WP and catcher defense

bibu · 04-13-2019, 07:42 AM

First off, I always asumed that high catcher ratings would decrease the probability of a wild pitch.

I never noticed/ never looked during any of the other versions of the game so i can not speak about them, but in OOTP 20 PT I noticed that my pitchers with high WP amounts had seemingly unchanged WP values, no matter if the catcher had 120 defense or 20.

So I started a few simulations with starting pitchers that had 100 WP and a catcher with 125 ability and arm and one with 25 ability and arm; again there was no notable difference in the amount of WP.

This is leads me to believe that it is not mere coincidence but intended. Either there is no mechanic for catcher defense to affect WP or it is so small that it can hardly be noticed.

If either is the case, I want to argue strongly for a change. To my mind the amount of WP is strongly affected by the defense of the catcher for example:
If the catcher has a cannon for an arm the baserunner might not advance on the potential WP and no WP is credited.
The catchers positional awareness, the ability to determine where the ball will be, and the ability to get in good fielding position play a role in order to stop the runner from advancing on a potential WP.
Also if the catcher calls a good game making the pitcher comfortable might effect the amount of WP (I do not mean my decreasing the total chances for WP by decreasing walks/ increasing strikes).

None of it seems reflected in the game, I can have a catcher with what the game calls 10 defense on a scale ranging to 80 and I can have one with the maximum 80 and there will be no differnce in WP.

Please consider making a change to catcher defense.

Curve Ball Dave · 04-13-2019, 09:37 AM

Are you sure you're not conflating wild pitches with passed balls? A Wild Pitch is just that, it was so wild the catcher could not receive or block it with reasonable effort. Most wild pitches bounce in front of the plate (the minority are launched over the catcher's head), and depending on where the bounce is, how fast the pitch was, and how fast the ball was spinning being able to block the pitch without it deflecting away from the catcher far enough so a runner can't advance comes down to pure luck, not skill. I was a catcher for over fifteen years. Just like catching foul tips, you give it your best effort but at some point the laws of physics overcomes your skill in catching baseballs.

Also if the catcher calls a good game making the pitcher comfortable might effect the amount of WP

It doesn't. A pitcher may feel as comfortable as a baby in his mother's arms but that still won't stop him from holding on to that breaking ball too long or otherwise just missing his release point from time to time and bouncing it in.

bibu · 04-13-2019, 11:08 AM

I am talking specifically about WP not PB.
As you described, not all WP are equal. There some WP a catcher cannot interact with and there are some where he can.

WP are not entirely dependend on luck. The catcher and his fielding prowess are a factor in at least some of them.
I was just giving some examples where this is the case.

To make the example more clear:
A potential WP deflects of the catcher in a way where he could field it and throw to 2nd before the potential advancing runner, if the catcher can run 10mph and throw 90 mph; the catcher can only run 5mph and thow 70 mph so the runner advances and a WP is scored. A catcher with 10mph running speed and 90 mph throwing speed fires to second or doesn't, assuming the runner knows what he is up against, no WP even occures in that case.

This is only a thought experiment to show the effect of great fielding of a catcher on the amount of WP. My point is that a great fielding catcher is akin to a shortstop, through his fielding some WP will not occur, like some hits, that are hits for some shortstops would be turned into outs by great fielding shortstops. This facts seems not reflected in the game.

Also if the catcher calls a good game making the pitcher comfortable might effect the amount of WP
This was not meant literally, this was to indicate sources of WP affected by the catcher not bound to his skill to increase/ decrease the batters faced by the pitcher or his other fielding abilites/ arm strength.
For example: most pitchers have several pitches, these pitches have different chances of becoming a WP (not reflected in the game but it is a simulation, so a WP chance over the amount of BF is just as good, it only matters in this example), if a pitcher had two pitches on with 10% chance to become a WP and one with 20% and he threw them the year prior 50/50 and the catcher calls for pitch 2 90% of the time, the amount of WP will increase.
Or if a catcher deframes three 3-2 counts that would have been strikes and as a result three batters are walked, would the pitcher be unfazed and his WP would in those instances mirror his normal rate?

NoOne · 04-13-2019, 05:29 PM

a passed ball or wild pitch (how it occurs not the specific stat), after that moment in time, is essentially the same. data showing one is proportionately worse being irrelevant, so just ignoring.

what happens after a ball is determined to be either, does not influence how it occurred. obviously, if no onen advances or a strikeout isn't lost, it isn't tallied as a WP or PB, but the potential was determined the moment the catcher didn't receive the ball - the 'how'.

the catchers ability should reduce each type that gets by him by a similar amount relative to proportion spoken of above, so it's not really part of how they are tallied -- at least at the resolution ootp is looking at it.

the catchers ability won't affect how far away the ball is from him as thrown from the mound. his ability after that point should be similar in effect.

jimmysthebestcop · 04-14-2019, 04:26 PM

I thought catcher ability was about framing and helping pitchers out and not about passed balls or wild pitchers.

