Stealing First

WOWY – over at Beyond the Box Score

Posted by Dan Turkenkopf - 25/03/08 at 01:03:07 pm

I’ve just posted the next entry in my look at Catcher’s Block Percentage over at Beyond the Box Score.  I’ll be posting there once or twice a week – largely on stats-related work.

I’ll continue to post here, but the topics may shift more towards reactions to news and stories from baseball history rather than stats.

Historical Catcher Block Percentage

Posted by Dan Turkenkopf - 20/03/08 at 04:03:01 am

Ok, so not so much historical, but at least I can share 2005 and 2006. Joe Arthur clued me into the fact that the GameDay information was still available starting from 2005, so I dutifully went and grabbed the data, so now we have three years to look at.

UPDATE: MGL let me know about what turned out to be a rounding error that was pushing the numbers off a bit. I’ve updated the charts to fix the issue, but things might look a little different than you remember.

For those of you who haven’t been following this series, I’m using the GameDay data to measure how each catcher performed in blocking pitches by looking at their misses (wild pitches + passed balls) and their opportunities (balls in the dirt with runners on base).

Before we get to the results, a couple words of warning. There’s definitely something up with the scoring of balls in the dirt. Each year had widely varying counts for opportunities, as you can see below. If we assume that these scoring differences affected every catcher equally, then we’re ok if compare the runs saved columns since those are based on average numbers. I think this might be a reasonable assumption because the opportunities look to be somewhat depressed for all the catchers in 2006.

Year	Opportunities	Avg. Block %
2005	9271	.84
2006	7375	.77
2007	11523	.86

Opportunities and Block Percentage By Season

Also, I’m still wary of the effect of pitching staffs and of course random variation. One of the next steps is to try a With or Without You (WOWY) analysis to see if I can tease out the impact of the pitchers.

Enough of the warnings, let’s look at the results. I’ll go year by year, including 2007 for those who don’t want to look back at other posts, and then look at the leaders and trailers over the three seasons (by summing runs per season). Remember, I’m calculating an average block percentage for each season individually. I’m still limiting this to those catchers with more than 100 opportunities and assuming a run value of .27 runs per miss. I’ve changed the sort order to sort by actual runs saved rather than runs per 120, since I think the actual value is more interesting.

2005

Catcher	Innings	Misses	Opportunities	Block %	Blocks AA	Runs	Runs/120
Mike Matheny	1122	24	327	0.93	26.93	7.27	6.76
Jason Kendall	1286	34	353	0.9	20.98	5.66	4.4
Gregg Zaun	1088	23	251	0.91	16.09	4.34	5.18
Jason LaRue	914.67	28	271	0.9	14.21	3.84	4.4
Yadier Molina	959.33	27	242	0.89	10.69	2.89	3.61
Mike Lieberthal	998.67	20	193	0.9	10.06	2.72	4.4
Johnny Estrada	826.33	23	211	0.89	9.86	2.66	3.61
Brad Ausmus	1065.67	29	243	0.88	8.85	2.39	2.82
Victor Martinez	1233	24	200	0.88	7.15	1.93	2.82
Gary Bennett	523.33	14	130	0.89	6.25	1.69	3.61
Damian Miller	917.33	33	252	0.87	6.25	1.69	2.03
Toby Hall	1061.67	47	332	0.86	4.71	1.27	1.24
Henry Blanco	422.33	13	108	0.88	3.82	1.03	2.82
Joe Mauer	999.67	26	180	0.86	2.04	0.55	1.24
Geronimo Gil	349.33	17	122	0.86	2	0.54	1.24
Jason Phillips	774	19	132	0.86	1.56	0.42	1.24
Humberto Cota	681.67	28	186	0.85	0.97	0.26	0.45
Brian McCann	449.33	15	102	0.85	0.89	0.24	0.45
Mike Piazza	809.33	15	102	0.85	0.89	0.24	0.45
Paul Lo Duca	1033.33	30	197	0.85	0.68	0.18	0.45
Ramon Hernandez	806	17	100	0.83	-1.42	-0.38	-1.12
Ryan Doumit	422	19	110	0.83	-1.87	-0.5	-1.12
Rod Barajas	1025.33	34	202	0.83	-2.54	-0.69	-1.12
Michael Barrett	1017.67	38	225	0.83	-2.96	-0.8	-1.12
Jorge Posada	1076.67	37	215	0.83	-3.51	-0.95	-1.12
Sal Fasano	417	25	136	0.82	-3.82	-1.03	-1.91
Bengie Molina	873.33	40	231	0.83	-4.02	-1.09	-1.12
Javy Lopez	628.67	26	140	0.81	-4.19	-1.13	-2.7
Jose Molina	480.33	25	133	0.81	-4.28	-1.16	-2.7
Miguel Olivo	690	28	152	0.82	-4.33	-1.17	-1.91
Javier Valentin	508.33	22	111	0.8	-4.71	-1.27	-3.49
Jason Varitek	1089	44	243	0.82	-6.15	-1.66	-1.91
Brian Schneider	926.67	34	169	0.8	-7.68	-2.07	-3.49
J.D. Closser	565.67	24	104	0.77	-7.8	-2.11	-5.85
John Buck	976.67	42	215	0.8	-8.51	-2.3	-3.49
Chad Moeller	520.67	32	145	0.78	-9.42	-2.54	-5.07
Danny Ardoin	591	28	119	0.76	-9.47	-2.56	-6.64
Chris Snyder	915.67	40	191	0.79	-10.25	-2.77	-4.28
Ivan Rodriguez	1032.67	40	159	0.75	-15.24	-4.11	-7.43
A.J. Pierzynski	1117.67	46	181	0.75	-17.81	-4.81	-7.43

