The real value of a catcher - I think

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8 hours ago, 2wins87 said:

 

I think we can use catcher ERA if we are comparing closer to apples to apples.  Yes, you have to take out Ryan, Gray, and Smeltzer, who have had personal catchers so far, and should probably try to normalize for discrepancies in innings caught as well, but this is doable.

I was interested in the question of Jeffers vs Sanchez a week or so ago so I actually started putting together a spreadsheet to track their stats on a pitcher by pitcher basis.  I updated this morning to account for yesterday's game. One thing you can look at is their relative ERAs for relief pitchers, which isn't dictated by pitcher preference.

I've recorded catcher splits for each relief pitcher with at least 15 IP so far, and the total difference between Jeffers and Sanchez was actually way bigger than I expected.

Simply adding up for a sum total the stats are:

Jeffers:  111 IP, 3.05 ERA, 3.86 FIP

Sanchez: 68 IP, 5.03 ERA, 4.88 FIP

I also tried a weighted average where each pitcher was weighted by their total innings pitched, not just the IP to each catcher.  The results:

Jeffers: 3.16 ERA, 3.96 FIP

Sanchez: 5.03 ERA, 4.88 FIP

I also did the same thing for starters excluding Ryan, Gray, Smeltzer, Gonzalez, and Winder and Sands (who have also pitched as relievers).  The sum total results:

Jeffers: 72.1 IP, 3.11 ERA, 3.41 FIP

Sanchez 87 IP, 5.07 ERA, 4.21 FIP

And the weighted totals:

Jeffers: 3.07 ERA, 3.40 FIP

Sanchez: 4.90 ERA, 4.11 FIP

 

There might not be a perfect method for comparing catcher ERA, but all of the numbers I found point to Jeffers maybe saving about 1 run per 9 innings in game calling and working with his pitchers vs Sanchez.  If they each caught 80 games that would add up to about 8 wins over the course of a season, definitely bigger than the difference between their offensive contributions.

I'm inclined to think that there is some randomness working against Sanchez and the difference isn't really quite that big, but even so, I've been quite convinced that Jeffers has actually been the more valuable catcher so far with all things considered, and probably by quite a big margin.

Nicely done - I still have some questions, but this is a good presentation