Catchers don't seem to have an error rating like all the other fielders.

TomVeal · 04-15-2019, 09:07 AM

If it hasn't been done already, some enterprising sabremetrician can perform regression analyses of wild pitches versus catchers. My intuition is that an outstanding catcher may be able to corral an occasional wild pitch and turn it into a mere ball but that the frequency of that occurrence is so low that it can't be usefully simulated.

Sweed · 04-15-2019, 02:04 PM

Just running this through my head without a lot of thought but I'm not sure what Markus and Matt are supposed to look at to change anything?

You can look at the number or wild pitches that occur when any catcher is in the game. You cannot look at how many wild pitches he stopped because it's not a wild pitch until it happens. I don't know of any stat that tracks "balls in the dirt blocked" or "wild high\in\away pitches caught". Again, once the C blocks the pitch in the dirt or catches that "higher than high" pitch there is no wild pitch.

I would guess that OOTP puts WP on the pitchers and PB on the catchers. One tied to catcher defense and one tied to pitcher control. I'm not sure there can be another way.

NoOne · 04-15-2019, 03:57 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jimmysthebestcop

I thought catcher ability was about framing and helping pitchers out and not about passed balls or wild pitchers.

Catchers don't seem to have an error rating like all the other fielders.

i think fielding % is rapped up in ability... and maybe a small amount in arm -- a wild through to 2b is a throwing error, right? but, i gues there's no accuracy rating for the arm, so it'd have to be wrapped up all-in-one, if so.

there seems to be differentiation in fielding pct of catchers and correlated to ability based on resutls? a good catcher can have a bad fielding year, though, but the lower ability guys tend to have more errors over time, i'm pretty sure.

i think it also helps with team ERA, a tad... small portion, at least with elite pitchers. maybe more important for lesser talented pitchers.

Argonaut · 04-15-2019, 04:47 PM

Catchers are sort of a mystery to me in OOTP. I just had my Danny Jansen win the Gold Glove with far-and-away the best defensive statistics, but his ratings suggest he's mostly a bat-first catcher. Maybe he just outperformed that year, I dunno.

Theoretically I would value Catcher Ability quite highly, but I don't know how much affect it has in OOTP. Has anyone run tests? I wouldn't value Catcher Arm as highly, seems more situational and only worth a few runs a year.

NoOne · 04-15-2019, 08:51 PM

anecdotal, but lots of experience...

with elite pitchers it makes virtually no difference. you should definitely favor offense over defense, even with catchers. i know others will argue that, but i cannot discern a difference based on ability , defense and pitcher ERA, but i can most definitely see a difference when my catcher can hit well -- those only come around 1 or 2 in a generation, at least in recent releases (and an accurate %, imo).

when i don't see those elite catchers, i go for any caterh with defense that isn't a total pud in the batter box, because the difference between sub-average and average hitting just doesn't matter much. i.e. a singles machine with a high average isn't a good offensive catcher. context matters alot.. there's no one answer and always a spectrum.

bibu · 04-16-2019, 07:31 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sweed

Just running this through my head without a lot of thought but I'm not sure what Markus and Matt are supposed to look at to change anything?

The change I would like to see is that catcher defense impacts the amount of WP.
So that an average catcher will cause the WP the game expects from the pitcher; a bad catcher increased the amount of WP; and an excellent catcher decreases the amount of WP.

I know that potential WP are not recorded/ can not be recored, and are also dependent on both catcher and pitcher. Therefore, describing this in a value to represent the performance of a catcher on WP would be very hard and dependent on very small samples, what makes it even more inaccurate. For the reasons I described in my earlier replies I think that the change described above would be a suitable one.

This all is based on how the game treats the following stats (as far as I can tell):

WP: amount of innings*pitchers chance for a WP
PB: amount of innings*catchers chance for a PB(dependent on his defense)

If this is correct, one could have a catcher running and throwing with the speed of light and a catcher with in-game ratings of arm and ability of 1, and the amount of WP for the same pitcher will not change—because in the game the catcher never interacts with the WP.

(This also shows another problem that is not part of this thread: the amount of PB is not tied in any way to the amount of WP. In the real world a pitcher that is though to catch will throw more pitches where the catcher has a increased chance to cause a PB and therefore amass more PB.
In the game a pitcher who throws 100 WP (meaning he would be extremely though to catch) during the season pitches to a catcher with arm and ability 1, that catcher's PB on average will be the same as if a pitcher who throws 0 WP during the season pitches to him.)

