IRod: 2543 G (2427 at catcher), 10,270 PA, 106 OPS+, 50 oWAR + 17 dWar = 67 WAR.

Piazza: 1912 G (1630 at catcher), 7745 PA, 142 OPS+, 67 oWAR - 8 dwar = 59 WAR.

I realize that Piazza was bad at throwing out runners, which caused a lot more of them to run on him. Still, I'm kind of surprised career WAR sees IRod as better. That's a massive gap in defense, worth 25 WAR.

Yesterday, I was half-watching the pre-game festivities, and saw that the Rangers were honoring "Rodriguez". For the life of me, I couldn't figure out why they would do this for A-Rod.

I realize that Piazza was bad at throwing out runners, which caused a lot more of them to run on him. Still, I'm kind of surprised career WAR sees IRod as better. That's a massive gap in defense, worth 25 WAR.

Sean Smith along with others are starting to look more closely into catcher defense and they are finding some surprising things. For instance I believe Sean Smith has found that Piazza has the third most game calling runs prevented of all time. Only Fisk and Pena have more. If that was factored into his WAR Piazza would with 70 WAR and Ivan would lose 4.5 WAR because this stat finds him to be below average.

Now of course I would say most of these stats are still in the primitive experimental stage but Smith isn't the only one to find this. Max Marchi found something similar as well.

I realize that Piazza was bad at throwing out runners, which caused a lot more of them to run on him. Still, I'm kind of surprised career WAR sees IRod as better. That's a massive gap in defense, worth 25 WAR.

Sometimes I almost wonder if Pudge was the victim of a bit of underappreciation --- like a lot of primates, I guess I was always at least moderately in the camp of "Yeah, he's got a great arm... but is he really a great defensive catcher otherwise?"

I guess dWAR says yes.

Rizzo by virtue of this certainly seems to be appreciative of his "clubhouse presence" impact (and let's face it -- both Detroit and Florida certainly seemed to have upswings timed with bringing him aboard).

Sure, "Greatest Catcher Ever" is hyperbole -- I don't personally think he's really in the conversation, except possibly on the periphery/as an early cut in the process -- but looking at him again from 10,000 ft, I do sort of get the sense that "we" tend to underrate him a bit for whatever reason.

Pudge was something of a fan favorite in DC, particularly last season when he handled the timeshare/mentoring of Wilson Ramos quite gracefully. And his arm was still every bit as good as advertised. I'm really surprised that no team has found room for him even as a reserve. Sure he offers nothing with the bat, but that's true for any number of back up catchers.

Regardless of his place in the pantheon, I thought Rizzo's gesture was appropriate, though it's one of those things that seems slightly degraded by being made public so quickly.

Also, let us never forget his time as a Yankee. Four steals in 33 games, baby!

I think this is a great way to treat a Hall of Famer on his way out. Kudos to the Nats as an organization.

I realize that Piazza was bad at throwing out runners, which caused a lot more of them to run on him. Still, I'm kind of surprised career WAR sees IRod as better. That's a massive gap in defense, worth 25 WAR.

An extra 2,500 PA also helps. Even if he was below replacement level offensively for the last 1,000 or so, he was still accumulating dWAR

I think this is a great way to treat a Hall of Famer on his way out. Kudos to the Nats as an organization.

If he had played for the Red Sox, Larry Lucchino would written a similar letter, except with references to Pudge's suspected needle use.

I do sort of get the sense that "we" tend to underrate him a bit for whatever reason.

Those reasons probably being the 30 walks a year he averaged in his prime, the 1999 AL MVP when WAR sees him as about the 8th best player in the league, and the constant "Best Catcher Ever?" buzz he generated while Mike Piazza was rewriting the record books for offense from a catcher at the same time, and doing it playing half his games in Dodger Stadium vs Coors Field East.

I don't doubt that some players had a better offensive 1999 than Pudge did. But did any of them dominate on defense the way that Pudge did? I know that in the 90s the game was a 3 run homer kind of game. But having a catcher that stopped the other team's running game like a brick wall has to be taken into account. In 1999, he allowed only 34 SBs in over 1200 innings and nailed a league-high 55% of attempted thieves.

Also, I think that you have to figure in how hard it is to play catcher as opposed to being a 1b or corner OF. The position is draining and accompanied a high risk of injury. Getting a catcher with any sort of above average offensive skills is a big plus. Getting a catcher who can stop the running game cold while hitting like a 1b is HUGE.

