Catcher’s row
Posted by: Chad Jennings - Posted in Misc on Feb 17, 2010 
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On the left side of the Yankees spring training clubhouse, all the way at the back, the lockers line up like this: Jorge Posada in the corner, followed by Francisco Cervelli, Austin Romine and Mike Rivera. Jesus Montero, Kyle Higashioka and P.J. Pilittere are at the ends of the middle rows, the other spots reserved for catchers.
The catching job still belongs to Posada, but he’s surrounded by the future.
“For me it’s easy because these kids, they want to be taught,” Posada said. “Montero comes up to me and says, what are we going to do today?”
Posada’s not ready to give up the job just yet, though. He wouldn’t speculate how many games he’ll spend behind plate, but he said he’s come to spring training, “prepared to catch.”
“I want to play,” Posada said. “I like playing, I enjoy playing. If I’m not hurting the team, I want to be out there.”
“What are we going to do today?” That’s what I hear when I babysit my nephew.
Maybe this will change the topic for a little while. Good stuff from Posnanski:
American League East
Slugger Adam Lind is one of the only bright spots for the Blue Jays.
AP
Best players, by position:
No. 1 starter: CC Sabathia, Yankees
No. 2 starter: Josh Beckett, Boston
No. 3 starter: John Lackey, Boston
Closer: Mariano Rivera, Yankees
Catcher: Victor Martinez, Boston
First base: Mark Teixeira, Yankees
Second base: Dustin Pedroia, Boston
Shortstop: Derek Jeter, Yankees
Third base: Alex Rodriguez, Yankees
Right field: Nick Markakis, Baltimore
Center field: Adam Jones, Baltimore
Left field: Carl Crawford, Tampa Bay
Best pitcher in the division: Sabathia. Edges Boston’s Jon Lester and Josh Beckett.
Best player in the division: I have Alex Rodriguez just a notch ahead of Teixeira, but they’re really pretty close. There are great players everywhere in this division: New York’s Jeter, Robinson Cano and Curtis Granderson, Tampa Bay’s Evan Longoria and Crawford, Boston’s Pedroia and Kevin Youkilis, Baltimore’s Adam Jones, Toronto’s, um, well, Jesse Barfield? Actually, even in rebuilding Toronto, Adam Lind looks like an offensive star in the making.
And the predictions:
1. New York: 103-59
Comment: Loaded. And loaded. And on top of that: Loaded. Take last year’s team — maybe the best team of the decade — and add Curtis Granderson and Javier Vazquez. Did I say loaded?
2. Boston: 98-64
Comment: Also loaded… I think the Red Sox have slightly better pitching than the Yankees and their defense should be awfully good. But the Yankees offense seems a notch better…. OK, I have to take a moment to talk about Jacoby Ellsbury’s defense. You probably know that last year he was voted as the Defensive Player of the Year by the fans on MLB.com. And you probably know that last year the advanced stats suggested that Ellsbury was, er, let’s call it overrated. He scored minus-15 on the Dewan plus-minus. His Ultimate Zone Rating was minus-18.6.
Whenever you have such a wide gap between what you see and what the numbers record, there will be skirmishes, disagreements and complaints, and the Internet was littered with people who either mocked Ellsbury’s grand defensive reputation or, much more likely, mocked the convoluted statistics that seemed to besmirch that reputation. Take your UZR and shove it!
And that’s fine. Except for this: The Red Sox went out this offseason and signed 37-year-old Mike Cameron. And the plan seems to be this: Put him in center field and move Ellsbury out. So, apparently, the Red Sox believe the defensive stats might have had a point.
Read More: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.c.....z0fpBlDDAN
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Country Club,
Interesting. Do we go as Alex goes? Or do we go as Tex goes?
m February 17th, 2010 at 3:03 pm
Country Club,
Interesting. Do we go as Alex goes? Or do we go as Tex goes?
I think last year showed its Alex.
