Comments on: Pudge and WOWY

By: Dan Hirsch

Dan Hirsch — Sat, 05 Oct 2013 01:30:46 +0000

You’ve got a good point, and it shouldn’t be difficult to compare stolen base attempts per opportunities.

I realized another thing that could alter these numbers for battery’s with low attempts. The runners that DO attempt steals against these guys are probably better than average base stealers, so the sample of attempts may not be league average. It’s a little like “vs LHB” stats for left handed pitchers that dominate lefties. Usually the lefty batters they face are the very best hitters and the mediocre lefties are benched for platoon righties. This is just my hypothesis, but it makes sense.

By: Dr. Doom

Dr. Doom — Thu, 03 Oct 2013 17:59:49 +0000

The more I think about it, the more I think there should be a WOWY component. But that said, there needs to be an accounting for people being unwilling to even TEST Pudge’s arm. I would think that SB/LgAvgSBA would do the trick. Again, you can (and perhaps SHOULD) account for WOWY stuff.. but I am also certain that the person behind the plate often discourages even SB attempts, so runners only go in the very best of circumstances, which artificially inflates the SB%.

By: Dr. Doom

Dr. Doom — Sat, 28 Sep 2013 22:56:14 +0000

Much like Johnny Bench before him, Pudge’s statistics don’t REALLY do him justice when it comes to CS, though. One of the biggest factors, for both of these catchers, is how much SB ATTEMPTS were squelched with them behind the plate. I picked a random year – 1999, when I-Rod was with the Rangers. In that year, there were 1460 SB allowed in the AL, with 715 CS by AL catchers (and yes, I realize this was after the advent of interleague play; we’ll just ignore it for now). That’s, roughly, 104 SB and 51 CS per defensive team. Texas had 52 CS – more or less EXACTLY the league average. But they only allowed 47 stolen bases… less than half of the league average. So in some ways, one could argue that TEX catchers (primarily Rodriguez) prevented 57 stolen base attempts. Now, of course, a CS is more valuable than a runner just being held on, since it adds an out and pulls someone off a bag. But when measuring the individual skill of the catcher, I think you have to take into consideration the number of times opponents just said, “nevermind.”