RchW · 04-16-2019, 11:25 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TomVeal

If it hasn't been done already, some enterprising sabremetrician can perform regression analyses of wild pitches versus catchers. My intuition is that an outstanding catcher may be able to corral an occasional wild pitch and turn it into a mere ball but that the frequency of that occurrence is so low that it can't be usefully simulated.

Not possible because by definition a WP occurs only when a runner advances. A perfect example which most of us have seen would be the pitch that comes nowhere near the catcher but bounces back such that the runner can't advance. A similar pitch that doesn't bounce back is a WP. Neither has anything to do with the catcher.

Matt Arnold · 04-16-2019, 11:56 AM

Catcher ability has a small effect on wild pitches. But it's a small effect, so you might need a very large sample to notice a difference.

04-13-2019, 07:42 AM	#1
bibu Bat Boy Join Date: Nov 2018 Posts: 7	WP and catcher defense First off, I always asumed that high catcher ratings would decrease the probability of a wild pitch. I never noticed/ never looked during any of the other versions of the game so i can not speak about them, but in OOTP 20 PT I noticed that my pitchers with high WP amounts had seemingly unchanged WP values, no matter if the catcher had 120 defense or 20. So I started a few simulations with starting pitchers that had 100 WP and a catcher with 125 ability and arm and one with 25 ability and arm; again there was no notable difference in the amount of WP. This is leads me to believe that it is not mere coincidence but intended. Either there is no mechanic for catcher defense to affect WP or it is so small that it can hardly be noticed. If either is the case, I want to argue strongly for a change. To my mind the amount of WP is strongly affected by the defense of the catcher for example: If the catcher has a cannon for an arm the baserunner might not advance on the potential WP and no WP is credited. The catchers positional awareness, the ability to determine where the ball will be, and the ability to get in good fielding position play a role in order to stop the runner from advancing on a potential WP. Also if the catcher calls a good game making the pitcher comfortable might effect the amount of WP (I do not mean my decreasing the total chances for WP by decreasing walks/ increasing strikes). None of it seems reflected in the game, I can have a catcher with what the game calls 10 defense on a scale ranging to 80 and I can have one with the maximum 80 and there will be no differnce in WP. Please consider making a change to catcher defense.

04-13-2019, 09:37 AM	#2
Curve Ball Dave Hall Of Famer Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: Chicago Posts: 2,329	Are you sure you're not conflating wild pitches with passed balls? A Wild Pitch is just that, it was so wild the catcher could not receive or block it with reasonable effort. Most wild pitches bounce in front of the plate (the minority are launched over the catcher's head), and depending on where the bounce is, how fast the pitch was, and how fast the ball was spinning being able to block the pitch without it deflecting away from the catcher far enough so a runner can't advance comes down to pure luck, not skill. I was a catcher for over fifteen years. Just like catching foul tips, you give it your best effort but at some point the laws of physics overcomes your skill in catching baseballs. Also if the catcher calls a good game making the pitcher comfortable might effect the amount of WP It doesn't. A pitcher may feel as comfortable as a baby in his mother's arms but that still won't stop him from holding on to that breaking ball too long or otherwise just missing his release point from time to time and bouncing it in. __________________ "Hitting is timing. Pitching is upsetting timing"-Warren Spahn. Last edited by Curve Ball Dave; 04-13-2019 at 09:41 AM.

04-15-2019, 08:51 PM	#10
NoOne Hall Of Famer Join Date: Apr 2015 Posts: 7,227	anecdotal, but lots of experience... with elite pitchers it makes virtually no difference. you should definitely favor offense over defense, even with catchers. i know others will argue that, but i cannot discern a difference based on ability , defense and pitcher ERA, but i can most definitely see a difference when my catcher can hit well -- those only come around 1 or 2 in a generation, at least in recent releases (and an accurate %, imo). when i don't see those elite catchers, i go for any caterh with defense that isn't a total pud in the batter box, because the difference between sub-average and average hitting just doesn't matter much. i.e. a singles machine with a high average isn't a good offensive catcher. context matters alot.. there's no one answer and always a spectrum. Last edited by NoOne; 04-15-2019 at 08:53 PM.