“Best players, by position:
No. 1 starter: CC Sabathia, Yankees
No. 2 starter: Josh Beckett, Boston
No. 3 starter: John Lackey, Boston
Closer: Mariano Rivera, Yankees
Catcher: Victor Martinez, Boston
First base: Mark Teixeira, Yankees
Second base: Dustin Pedroia, Boston
Shortstop: Derek Jeter, Yankees
Third base: Alex Rodriguez, Yankees
Right field: Nick Markakis, Baltimore
Center field: Adam Jones, Baltimore
Left field: Carl Crawford, Tampa Bay”
Interesting list. I’d say Granderson is a better player than Adam Jones though. Hitting and fielding. Additionally I still pick Posada over Martinez – again, both offense and defense
“Interesting. Do we go as Alex goes? Or do we go as Tex goes?”
Evidence from ’09 suggest that answer is Arod.
Good question, M. I think it would be brutal to go a long stretch without either one of them….or jeter. Lose one of those 3 for an extended period of time and it would hurt.
I really feel like you guys are going to hate this
Baseball-reference, if you click ‘fielding’ under a players name, has base advance stats for every situation (runner on 1st, single, double, runner on second, single, double, etc)
Melky Caberera Held% (runners hold or advance 1)
2007: 41%
2008: 49% (go melky!)
2009: 44%
Brett Gardner
2008: 42%
2009: 44%
Melky has 6 “kills” (guys thrown out) in his CAREER. Brett Gardner has 5.
1.5% kill% vs 4.1% kill%
How does he figure V-mart is the best catcher in the AL east? And I would put Cano over the elf for sure.
I think Weiters ends up the best catcher by season’s end.
Frank,
That’s not entirely fair. Remember, the staff was struggling (especially CC) and so was Tex during Arod’s injury. People like to say that tex only started hitting because Alex came back, but Tex’s history shows that he’s always a slow starter. I think Alex coming back and tex hitting is just a coincidence.
*Wieters, my apologies
Also the MLB average is 44% and 1.7% respectively. Its calculated from retrosheet data, which is like “Player X singles to center field , fielded by Melky Cabrera, runners advance”, so your mileage may vary
Although Melky was better than average on kill/held in Right Field.
Yes, I think it’s Alex, too.
But Alex’s absence last season coincided with Tex’s slow start & Wang’s struggles.
So maybe Joe P. is correct.
M,
I wasn’t calling out anyone, I was just stating an observation. Everyone (if you’re a Yankee fan) should want Gardner to do well because he’s a Yankee and he seems like a good kid that plays hard. By pro-Gardner I was referring to those who argue in favor of his abilities as a player and give reasons why they feel that way. The second statement was clarifying what I meant by “pro-Gardner”.
m-
If posada goes down again. That would be pretty serious. unless you believe Cervelli can be a primary everyday catcher from an offensive standpoint
I’ve never heard the term “kill”… that’s awesome.
Staying in CF for a bit, who’s your top 10 CF? Sizemore, Granderson, ????.
Ellsbury’s often mentioned, but his reputation (as Joe P has noted has come into question).
Here’s a good (red sox) blog entry on Ellsbury. Strange, he’s comparing him to Gardner.
http://oneifbylandsports.blogs.....balls.html
If you don’t want to read (and watch the accompanying video), here’s the last paragraph, talking about Ellsbury:
“He’ll almost certainly get better — he has all the tools — but baseball fans should know better than to dismiss defensive statistics based on a handful of spectacular plays.”
You could just change one word and say this about Gardner:
“He’ll almost certainly get better — he has all the tools — but baseball fans should know better than to dismiss defensive statistics based on a handful of bad plays.”
Back on topic; Montero is a stud
Jerkface – i had responded in the other thread, just take a peak.
I thought he(melky, for reference abreu is 52%/2.9% for his career) would have been separated from the pack a little more than that. It’s not a perfect measurement, as you said its based on retro-sheet, so it doesn’t factor much into if the play resulted a certain way because of the OF or not… but still interesting.
