Quote:
Originally Posted by Dream Job
The statement "it can't be measured" is not true. The impact that a catcher has on a ball game is almost always overlooked. I refer to Varitek once again, the main reason why he was re signed by Boston was due to the way in which he handles the pitching staff. So a catchers impact is "measured". Most of us just have not seen the statistics by which it is measured. Once again, the reason for this is because it's overlooked. So I don't think it would be a bad idea if we, the OTTP Gm's, had to decide whether we want to have an offensive minded catcher or a catcher with less offensive skills, but with the ability to call a great game, handle the pitching staff, and to learn new pitchers as they arrive.
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If anything, announcers and other baseball people overstate the significance of this. It really is difficult to quantify and the results often contradict your expectation. CERA is a blunt stat. Boston has a good staff, so Varitek should have a good CERA. You can only separate his impact by comparing his CERA to other Boston catchers. This is where things get dicey because it's not a clean comparison. Some catchers catch certain pitchers exclusively. Most backup catchers give a small sample size. They may face stronger or weaker teams than average and the results are often inconsistent year to year.
I wouldn't mind if this were in the game and had a minuscule effect, but I'd rather they didn't. Leadership is in the game and is even tougher to quantify.