04-13-2019, 11:08 AM	#3
bibu Bat Boy Join Date: Nov 2018 Posts: 7	I am talking specifically about WP not PB. As you described, not all WP are equal. There some WP a catcher cannot interact with and there are some where he can. WP are not entirely dependend on luck. The catcher and his fielding prowess are a factor in at least some of them. I was just giving some examples where this is the case. To make the example more clear: A potential WP deflects of the catcher in a way where he could field it and throw to 2nd before the potential advancing runner, if the catcher can run 10mph and throw 90 mph; the catcher can only run 5mph and thow 70 mph so the runner advances and a WP is scored. A catcher with 10mph running speed and 90 mph throwing speed fires to second or doesn't, assuming the runner knows what he is up against, no WP even occures in that case. This is only a thought experiment to show the effect of great fielding of a catcher on the amount of WP. My point is that a great fielding catcher is akin to a shortstop, through his fielding some WP will not occur, like some hits, that are hits for some shortstops would be turned into outs by great fielding shortstops. This facts seems not reflected in the game. Also if the catcher calls a good game making the pitcher comfortable might effect the amount of WP This was not meant literally, this was to indicate sources of WP affected by the catcher not bound to his skill to increase/ decrease the batters faced by the pitcher or his other fielding abilites/ arm strength. For example: most pitchers have several pitches, these pitches have different chances of becoming a WP (not reflected in the game but it is a simulation, so a WP chance over the amount of BF is just as good, it only matters in this example), if a pitcher had two pitches on with 10% chance to become a WP and one with 20% and he threw them the year prior 50/50 and the catcher calls for pitch 2 90% of the time, the amount of WP will increase. Or if a catcher deframes three 3-2 counts that would have been strikes and as a result three batters are walked, would the pitcher be unfazed and his WP would in those instances mirror his normal rate?

04-13-2019, 05:29 PM	#4
NoOne Hall Of Famer Join Date: Apr 2015 Posts: 7,227	a passed ball or wild pitch (how it occurs not the specific stat), after that moment in time, is essentially the same. data showing one is proportionately worse being irrelevant, so just ignoring. what happens after a ball is determined to be either, does not influence how it occurred. obviously, if no onen advances or a strikeout isn't lost, it isn't tallied as a WP or PB, but the potential was determined the moment the catcher didn't receive the ball - the 'how'. the catchers ability should reduce each type that gets by him by a similar amount relative to proportion spoken of above, so it's not really part of how they are tallied -- at least at the resolution ootp is looking at it. the catchers ability won't affect how far away the ball is from him as thrown from the mound. his ability after that point should be similar in effect.

04-14-2019, 04:26 PM	#5
jimmysthebestcop Banned Join Date: Jun 2018 Posts: 1,728 Infractions: 0/2 (5)	I thought catcher ability was about framing and helping pitchers out and not about passed balls or wild pitchers. Catchers don't seem to have an error rating like all the other fielders.

04-15-2019, 09:07 AM	#6
TomVeal All Star Starter Join Date: Jul 2013 Location: Spanaway, Washington Posts: 1,236	If it hasn't been done already, some enterprising sabremetrician can perform regression analyses of wild pitches versus catchers. My intuition is that an outstanding catcher may be able to corral an occasional wild pitch and turn it into a mere ball but that the frequency of that occurrence is so low that it can't be usefully simulated.

04-15-2019, 02:04 PM	#7
Sweed Hall Of Famer Join Date: Apr 2002 Location: Iowa Posts: 6,521	Just running this through my head without a lot of thought but I'm not sure what Markus and Matt are supposed to look at to change anything? You can look at the number or wild pitches that occur when any catcher is in the game. You cannot look at how many wild pitches he stopped because it's not a wild pitch until it happens. I don't know of any stat that tracks "balls in the dirt blocked" or "wild high\in\away pitches caught". Again, once the C blocks the pitch in the dirt or catches that "higher than high" pitch there is no wild pitch. I would guess that OOTP puts WP on the pitchers and PB on the catchers. One tied to catcher defense and one tied to pitcher control. I'm not sure there can be another way.

04-15-2019, 04:47 PM	#9
Argonaut All Star Starter Join Date: Apr 2019 Posts: 1,085	Catchers are sort of a mystery to me in OOTP. I just had my Danny Jansen win the Gold Glove with far-and-away the best defensive statistics, but his ratings suggest he's mostly a bat-first catcher. Maybe he just outperformed that year, I dunno. Theoretically I would value Catcher Ability quite highly, but I don't know how much affect it has in OOTP. Has anyone run tests? I wouldn't value Catcher Arm as highly, seems more situational and only worth a few runs a year.

04-16-2019, 11:56 AM	#13
Matt Arnold OOTP Developer Join Date: Jun 2009 Location: Here and there Posts: 15,463	Catcher ability has a small effect on wild pitches. But it's a small effect, so you might need a very large sample to notice a difference.