I think Posada should have been the catcher too. And you can make an arguement for Cano (at least he mentions him in the great player section). But Sox fans could argue Palpebon and Youk too (to be clear, I go with Mo and Tex).
The Sox and Yanks are very close in numerous spots.
I love how everyone in baseball is assuming victor martinez will be awesome as a full-time catcher again…
He hasn’t caught more than 90 games in a season in 4 years.
Tom B- Melky’s stats I gave were for CF. Melky has really good held/kill% for left field and right field. The held%s are both really good, and his kill% is average to above.
Gardner also had a really limited sample in LF that was much better than league average.
I didn’t want to disparage Melky as much as show that Gardner is league average in holding runners, and his ability to get outs should be held in higher regard than anyones ability to hold runners.
OT, but upper deck of old Stadium is coming down:
http://www.wcbs880.com/pages/6.....7081#imgXR
blake,
Fair enough. But you yourself say that everyone should be “pro-Gardner” by cheering for him. So maybe you used the wrong paintbrush in that quote.
CountryClub – I don’t think anyone is crazy enough to make the tex-youk comparisons yet. Tex has been beyond consistent with his production over too long a time-frame. Youk can only hope to be that good at this point. Same with Mo-@$$face comparisons.
Tom-
“He hasn’t caught more than 90 games in a season in 4 years.”
I wish he would. He’s a lousy defender. And of course, everyone knows he can’t call a game like the legendary JV.
I hope Martinez fails at catcher and they are forced to catch Varitek more than 50 games. I love watching Varitek flounder.
CountryClub
February 17th, 2010 at 2:59 pm
Maybe this will change the topic for a little while. Good stuff from Posnanski:
____________________________
As always, Posnanski provides a very enjoyable read. I’m kind of intrigued by the NL. I agree with him that the Phillies are clearly the most superior team in the league. However, I’m kind of curious about the level of risk they have. I haven’t looked into their projections yet, but it seems that a single significant setback in the rotation could completely change their team. Should something happen to Doc they would be in serious jeopardy, but I suppose that could be said about every team (to some degree). I think what will actually hurt them is Cole Hamels not returning to form, which they seem to be counting on. I interpret last year’s performance as the league adjusting to him, and him being unable to counter that adjustment. Blanton, Happ, Moyer, et al don’t seem overly impressive…it worked for them last year, but I’m really curious to see how it plays out this year.
The group has changed somewhat since the final out of the World Series landed safely in Mark Teixeira’s glove on the evening of Nov. 4, with Johnny Damon and Hideki Matsui among the pieces that will not be returning for another season.
“We’re going to miss them both,” Posada said. “They’re clutch hitters, guys that were very key for us last year and years in the past. We’re talking about two guys that played the game the right way and never made excuses. I think we’re going to miss them a lot. Hopefully we’ve done the right thing of going another way.”
http://newyork.yankees.mlb.com.....8;c_id=nyy
tk – I wouldn’t say they carry much more risk than most teams. if anything they have a little depth on their side. They have Jose Contreras(don’t underrate the move to the NL), Happ(is going to be good, just young), and Moyer(don’t break my hip) competing for the 4/5 slots, and Kyle kendrick waiting in the wings. Just having Kendrick there at all makes them better off than most ML teams, especially in the NL.
When you look deeper at Hamels numbers, he wasnt much different from 08 to 09. He had a lot of good luck in 08 and a lot of bad luck in 09. I bet he falls more in the middle and has a bounce back year.
I agree about the back end of their rotation, but there arent many teams (if any) that hit like the Yanks, Sox, Rays, etc… in the NL. They’re pitching is probably more than good enough.
M,
Maybe so.
I hope the Yankees do play Gardner against the Sox because Vmart can’t throw anybody out. As Tom B said he hasn’t caught a full season in awhile and that’s what Boston is going to ask of him. It could affect his bat and teams are gonna steal the Sox blind this year.
“I interpret last year’s performance as the league adjusting to him, and him being unable to counter that adjustment”
Mine was that Hamels was a 26 year old who struggled to bounce back from throwing 262 innings (postseason included) as a 25 year old.
