basestealers: know the opposing catcher

Posted: Mon Mar 20, 2006 3:00 pm

i hate playing a pierre or podsednik, because those guys suck. but you need the steals. so i want to build a chart of which teams have good or bad throwing catchers, and then only play my burners when they're going against a team with a bad catcher back there. try to concentrate the value.

SUMMARY
bench rabbits against: cardinals, nationals, pirates, giants, tigers, angels, twins, rays
play against: padres, cubs, marlins, phillies, mets; athletics, indians, white sox

2005 CS% listed. apparently average CS% for catchers is about .300. i'll keep bad catchers (good targets) in bold, good catchers (bad targets) in underlined italics.

AL:

angels / Jose Molina + mathis: molina .513, which is I-Rod-like
athletics / kendall: .179
rangers / barajas: .343
mariners / johjima: we'll see, good rep

indians / victor: .232
twins / mauer: .426
white sox / pierzynski: .225
tigers / I-Rod: .515 - aging but still good back there
royals / buck: .341

red sox / varitek: .244
yankees / posada: .302
blue jays / Bengie Molina: .313
devil rays / hall: .418
orioles / r hernandez + Javy: hernandez .257, Javy .235

NL:

dodgers / navarro + martin: navarro .214, smallish sample
giants / matheny: .382
diamondbacks / estrada: .310
padres / piazza + mirabelli: mirabelli .276 but he was catching wakefield, piazza .137 GO GO GO
rockies / torrealba + ardoin: ardoin .489, yorvit .357 - not bad

cardinals / Yadier Molina: .641, best in the majors by a lot
brewers / miller: .316, average
astros / ausmus: .316, average
cubs / barrett: .231
pirates / doumit + cota: doumit .400, cota .277, but cota has a good reputation
reds / laRue + valentin: laRue .329, valentin .286

braves / mcCann: .185, small sample
mets / lo duca: .246
marlins / willingham + olivo: olivo .304, willingham 0 for 3
phillies / lieberthal: .213
nationals / schneider: .400

looks like in general you want your rabbits hanging out in the NL. good: the NL east. bad: molinas.

give me some thoughts on your team's catchers. i want to sort of maintain and update this post and use it as a reference.

of course, to really do this right, you need to track the pitchers as well, since the pitcher is a big part of holding runners on. but that's even *more* work.

NOTE: actually any of the mods can feel free to edit this and keep it up to date, etc. at some point i might add a section on pitchers, not every SP in the majors but a list of the guys who are especially brutal on basestealers and the guys who are spectacularly bad at holding runners on.

Posted: Mon Mar 20, 2006 3:20 pm

Gratzie. Molto bene donut Cheers!

.

Posted: Mon Mar 20, 2006 10:55 pm

Big adda-boy!

One other thing that needs to be considered along with CS% is SBA. Matheny should probably be italicized, because he usually has one of the lower SBA's annually and keeps bad pitches under control. Barajas is following in his footsteps, add in Laird and whether the Rangers are playing at home in Ameriquest and it's not a good time for green lights. Looking back to '04 Hernandez was average or a little better posting a 28 CS% with 39 attempts in 452 innings. I'd be cautious about green lighting the Orioles intially, until we see what everyone else thinks, what sharing the duties more does, and whether Ramon and Javy (another average '04) revert back to '04 form with Leo around.