Farewell, offensive-minded catcher.

by riversmccown on May 30, 2009 8:44 AM EDT

This actually isn't going to be a post about how the Mets were foolish to give up on Ramon Castro; I figure we've rung that bell enough for the past twenty-four hours. As much as I hate to see Castro go, I'm happy he's out of a situation where he was routinely misused and had to deal with a manager who obviously didn't trust him.

Instead, I want to look at something that I found a little funny about our remaining catchers.

Omir Santos threw out 24% of runners (incomplete numbers from b-r, 01-02 and 08-09) in the minors, and has thrown out 31% this year and 29% overall in the majors. Schneider has thrown out a similar 33% this year, and although he's got a much higher career rate, this has been right around his established level of true talent since 2005, where he's thrown out between 30-33% every year.

Brian Schneider is a career .301 wOBA hitter. He's never been above .320 since 2002, and last years .309 was his best since 2005. Santos wOBA thus far has been .324, and while he's projected by every system to decrease that, and probably fairly so given his past, he continues to spray the ball over the yard with line drives. The ZIPS projection system seems to think he'll actually hit worse than his .299 career wOBA for the rest of the season, but if you give him the benefit of the doubt that he hits his career norms the rest of the way, he's probably not appreciably worse than Schneider going forward. Especially when you consider that Schneider has been platooned pretty extensively throughout his career to get to those numbers and Santos has acheived the vast majority of his numbers against righties.

In fact, the only big difference between the two of them is their respective backgrounds and costs. Santos, a minor league invite, making the league minimum, versus Schneider, making $4.9 million this year and $16 million over the course of his deal, who was considered the main piece by Minaya to give up his top trading chip at the time. As much as I'm dumbfounded by the idiocy that led us to this catching combination, I laugh at how Minaya has found 95% of what he wanted so badly in that Washington trade for the cost of a minor league invite.

Naturally, the front office is going to continue to give Schneider chances to justify the cost, all but saying that he'd get the majority of the playing time early on. A straight platoon is probably where we're headed unless Schneider goes Joe Mauer on everyone starting today, but given their respective talent at this time, Santos may actually be the one that deserves the bigger share of time.

Also, the fact that the Mets have created a $150 million team where the best full-strength option at catcher was a minor league invite is incredibly sad. Not completely surprising considering Minaya's track record with backups in general and catchers specifically, but sad nonetheless.

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It seems as the Mets did put their eggs in the Omir Santos basket. Yes, he has been great so far and as of now we all better hope this isnt a fluke. When it really came down to it Jerry did not like Castro and that is why they did what they did. I liked the Castro-Santos combo. Granted, Castro is not much more than a back-up catcher but he is one of the best back-ups in the league. I would’ve been happier to see Schneider leave or have three catchers on the roster although its unorthodox.

by dave the rave on May 30, 2009 2:51 PM EDT reply actions

I've got 2,500 minor league plate apperances to bid that it's a fluke.

Even in his flukiness, Santos is pretty mediocre.

by JohnPeterson on May 30, 2009 4:18 PM EDT up reply actions

I'd be happier to see

Javier Valentin, assuming his defense hasn’t gone completely down the crapper.

"All energy flows according to the whims of the great magnet

What a fool I was to defy him"

-HST

by Mark Himmelstein on May 30, 2009 5:33 PM EDT up reply actions

This is an interesting idea

…but what does it have to do with Robinson Cancel?

- Rivers McCown, From Mom's Basement

by riversmccown on May 30, 2009 6:39 PM EDT up reply actions

what I find sad

is that anthony’s fanpost was deleted. Someone posted therein that babip is just luck. Not completely. It correlates with line drive percentage. Sort of intuitive, really. Most baseball fans recognize that some bloops fall in, and some well hit balls are caught, and that while you can have a run of good or bad luck, over time the guy that hits more screamers will tend to get more hits. For hitters more so than for pitchers, there is some skill involved. Although some pitchers also likely possess the skill of suppressing babip to a degree. Carlos Zambrano being one.

by wobatus on May 31, 2009 11:46 PM EDT reply actions

BABIP for hitters isn't generally luck

However, it doesn’t really correlate with LD% as much as you would think. THT did a study, and found that the LD+.120 method has a much lower correlation to BABIP than just going by the previous seasons BABIP. So, it’s hard to know exactly what makes BABIP go. We don’t have enough info to be able to tell whether a high or low BABIP is a function of luck or skill, especially in a small sample size like it would be with Castro and Santos. In that case it shouldn’t be a criteria you use to judge how good a player is as Anthony R. implied.