Jerkface,
It’s not disparaging. But it is confusing because that’s not what the anecdotal evidence says.
As for UZR, I wish someone would answer my question. If someone’s UZR in the CF is over, let’s say an 8. And someone else’s is hovering around 0. Ignoring the actual numbers, wouldn’t one player be theoretically better at fielding than the other?
Erica – always OPPC
February 17th, 2010 at 2:38 pm
Erin-
If GB7 & Randy are Statler & Waldorf, we should be the Two-headed monster!!!!!!!!!!!!!
*****************
Erica, I just saw this-we are SO the Two-Headed Monster
Hamels also became a new father during the play offs, that has to count for something IMO
blake – if i remember right, part of the reason they(cleveland) started moving him from behind the plate was that he was getting run down halfway through the season and it was destroying his hitting ability. here’s hoping
As for UZR, I wish someone would answer my question. If someone’s UZR in the CF is over, let’s say an 8. And someone else’s is hovering around 0. Ignoring the actual numbers, wouldn’t one player be theoretically better at fielding than the other?
–
Yes
Long time no talk folks – in looking back I wanted to touch on Chad’s list of 10 things to be decided. I hope you don’t mind the detour
1. Who is the No. 5 starter? Phil Hughes. A couple of sources have already reported that both Cashman and Girardi want Hughes to win this job after seeing Joba again in the pen in the playoffs last year.
2. Where does the rotation’s odd man out open the season? If Hughes is the one in the rotation – Joba goes to the pen and that’s where he’ll stay. If Joba wins the rotation spot I think they send Hughes to AAA to stretch out.
3. Is Brett Gardner an everyday outfielder? My opinion – no he’s not. I think he’s a good role player but I’m far from sold on his ability to play everyday without the bat becoming a liability. Given the depth of the lineup I think the Yankees can be patient with him, but if there are a couple of players who slump or get hurt it’s going to be hard to hide him.
4. Who is the starting center fielder? If Gardner is to start then he should play CF. If (as I think will happen) Randy Winn or David Winfree take the LF job then Granderson will start in CF.
5. Who bats second? Nick Johnson. Put Granderson lower in the lineup where his power can protect Alex and put Johnson in the two spot so that Alex and Tex can hit multi-run HRs.
6. Is it worth keeping a Rule 5 pick on the roster? Yes. The Yankees obviously saw something in Hoffmann that they targeted him in the Rule 5 draft. I will go a step more and say that if Brett Gardner doesn’t win a starting job the Yankees may opt to send Gardner to AAA so that they can keep Hoffmann on the roster. Hoffmann can play more spots in the OF, is a better overall defensive player and – while not as fast – does have good footspeed. Remember, the Yankees have long considered both Gardner and Melky place holders until they can find something better.
7. Does the team need a second lefty? Depends. If the plan is to use Marte in a set up role then yes, if they use Joba or Robertson in that role and Marte can be used in multiple roles then no.
8. If not a second lefty, who rounds out the bullpen? My best guess for how the pen shakes out:
RHP: Mo, Joba, Robertson, Mitre, Gaudin
LHP: Marte, Logan
I think Aceves will be traded during spring training.
9. Who is the utility infielder? Ramiro Pena.
10. Have any bullpen roles shifted? I think if Joba’s in the pen he’s the setup guy with Marte and Robertson splitting the 7th inning. If Joba’s in the rotation I think Girardi will ride the hot hand between Marte and Robertson in the 8th.
Kate-
I didn’t get a chance to mention it the other day.
Congrats on your dog turning 15. I can only hope mine will be relatively healthy, and live to such a ripe old age.
Tom B, I believe you are correct..that and the fact that he’s not a very good defensive catcher.
A quick search of Gardner + UZR brought me to this. It’s the best thing about Gardner’s defense/arm/UZR I’ve read (okay, I haven’t read all that much). But the entry does talk about something I’ve long suspected. That Gardner gets to the ball quickly and that helps his defense (and in turn, his stats).
http://www.theyankeeu.com/2010.....-uzr-14766
Why thank you MTU. She is definitely slowing down, but still full of spunk. We also have a 7 year old, who probably helps keep her young.
chad, can you post some pictures?