Catchers With More than 100 Opportunities in 2005
One big surprise in 2005: Jason Varitek, who the top catcher in 2007, is near the bottom here. He had 44 misses this season, while never having more than 24 in the other two seasons. I thought maybe he had been catching Tim Wakefield more in 2005 than in the other seasons. Turns out that Wake wasn’t the biggest cause of Varitek’s misfortune. Matt Clement actually led to 13 misses for Varitek that season, by far his highest number. This seems to be somewhat of a trend for Clement. Just looking at his WP numbers over the previous seasons he often has at least 10 wild pitches (and 23! in 2000), which puts him near the league leaders. Obviously Clement missed the large majority of 2006 and 2007, reducing Varitek’s misses. This quick look definitely highlights the need for a WOWY study.

Other than that, nothing too surprising. Mike Matheny, long considered a top defensive catcher, is number one. Pudge and Pierzynski are near the bottom. I’m happy to see the range of runs is roughly 12-15, right where it was for 2007.

2006

Catcher	Innings	Misses	Opportunities	Block %	Blocks AA	Runs	Runs/120
Brad Ausmus	1124.67	24	202	0.88	21.77	5.88	8.4
Yadier Molina	1037.33	32	231	0.86	20.34	5.49	6.83
Jason Varitek	822.33	24	180	0.87	16.78	4.53	7.61
Brian Schneider	990.33	27	186	0.85	15.14	4.09	6.04
Jason Kendall	1254	39	235	0.83	14.25	3.85	4.46
Brian McCann	1016.33	32	190	0.83	11.05	2.98	4.46
Josh Paul	400.33	46	250	0.82	10.64	2.87	3.67
Damian Miller	840	36	198	0.82	8.86	2.39	3.67
Mike Rivera	352.67	15	101	0.85	7.88	2.13	6.04
Paul Lo Duca	1027	39	195	0.8	5.18	1.4	2.1
Mike Lieberthal	484	21	115	0.82	5.06	1.37	3.67
Gregg Zaun	541.33	21	112	0.81	4.38	1.18	2.88
Mike Napoli	716.33	32	158	0.8	3.8	1.03	2.1
Henry Blanco	526	21	108	0.81	3.47	0.94	2.88
Bengie Molina	842	32	152	0.79	2.44	0.66	1.31
Toby Hall	628	27	126	0.79	1.55	0.42	1.31
Miguel Olivo	971.33	43	193	0.78	0.73	0.2	0.52
Eliezer Alfonzo	700.33	26	117	0.78	0.51	0.14	0.52
Sal Fasano	518	28	124	0.77	0.1	0.03	-0.27
Rod Barajas	825	23	102	0.77	0.11	0.03	-0.27
John Buck	930.33	46	200	0.77	-0.68	-0.18	-0.27
Ivan Rodriguez	1054.33	34	146	0.77	-0.92	-0.25	-0.27
Joe Mauer	1059.33	37	154	0.76	-2.11	-0.57	-1.06
Russell Martin	1015	39	159	0.75	-2.97	-0.8	-1.85
Ramon Hernandez	1094.33	60	247	0.76	-4.04	-1.09	-1.06
A.J. Pierzynski	1125	45	170	0.74	-6.48	-1.75	-2.64
Jorge Posada	1050.67	45	168	0.73	-6.94	-1.87	-3.42
Victor Martinez	1110	38	126	0.7	-9.45	-2.55	-5.79
Jose Molina	603.33	37	121	0.69	-9.58	-2.59	-6.58
Dioner Navarro	653.67	36	113	0.68	-10.4	-2.81	-7.37
Michael Barrett	852	45	150	0.7	-11.01	-2.97	-5.79
Kenji Johjima	1172.67	53	148	0.64	-19.47	-5.26	-10.52