Also, I think that you have to figure in how hard it is to play catcher as opposed to being a 1b or corner OF.

Of course, this doesn't really apply to the ######## '99 MVP award that Pudge won, since the guys who had more than 1 WAR greater than him included a pitcher, a shortstop, and a secondbasemen.

The thing that I remember about that MVP race is that Pudge just wasn't on my radar screen at all as someone who might win. All of the discussion that I remember was around Pedro/Manny/Alomar/Jeter as the serious candidates, with maybe one or two others like Palmeiro as fringe candidates. Rodriguez winning came totally out of left field.

You hate to complain when the writers choose to recognize positional adjustments and just how hard it is to be a catcher, but 1999 was the wrong year.

Sometimes I almost wonder if Pudge was the victim of a bit of underappreciation --- like a lot of primates, I guess I was always at least moderately in the camp of "Yeah, he's got a great arm... but is he really a great defensive catcher otherwise?"

I think what probably often happens to strong armed catchers is that this overcomes their other defensive problems and they are rushed to the big leagues. You see a young guy, and while he controls the running game his pitcher handling and pitch blocking skills may lag behind. I think Carlos Santana is going through this right now.

I wrote this about Piazza on another site:

In 1996 the Rockies stole 10 bases on Piazza in one game and the Rockies won 16-15.
Here is the SB log:
1st inning: Ellis Burks walks with 2 outs, steals second and advances to third on a Piazza error. No runs are scored this inning.
3rd inning: Young steals second while Weiss strikes out. He then steals third. He finally steals home. Only run of the inning and can we really fault Piazza's arm for a steal of home.
4th inning: McCracken reaches on an error. McCracken steals second and then third while Young walks. Young then steals second. Weiss doubles scoring both. Later in the inning Bichette singles and then steals second but the next batter strikes out. 4 runs scored in the inning 2 by base stealers.
5th inning: With 2 outs Young steals second and then Weiss strikes out. 1 run scores in the inning but it is on Young's FC.
8th inning: With 2 outs Young singles and then steals second. Weiss then grounds out. 2 runs score that inning but they were before Young singled.

So there are your 10 SB. Do you notice anything unusual about that list? The Rockies steal 9 bases through 5 innings and the only inning they don't try to steal is the only inning they don't have a baserunner. They must have known Piazza was horrible right? But if that is true why did they stop running after the 5th? The answer is because Hideo Nomo left the game after the 5th inning. The Rockies weren't really running on Piazza they were running on Nomo whose windup delivery was horrible for stopping the running game which I think a steal of home is ample evidence of. In fact 43 of Piazza SBA in 1996 happened while Nomo was on the mound. Nomo started 5 games in which Piazza was not catching for him and he allowed 9 stolen bases in those and in only one of those games did no one attempt to steal a base. The catcher who allowed the 9 stolen bases was Tom Prince who didn't have a bad arm.

How bad was Nomo at holding runners? Runners stole 300 bases off of him and only 99 runners were caught while he was pitching. In 1999 in Milwaukee he allowed 41 runners to steal a base. In 2001 with Boston he led the league by allowing 52 baserunners to steal a base. Nomo started 33 games in 1996 and had 63 people try to steal on him. Pedro Astacio started 32 games and only had 20 people try to steal on him. Tom Candiotti started 27 games and only 21 people tried to steal on him. Ismael Valdez started 33 games and only 27 people tried to steal on him. Ramon Martinez started 27 games and only 30 people tried to steal on him. Clearly Hideo Nomo was a big big part of the reason Mike Piazza allowed 155 stolen bases in 1996. Yet WAR ignores Hideo Nomo and puts the blame on Piazza and gives him a -.9 dWAR.

Further proof that pitchers play an integral part in SBA?

Armando Benitez.

The first time Piazza cracks -1 dWAR in his career is in 2001 with the Mets. He allows a league leading 114 stolen bases and only throws out 22% of would be basestealers. That year runners steal 11 bases on Armando Benitez while only being caught once despite only allowing 88 baserunners. Is that a fluke? Is it because of Mike Piazza? Well, from 1994 to 1998 Armando was with the Orioles and he allowed 37 stolen bases while only having 4 runngers get caught out of 233 baserunners. So in 2001 14% of baserunners attempted to steal and while Armando was with the Orioles almost 18% of baserunners attempted to steal. After Armando leaves the Mets he allows 27 stolen bases in 30 attempts out of 251 would be baserunners. 11% of baserunners. While he was a Met 13% of his baserunners attempted to steal on him.