Jerkface,
Thanks. So it’s okay to use UZR if it backs up your case? And okay to pooh-pooh UZR if it doesn’t?
Thanks. So it’s okay to use UZR if it backs up your case? And okay to pooh-pooh UZR if it doesn’t?
–
Not sure about poo-pooing but, but until playerFX comes out (where all players are tracked via camera and defensive metrics will be able to determine starting position vs ending position vs speed and trajectory of ball off bat), all defensive metrics should be taken with some salt.
Chip,
Good post. I agree with every thing you said I think except Gardner in CF if he’s a starter. I think they traded for Granderson to play CF and he should stay there. Everything else I think we are in agreement on.
“As for UZR, I wish someone would answer my question. If someone’s UZR in the CF is over, let’s say an 8. And someone else’s is hovering around 0. Ignoring the actual numbers, wouldn’t one player be theoretically better at fielding than the other?”
m-
This is the question I was touching on with MTU in the previous thread.
Based on your example, all you can say from the info you provided is that for the period of time in question, the player with the “8″ performed the things that UZR measures 8 runs better than the player with the “0″.
This leads to two more questions.
First, are the things that UZR measures a good stand-in for defensive ability? The general view on that is that yes, but with significant qualifications, they are.
Second, how predictive of innate defensive ability are those UZR measurements? In other words, could the player with the “0″ rating actually be better defensively than the player with the “8″, although for the period in question he actually performed worse as measured by UZR?
The answer is yes, it is possible that the player with the “0″ is better than the player with the “8″, although the likelihood of that possibility diminishes as the period of time you measure increases. At some point the likelihood becomes so small as to be insignificant, as statisticians like to say, or so small as to be safely ignored, as the rest of us like to say. At that point, for convenience, we just say that one player is “better” than the other, although that is really nothing more than a probabalistic conclusion.
Lindsey Vonn wins her first Gold
I prefer my defensive metrics with a pinch of cajun seasoning tbqh
Well, there is a lot of “You are aware that UZR is totally useless, right?”
But, I agree. Grain of salt rule (and common sense) should always be used.
m – http://www.baseballthinkfactor.....3-03-14_0/
The problem with UZR is that outfielders don’t really get enough chances in a season to create a stable measurement. It works infinitely better for infielders. You can’t really “project” anything without stable numbers.
Tom B,
That’s a good point about their level of risk relative to the competition. I’m pretty skeptical about Contreras, but at least he provides an option. Happ worked out much better than anyone could have expected last year, providing over 150IP of sub-3.00 ERA; however, his FIP was over 4. Moyer provided innings but pitched to an ERA of almost 5…I don’t see him providing much.
Country Club, you make a good point about Hamel’s peripherals. I haven’t compared them, but I remember reading something to that effect, so I assume it is very possible he provides much more value than he did in ’09. Either way, a healthy ace and the league’s best offense should cover up most of the shortcomings I perceive in their staff.
Tom B,
Is this you?
Tom B said…
Its a good thing UZR doesn’t directly translate to runs off the board, or I might be worried…
Posted 02/17 at 11:53 AM
But isn’t UZR for 1B and C basically worthless? Tex has a bad UZR, but there’s no question that he fields his position well.
WYH,
Thanks!
tk – they are built very much like we were last year. pitching is ace, some question marks, young high level talent… hitting is solid all around, defense is good enough to accomodate pitching and hitting.
too bad for them we got better!
“Staying in CF for a bit, who’s your top 10 CF? Sizemore, Granderson, ????.”
Interesting, I always enjoy these discussions. Across MLB here are my candidates in no real order:
Beltran, Sizemore, Granderson, Kemp, Gutierrez are probably the top 5 going forward.
The next five I’d say are Cameron, Upton, Hunter, Span, Victorino?