Catchers With More than 100 Opportunities in 2006
Looking at this list makes me question even more the validity of the raw data from 2006. The range from top to bottom is still the same 12-15 runs, but the relative ranking is very different from 2005 and 2007. Of course that could just imply there’s a whole lot of random variation built into this measure, but I think there’s some systematic scoring issue that’s changing things.

2007

Catcher	Innings	Misses	Opportunities	Block %	Blocks AA	Runs	Runs/120
Jason Varitek	1064	19	282	0.93	21.5	5.81	5.8
Brad Ausmus	906.67	17	256	0.93	19.77	5.34	5.8
Yadier Molina	861.33	27	315	0.91	18.24	4.92	4.23
Gregg Zaun	838.33	22	260	0.92	15.34	4.14	5.02
Mike Redmond	482.67	7	135	0.95	12.39	3.35	7.38
Gerald Laird	987.33	38	351	0.89	12.41	3.35	2.65
Brian Schneider	1051.33	40	362	0.89	11.99	3.24	2.65
Gary Bennett	370.33	10	139	0.93	9.96	2.69	5.8
Ramon Hernandez	855	32	294	0.89	10.23	2.76	2.65
Yorvit Torrealba	935.33	22	200	0.89	6.73	1.82	2.65
Mike Napoli	598.67	23	205	0.89	6.44	1.74	2.65
Jason Phillips	363.67	10	110	0.91	5.8	1.57	4.23
Damian Miller	446.33	19	172	0.89	5.7	1.54	2.65
Carlos Ruiz	912.67	25	212	0.88	5.45	1.47	1.86
Russell Martin	1254	40	318	0.87	5.67	1.53	1.07
Josh Bard	927.33	24	202	0.88	5.01	1.35	1.86
Chris Iannetta	496.67	12	116	0.9	4.66	1.26	3.44
Jason Kendall	1146	48	372	0.87	5.43	1.47	1.07
Dioner Navarro	956.33	34	270	0.87	4.78	1.29	1.07
Ronny Paulino	277.67	35	275	0.87	4.5	1.22	1.07
Kurt Suzuki	539	25	202	0.88	4.01	1.08	1.86
Jeff Mathis	467	27	214	0.87	3.74	1.01	1.07
John Buck	924.33	32	244	0.87	3.04	0.82	1.07
Johnny Estrada	961	37	267	0.86	1.35	0.36	0.29
Jarrod Saltalamacchia	372.67	16	117	0.86	0.8	0.22	0.29
Brian McCann	1139	34	243	0.86	0.9	0.24	0.29
Matt Treanor	440.67	17	120	0.86	0.24	0.06	0.29
Paul Bako	421	23	162	0.86	0.27	0.07	0.29
Victor Martinez	1042.67	29	204	0.86	0.3	0.08	0.29
Jesus Flores	395.33	15	103	0.85	-0.21	-0.06	-0.5
Chris Snyder	891.33	34	237	0.86	0.04	0.01	0.29
Michael Barrett	768	25	170	0.85	-0.58	-0.16	-0.5
Mike Rabelo	394.67	20	130	0.85	-1.33	-0.36	-0.5
Paul LoDuca	974	24	155	0.85	-1.74	-0.47	-0.5
Jose Molina	492.33	19	117	0.84	-2.2	-0.59	-1.29
Miguel Montero	510.67	22	122	0.82	-4.48	-1.21	-2.87
Jason LaRue	474.33	24	134	0.82	-4.75	-1.28	-2.87
Kenji Johjima	1106.67	40	237	0.83	-5.96	-1.61	-2.08
Javier Valentin	471.67	22	108	0.8	-6.49	-1.75	-4.44
Benji Molina	1104	50	295	0.83	-7.63	-2.06	-2.08
Joe Mauer	777.67	30	142	0.79	-9.61	-2.59	-5.23
Dave Ross	837.33	35	148	0.76	-13.74	-3.71	-7.6
A.J. Pierzynski	1058	44	192	0.77	-16.42	-4.43	-6.81
Jorge Posada	1111.33	61	293	0.79	-18.92	-5.11	-5.23
Miguel Olivo	990.33	65	321	0.8	-18.9	-5.1	-4.44
Ivan Rodriguez	1052.67	58	214	0.73	-27.26	-7.36	-9.96

