'm not the best historian. Still love reading about stuff like this from those more knowledgeable than me though. Keep it up!
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