St. Louis Cardinals... defying win expectancy since 2008

by vivaelpujols on May 31, 2009 11:59 PM EDT up reply actions

The article from THT about xBABIP

Right here. Also, click here to see the study of which estimator is best.

by James Kannengieser on Jun 1, 2009 12:08 AM EDT up reply actions

thanks

St. Louis Cardinals... defying win expectancy since 2008

by vivaelpujols on Jun 1, 2009 12:15 AM EDT up reply actions

ok

but that still suggests that it isn’t all luck but some skill is involved. Speed, bat control, use of whole field.

Hmm, Jeter is mentioned in the expected babip article. :)

This isn’t meant as a defense of santos, btw, but merely to get past the blanket statement that babip is JUST luck for hitters.

So maybe it isn’t just line drives, but , um, hitting them where hey ain’t. Or being fast and beating out grounders. So we have come sort of full circle to what baseball fans have known for years.

And thanks for the links.

by wobatus on Jun 1, 2009 12:54 AM EDT up reply actions

but merely to get past the blanket statement that babip is JUST luck for hitters.

I think that most people will agree with that. However, as you mentioned, it isn’t just line drives that make BABIP go. There are a lot of other factors involved that we can’t quantify yet. Until we do, making any absolute statements about BABIP is probably unwise.

St. Louis Cardinals... defying win expectancy since 2008

by vivaelpujols on Jun 1, 2009 1:37 AM EDT up reply actions

It's not brain surgery, dude. It was just a variable thrown out there

Everyone is entitled to be stupid, but Jerry abuses the privilege.

by AnthonyR on Jun 1, 2009 12:14 AM EDT up reply actions

For the majority of it

it is luck. But a small part of it is LD%. But I would just like to say that Omir Santos’ LD% in the minors is 15.5%. He is currently at about 30%. That will always regress to the mean. Meaning, his BABIP WILL drop. Drastically.

"I dunno. I never smoked any Astroturf"
-Tug McGraw

by squid92 on Jun 1, 2009 12:00 AM EDT up reply actions

It was me

What I was generally trying to say is that it’s not really useful to compare how good two players are.

by jasondg on Jun 1, 2009 12:41 AM EDT up reply actions

somewhat useful

if not completely. at least to know it, although is suppose it’s utility as to who is better isn’t great. I got what you meant, but you also couched in in terms of it being just about luck.

by wobatus on Jun 1, 2009 1:01 AM EDT reply actions

Poor word choice on my part -- I think it's definitely partly a skill

But that’s immaterial. I said it was an “indicator of luck.” It is. Each hitter has his own baseline BABIP — thus, when they overperform or underperform that career baseline, it’s an indicator of luck, either good or bad. But some guys typically have higher BABIPs than other guys.

It’s utility as to who’s better is pretty much nil — at least in my opinion.

by jasondg on Jun 1, 2009 1:14 AM EDT up reply actions

ok

I get that. And if Ichiro has a high baseline, it is captured in his batting average and hence his ops anyway.

I do, however, believe that guys have baselines that can rise. I don’t believe players just have a certain skill level and that all fluctuations in babip are random.

Again, I am getting away from Santo here. I certainly don’t think he is going to go .300/.475 for the whole year, although there’s a non-zero chance of that.

But players can improve and decline. He’s a 28 year old catcher. Oops, again, I want to get away from the Emir of Squat (sorry, I am riding that nickname).

But, for example, when I go back to my argument from another thread on Terry Pendleton, yes, his babip in ‘91 and ’92 was out of line with career norms. But that also happens to be 2 years in a row of 1300 plate appearances when he was 29 and 30 years old. It’s possible he improved, was a little lucky then, was a little unlucky before, and maybe a little unlucky after (’93). Then he got injured. Then he sucked.
By then he was old, but he still had an age 35 or so season that was better than any of his pre-2 good year seasons.

I don’t think there can be any surprise at a player having a “peak” in performance. When he puts together what he has learned playing the game and learning what pitchers in general do and what particular pitchers do with his athletic abilities still in tact.

You’d expect these peaks to and declines to be fairly linear. Luck (or steroids?) can make them seem more freakishly pronounced, but some improvement in the baseline is probably fairly normal.

On that we probably don’t disagree. There is a baseline around which players fluctuate, and some rise and then fall in that baseline is probably normal.

Or, in the case of Ben Zobrist, some freaky hitting coach can completely steepen your baseline overnight, evidently. :)
But

by wobatus on Jun 1, 2009 8:15 AM EDT reply actions