Catchers With More than 100 Opportunities in 2007
I’ll present 2007 without much comment except to say that I feel more confident in the raw data than in either 2005 or 2006 because of the improvements to the GameDay system. Of course most of the improvements were technological and the scoring decision that leads to a measured opportunity is in the hands of the human stringer.

Leaders and Trailers

As a close, I’ll leave you with the top and bottom three in actual runs saved over the last three seasons.. I’ll admit I eyeballed this a little, so I may have missed someone. Also note that there were a bunch of catchers who might have made these lists but didn’t receive enough opportunities in all three seasons.

The Best:

Brad Ausmus	13.61
Yadier Molina	13.3
Jason Kendall	10.98

The Worst:

Ivan Rodriguez	-11.72
A.J. Pierzynski	-10.99
Jorge Posada	-7.93

How Valuable is Blocking Pitches?

Posted by Dan Turkenkopf - 16/03/08 at 08:03:02 am

Now that we’ve looked at a raw ranking of how catchers performed blocking pitches in 2007 (subject to concerns about pitching staff, scoring and sample size), let’s try and turn that into runs.

Using Tango’s run expectancy chart (from 99-02, so it’s likely a little off based on the lower run environment now), a catcher miss (wild pitch or passed ball) was worth about .27 runs in 2007. Using that run value, and calculating blocks above/below average for each catcher, we can determine how many runs were saved by each catcher. The average block percentage across the entire league was 86%.

Now to put players on the same scale – which might be a little unrealistic based on the possible outside influences mentioned above. There were .27 opportunities per inning in 2007. Many people use runs per 150 games as a baseline for comparison, but since we’re talking catchers here, I think runs per 120 games probably better represents a full season. So that means a full season of opportunities should be 292 opportunities. This might be a little high since there were only 12 teams that had catchers with more than 120 games last season, so I’m willing to tweak if people think it’s necessary.

We’ll sort this table according to runs saved per 120 games, limiting still to those with over 100 opportunities.

