The defensive performance I got in return is one I hoped for from him, but there have been some surprises. It's worth noting though, that this information is still incomplete. Katz has had an increase in innings he's been behind the plate at 458.1 which is the most he's seen since his rookie year in 2036 when he started for Madison and saw 956 innings. At about half of the most innings he's received he's thrown out 41.7% of all baserunners trying to steal (I suppose these could be pitch outs too if that's something that's coded into the game). He also has a 3.57 Catcher ERA which is second only to Calvin Johnson in Louisville at 3.16.
I've been bringing this up a little bit in Slack lately to get some thoughts. In a conversation with Ron there was another interesting piece I didn't know existed. The topic came up after I brought up that only five teams have fewer opponent stolen base attempts than Edmonton. I made an assumption that when it looked like Katz would start, perhaps teams would adjust their sliders back so that they didn't steal as often. I got excited about this because having Scheffer and Katz in a game would force a difficult decision on the GM. Run against Scheffer's noodle arm and risk it or pull it all back in case Katz ends up coming into the game. Ron delivered the piece of information that he was sure the game would have runners run less often against better catchers.
SOOOOOO what about those five other teams with fewer opponent stolen base attempts? Are their catchers really good?
EDIT: I don't know how to format tables like the pros. I'll need to fix this.
Name | Team | Arm | SBA by Team | SBA Player | RTO |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Hank Brewer | Boise | 10 | 87 | 63 | 38.1% |
Mike Schofield | Jacksonville | 8 | 101 | 85 | 27.1% |
Dan Calhoun | Rockville | 5 | 109 | 57 | 40.4% |
Felipe Mercado | 9 | 52 | 23.1% | ||
Steffen Petersen | Hawaii | 8 | 111 | 26 | 38.5% |
Ron Shiplack | 9 | 72 | 25.0% | ||
Aaron Stone | Charlotte | 7 | 113 | 46 | 30.4% |
Peader McLihome | 9 | 37 | 24.3% | ||
David Katzenbogen | Edmonton | 12 | 115 | 24 | 41.7% |
In the end, I suppose this is suggesting that the game will scale back stolen base attempts if the catcher has a strong arm, but that doesn't work in all cases. Bin Okorafor on San Fernando has sixth most SBA attempts against him in the league at 129 and he has an 8 arm, but maybe that's just some weird San Fernando shit with their park. There are lot of examples like that though. I guess I'm not really sure if the game is scaling back stolen base attempts of not because if it was base on arm I would think the game would want to steal way more off of Calhoun and his 5 arm and if it was based on RTO percentage I would think Mercado would get more chances to increase his RTO. Rockville is an excellent example because they've split time so evenly at catcher.
If the game is holding back runners though, that would make Katz a fantastic resource against steal happy teams. If they do run he would shut down about 40% of them and the hidden stat would be how many runners just didn't run because they were scared of his arm. Of course, Scheffer should see more innings at catcher at the end of the day. Scheffer's bat out values Katz because he just can't hit while Scheffer can play a little catcher even if he's not the best defensively.