david@fisher.UUCP (David Rubin) (08/08/85)
If you've made it this far, the rest is easy.
FIELDING
Unfortunately, the Baseball Encyclopedia only has offensive statistics
for non-pitchers. Even if it did, we'd have to work out some way in
which to divide Carter's statistics among catching, first base, and
the outfield. The only useful statistics I do have with regard to
fielding are the two catchers defensive records as catchers for 1984;
it was taken from James's 1985 Baseball Abstract (of no concern here,
but of possible concern to the purchaser, are occassional lapses in
the Abstract which must be corrected by reference to another source,
e.g. The Sporting News Official Baseball Guide). I calculated %TC
myself (percentage of team total chances at the position handled by
the player) from the listings and used it to help in corrections for
strikeouts.
Catcher G PO A E TC DP PCT. PB %TC
Carter 143 772 65 6 843 6 .993 7 83
Pena 146 895 95 9 999 15 .991 6 86
ANALYSIS
As always, I advocate ignoring the number of errors and the fielding
percentage, as lending substantial credence to those figures favors
the sure handed man who doesn't cover much ground. Total chances may
be ignored, as we will treat assists and put outs separately. Double
plays should also be ignored, as they are more a function of
opportunity (pitchers who tend to get grounders, pitchers who tend to
load bases) than of skill.
Catcher's putouts are dominated by the number of strikeouts made by
his staff. In 1984, Pirate pitchers struck out 992 batters, Expo
pitchers only 861. If we assume that those strikeouts were as likely
to occur at one time as another, we can estimate the number of
strikeouts that occurred while Carter or Pena were behind the plate,
and then estimate how many putouts were actually the result of work
done by the catcher.
Catcher PO Est. K Est. (PO-K)
Carter 772 .83*861 = 715 57
Pena 895 .86*992 = 853 42
Thus we find that, in 1984, Carter was more successful in hunting down
foul balls and getting putouts at the plate in somewhat less time catching.
As it is not clear to me whether this reflects better judgement of pop
fly trajectories and greater ability to block off the plate (i.e.
Carter is bigger) or merely the greater area of foul ground at Olympic
Stadium (yes, Paul, I am invoking Park Effects to Pena's benefit) and
more frequent opportunities for easy forces at home (though Pena's
advantage in DP's argues strongly against the last), I will concede
that the issue is not clearly resolved, although I think it is likely
that Carter does have a slight edge here.
Assists for catchers represent two things: shutting down the running
game and fielding the bunt/squibbler. To figure out which is which,
we would need to know how many base stealers were thrown out, how many
weren't, and we would be able to figure not only how well the team
shut down the running game, but by subtraction get some estimate of
how quick the catcher is on those bunts. Sadly, I don't have those
figures for 1984, though I was able to find out the Pirates led the
league in the percentage of baserunners thrown out (38%) in 1984, and
the Expos led the league in 1983 (with 43%), the Pirates coming in
second (again with 38%). I could not find the figure for the Expos in
1984. The results: inconclusive, but not consistent with Paul's
claims of clear Pirate supremacy.
Now how about those plays that go 2-3 (or 2-4 or 2-5 or 2-6)? I can't
do it, as I don't have the number of base stealers thrown out by each
team in 1984 to subtract from the assist totals. My guess has always
been that Pena held a slight advantage in this area, but
quantification will have to wait. Pena's assist bulge for 1984 is
inflated by his lead in throwing out runners and his being fortunate
enough to be involved in 15 DP's, so we cannot conclude in his favor
on the basis of the available evidence.
Finally, what of stopping bad pitches? The passed ball totals do not
give us an indication of a difference in ability to stop the marginal
pitches. Perhaps we can see which is better at stopping outrightly
bad pitches by looking at the total number of wild pitches thrown by
each staff. In 1984, Expo pitchers threw 40 wild pitches, Pirate
pitchers 43. Nope, no help there. This appears to be a draw.
SUMMARY
Throwing Out Runners - inconclusive.
Foul Pops - edge to Carter, probably.
Fair Grounders - edge to Pena, subjectively.
Stopping Balls - inconclusive.
AFTERWORD
To borrow a phrase from a lesser sport, the ball's in your court,
Paul. :-)
David Rubin
{allegra|astrovax|princeton}!fisher!david
P.S. A final note on park effects: since it did not prove to be as
critical as I thought it would (Olympic Stadium having only moderately
favored pitchers, and only in recent years, and Carter having far more
impressive offensive statistics, even without considering the parks), I
only generally sketched what park effects are rather than fulfilling
my original intention of discussing them in some detail. This had the
advantage of trimming the length of Part II substantially; it had the
disadvantage that someone might feel I had neglected my duty. If
there is interest in a detailed discussion, I'll gladly contribute an
exposition, but we it can be discussed separately from the Carter-Pena
debate.