Catcher	Innings	Misses	Opportunities	Block %	Blocks AA	Runs	Runs/120
Mike Redmond	482.67	7	135	0.95	11.9	3.21	7.1
Jason Varitek	1064	19	282	0.93	20.48	5.53	5.52
Brad Ausmus	906.67	17	256	0.93	18.84	5.09	5.52
Gary Bennett	370.33	10	139	0.93	9.46	2.55	5.52
Gregg Zaun	838.33	22	260	0.92	14.4	3.89	4.73
Yadier Molina	861.33	27	315	0.91	17.1	4.62	3.94
Jason Phillips	363.67	10	110	0.91	5.4	1.46	3.94
Chris Iannetta	496.67	12	116	0.9	4.24	1.14	3.15
Gerald Laird	987.33	38	351	0.89	11.14	3.01	2.37
Brian Schneider	1051.33	40	362	0.89	10.68	2.88	2.37
Ramon Hernandez	855	32	294	0.89	9.16	2.47	2.37
Yorvit Torrealba	935.33	22	200	0.89	6	1.62	2.37
Mike Napoli	598.67	23	205	0.89	5.7	1.54	2.37
Damian Miller	446.33	19	172	0.89	5.08	1.37	2.37
Carlos Ruiz	912.67	25	212	0.88	4.68	1.26	1.58
Josh Bard	927.33	24	202	0.88	4.28	1.16	1.58
Kurt Suzuki	539	25	202	0.88	3.28	0.89	1.58
Russell Martin	1254	40	318	0.87	4.52	1.22	0.79
Jason Kendall	1146	48	372	0.87	4.08	1.1	0.79
Dioner Navarro	956.33	34	270	0.87	3.8	1.03	0.79
Ronny Paulino	277.67	35	275	0.87	3.5	0.95	0.79
Jeff Mathis	467	27	214	0.87	2.96	0.8	0.79
John Buck	924.33	32	244	0.87	2.16	0.58	0.79
Johnny Estrada	961	37	267	0.86	0.38	0.1	0
Jarrod Saltalamacchia	372.67	16	117	0.86	0.38	0.1	0
Brian McCann	1139	34	243	0.86	0.02	0.01	0
Matt Treanor	440.67	17	120	0.86	-0.2	-0.05	0
Paul Bako	421	23	162	0.86	-0.32	-0.09	0
Victor Martinez	1042.67	29	204	0.86	-0.44	-0.12	0
Chris Snyder	891.33	34	237	0.86	-0.82	-0.22	0
Jesus Flores	395.33	15	103	0.85	-0.58	-0.16	-0.79
Michael Barrett	768	25	170	0.85	-1.2	-0.32	-0.79
Mike Rabelo	394.67	20	130	0.85	-1.8	-0.49	-0.79
Paul LoDuca	974	24	155	0.85	-2.3	-0.62	-0.79
Jose Molina	492.33	19	117	0.84	-2.62	-0.71	-1.58
Kenji Johjima	1106.67	40	237	0.83	-6.82	-1.84	-2.37
Benji Molina	1104	50	295	0.83	-8.7	-2.35	-2.37
Miguel Montero	510.67	22	122	0.82	-4.92	-1.33	-3.15
Jason LaRue	474.33	24	134	0.82	-5.24	-1.41	-3.15
Javier Valentin	471.67	22	108	0.8	-6.88	-1.86	-4.73
Miguel Olivo	990.33	65	321	0.8	-20.06	-5.42	-4.73
Joe Mauer	777.67	30	142	0.79	-10.12	-2.73	-5.52
Jorge Posada	1111.33	61	293	0.79	-19.98	-5.39	-5.52
A.J. Pierzynski	1058	44	192	0.77	-17.12	-4.62	-7.1
Dave Ross	837.33	35	148	0.76	-14.28	-3.86	-7.88
Ivan Rodriguez	1052.67	58	214	0.73	-28.04	-7.57	-10.25

Mike Redmond retakes the top spot from Jason Varitek once we scale to the same number of opportunities, while Pudge looks worse again because of his low number of opportunities. However, he played almost as many innings as Varitek, but had almost 70 fewer opportunities. I don’t know if that’s an effect of scoring, pitching staff or simple variation, but it makes me wonder if, as rlc from BBTF suggested (comment 6), Pudge isn’t calling as many low breaking pitches as other catches would.

Anyway it looks like the range in value from blocking pitches is somewhere in the order of 12 to 17 runs (at least in 2007), which actually is higher than I would have imagined going in.

A tale of two catchers

Posted by Dan Turkenkopf - 15/03/08 at 08:03:00 am

At least a couple of people have asked for some more detail about Doug Mirabelli, Tim Wakefield and blocking pitches. To no one’s surprise I’m sure, Mirabelli looks a lot better when you isolate out Wakefield. Basically he’s a completely different catcher.