Does this mean none of it is because of Mike Piazza? Nope. Piazza was not good at throwing out runner and even the best pitchers at preventing stolen bases would see their SBA rise with Piazza behind the plate (See Glendon Rusch for proof of that) but not all of the blame should be put squarely on him.


PS: In 1996 Nomo had 11 CS while he was pitching. Piazza was behind the plate and was the catcher threw out all 11 of those runners.

I would love to see a metric that somehow controls for how good or bad the pitcher was at holding the runner (beyond just factoring in pitching hand).

McCoy #15 - great stuff, very interesting.

I would love to see a metric that somehow controls for how good or bad the pitcher was at holding the runner (beyond just factoring in pitching hand).

I put together Player won-lost records based on Retrosheet play-by-play data that try to do this. I explain how I share credit and control for teammate ability here. Even doing these adjustments, I get Rodriguez as the best catcher at preventing basestealing and Piazza the worst since 1948. Comparing them over their careers, however, I have Piazza quite a bit more valuable than Rodriguez.

#15 - That's one thing that playing Strat-O-Matic burns into your head. Pitchers are rated for their ability to hold runners, and that has a huge effect on stolen base percentages, both in number of attempts and success rate. Nomo had several seasons where his rating was +9, which is rare, and the worst possible rating for a pitcher.

#16, So the best catcher link leads to how catchers do in preventing steals, balks, PB, and WP, correct? Pudge was +6 wins and Piazza was -5.2 wins? Do you still have the data on how much of the stealing on Piazza was because of him and how much of it was because of the pitchers?

#16, So the best catcher link leads to how catchers do in preventing steals, balks, PB, and WP, correct? Pudge was +6 wins and Piazza was -5.2 wins? Do you still have the data on how much of the stealing on Piazza was because of him and how much of it was because of the pitchers?

The link in #17 is just basestealing (steals, balks, CS). Wild pitches and passed balls are here: Piazza's +0.7 net wins (7th-best); Rodriguez is -0.3 net wins (in neither the top 10 nor bottom 10). Piazza's pitchers added maybe 0.4 net wins to his fielding; Rodriguez's pitchers added 1.2 net wins (on the player pages, go to the 3rd table: "Teammate Adjustments", defensive; the number there is how many wins you would add to the player's fielding wins based on his teammates, holding the number of decisions constant - so, you subtract the same number of losses, i.e., the effect on net wins is twice what's shown here; I hope that makes sense).

thanks


A pretty big difference between Sean Smith's "Catch" and your metrics. You have Ivan at +5.7 wins and Mike at -4.5 wins while Sean has them at +166 runs and -61 runs.

One question,

For catchers the fielding side of the metric is component 1 and 2 or is there another component that I missed?

Because looking at fielding for catchers it has Piazza at -4.5, like I would expect, but it has Ivan at +6.2 and I am wondering where the .5 wins are coming from.

A pretty big difference between Sean Smith's "Catch" and your metrics. You have Ivan at +5.7 wins and Mike at -4.5 wins while Sean has them at +166 runs and -61 runs.

I think this is mostly because catchers only get about 55% of the credit on SB/CS and about 24% of the credit on WP/PB in my system - pitchers get the rest - whereas I think Sean is giving catchers full credit for all of that. In terms of Rodriguez, the other factor would then be the teammate adjustments that I talked about above, which are gaining him about 1.2 net wins if you don't adjust for them (so he's at something like +7.4 wins without adjusting for his pitchers).

For catchers the fielding side of the metric is component 1 and 2 or is there another component that I missed?

There's also some credit for fielding balls in play, which is mostly Component 5 (there are also components for preventing extra-base hits (6), DPs (7), and baserunner advancement (8 and 9), but these are trivial for catchers - it's not like teams hit a lot of doubles to the catcher).

Mike Piazza's full fielding record is here. He was very good at preventing WP/PB and basically average on fielding balls in play (oddly, he's a fair bit above average at preventing baserunner advancements on balls in play (Component 9), although the numbers are very small for this factor).

Ivan Rodriguez's full fielding record is here. He was above average fielding balls in play, which is where the extra 0.5 win is coming from.

I have a general overview of the 9 components I use in this article.