I don’t know, after the top 5 it’s kind of hard to come up with the rest of the list. Upton and Jones could easily move up the list if they get better in 2010. Cameron and Hunter will probably be off that list soon as they continue to decline.
m,
Yes UZR is not useful for 1B and C.
Patrick,
I’m so Yankee-centric so I don’t know the others that well,
but in no particular order, defensively, I would’ve said Sizemore, Gutierrez, Upton, Granderson, Kemp, (forgot about) Hunter, Victorino. Wouldn’t have know after that. Beltran’s still playing?
m- yeah thats me… lol i never checked up on that post did i get plastered by some dirty sox fans? :p i have been on a message board rampage all day(i swear i’m doing work, honest).
and you are correct, UZR for 1B is completely useless(doesn’t take into account, well, anything 1B do to be amazing…) and they don’t even attempt to apply it to catchers yet.
generally i post baseball stuff as Tom B, you’ll see me on THT and Fangraphs all the time.
The first question mark for the Boston Socks has emerged.
http://bostonherald.com/sports.....38;cnum=45
With the recent Gardnergate compounding an already complicated issue, I’ve actually lost track of the posters that are pro-sabremetric and those against it.
So for the sake of administration, please state your screenname and affiliation on all future comments i.e. “Joe Schmo- Pro-Gardner/Anti-sabre”
Tom B,
No, they left you alone. I’m not a board jumper, but I wanted to educate myself a bit. What I found is not surprising.
“Tex has a bad UZR, but there’s no question that he fields his position well.”
Leaving aside the 1B measurement issue, this is a conclusion people draw from UZR ratings that particularly irks me.
A “0″ UZR runs rating is NOT a bad UZR rating. A “0″ runs rating means that the player rated is an average fielder at that position, or more precisely, that he gave up the same number of defensive runs that an average fielder would.
“Average” anything in major league baseball is good, not bad.
“Mine was that Hamels was a 26 year old who struggled to bounce back from throwing 262 innings (postseason included) as a 25 year old.”
Touche. Country Club also provided a good theory that contradicts my assumption–Hamels’ was somewhat lucky in ’08 and somewhat unlucky in ’09. I think there’s some merit to all three POV’s…probably less to my original assumption, I guess I took the fact that Hamels throws a FB/CH 90% of the time and developed my narrative accordingly.
bronx jeers – how’s this work out for you
WYH,
I don’t know Tex’s exact UZR, but I am aware of the hullaballoo over how UZR rated him in comparison to other players.
So how is this baseline of “0″ established? Is it arbitrary? Is it like a “curve”, depending on who else was in that year’s fielding “class”? Who is this “average” player and how is their range determined?
m – the general consensus is… no one knows how to properly use UZR to evaluate anything, because its an imperfect stat. that will not stop people from 1) doing it and 2) arguing about it
New Post: Numbers, numbers, numbers
New post. You asked for numbers, and you’ve got them.
the 0 player, or baseline, is determined by taking the average number of balls in play at a particular position measured against the average number of outs for that position. players that are above average(0 UZR) generally also had more attempts to make plays. you’ll see on some sites that it is recalculated in a UZR rate, like UZR/150(thats the UZR per 150 fielding attempts), which is more fair than straight UZR, but also not perfect for the same reasons.
UZR measures runs saved or runs cost, in comparison to the mean performance of all players at that position. An average defensive player by definition therefore has a zero UZR runs rating.
bronx jeers – how’s this work out for you
————————————————————-
Thank you for your cooperation.
Judging by comments Girardi the lineup issue is the big issue.UI’m an advocate of putting as much speed at the top of the order as possible and casuing immediate pressure for the pitcher to throw strikes. If there is a righty pitching I want either Gardner or Grandy in the #2 hole. I put a lineup against lefties which would put NJ at the 2 hole and move Grandy and Gardner down the line-up. Against lefties I’d put Posada batting fifth, Cano sixth, granderson 7th, Swisher 8th, and Gardner 9th.