Take all this with a grain of salt because the sample sizes are so small, but here’s how Mirabelli breaks down by pitcher:

Wakefield: 27 opportunities, 16 misses, 41% block percentage
Romero: 10 opportunities, 0 misses, 100% block percentage
Snyder: 6 opportunities, 2 misses, 66% block percentage
Matsuzaka: 4 opportunities, 0 misses, 100% block percentage
Pineiro: 4 opportunities, 2 misses, 50% block percentage
Lopez: 3 opportunities, 1 miss, 66% block percentage
Hansack: 2 opportunities, 0 misses, 100% block percentage
Papelbon: 2 opportunities, 0 misses, 100% block percentage
Okajima: 2 opportunities, 0 misses, 100% block percentage
Timlin: 1 opportunity, 0 misses, 100% block percentage
Delcarmen:1 opportunity, 0 misses, 100% block percentage
Tavarez: 1 opportunity, 0 misses, 100% block percentage
Donnelly: 1 opportunity, 1 miss, 0% block percentage

Total non-Wakefield pitchers: 37 opportunities, 6 misses, 84% block percentage

Catcher Block Percentage – Followup

Posted by Dan Turkenkopf - 15/03/08 at 07:03:16 am

Over on The Book Blog, Mike Fast raised the fact that I had left out the category of “Swinging Strike (Blocked)” when calculating the block opportunities.

Obviously including those pitches will change things somewhat, so without further adieu, here are the new numbers:

Catcher	Innings	Misses	Opportunities	Block %
Mike Redmond	482.67	7	135	0.95
Brad Ausmus	906.67	17	256	0.93
Gary Bennett	370.33	10	139	0.93
Jason Varitek	1064	19	282	0.93
Gregg Zaun	838.33	22	260	0.92
Yadier Molina	861.33	27	315	0.91
Jason Phillips	363.67	10	110	0.91
Chris Iannetta	496.67	12	116	0.9
Ramon Hernandez	855	32	294	0.89
Gerald Laird	987.33	38	351	0.89
Damian Miller	446.33	19	172	0.89
Mike Napoli	598.67	23	205	0.89
Brian Schneider	1051.33	40	362	0.89
Yorvit Torrealba	935.33	22	200	0.89
Josh Bard	927.33	24	202	0.88
Carlos Ruiz	912.67	25	212	0.88
Kurt Suzuki	539	25	202	0.88
John Buck	924.33	32	244	0.87
Jason Kendall	1146	48	372	0.87
Russell Martin	1254	40	318	0.87
Jeff Mathis	467	27	214	0.87
Dioner Navarro	956.33	34	270	0.87
Ronny Paulino	277.67	35	275	0.87
Paul Bako	421	23	162	0.86
Johnny Estrada	961	37	267	0.86
Victor Martinez	1042.67	29	204	0.86
Brian McCann	1139	34	243	0.86
Jarrod Saltalamacchia	372.67	16	117	0.86
Chris Snyder	891.33	34	237	0.86
Matt Treanor	440.67	17	120	0.86
Michael Barrett	768	25	170	0.85
Jesus Flores	395.33	15	103	0.85
Paul LoDuca	974	24	155	0.85
Mike Rabelo	394.67	20	130	0.85
Jose Molina	492.33	19	117	0.84
Kenji Johjima	1106.67	40	237	0.83
Benji Molina	1104	50	295	0.83
Jason LaRue	474.33	24	134	0.82
Miguel Montero	510.67	22	122	0.82
Miguel Olivo	990.33	65	321	0.8
Javier Valentin	471.67	22	108	0.8
Joe Mauer	777.67	30	142	0.79
Jorge Posada	1111.33	61	293	0.79
A.J. Pierzynski	1058	44	192	0.77
Dave Ross	837.33	35	148	0.76
Ivan Rodriguez	1052.67	58	214	0.73

It doesn’t appear to alter things too badly. Just shifts some positions around slightly and makes Pudge look a little better (but still worst in the league).

Other concerns that have been raised are the effects of the pitching staffs and the PITCHf/x scorekeepers. Unfortunately, I don’t really have a way to control for that at this point, so just keep those considerations in mind when using this information.

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