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That Minnesota pretty boy might be in the playoffs, but he's go nuthin on One Man, Five Tools.

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Even if you aren't a FanGraphs junkie like myself and so many others, if you spend any time there looking at the WAR rankings in order to, say, evaluate who should be the 2009 MVP candidates, you've undoubtedly noticed (due to Joe Mauer's incredible season) that currently, they do not have a system in place to evaluate catcher fielding. Hey, no one's perfect, and knowing Mr. Appleman and his crew, they're probably waiting until they get a system they're happy with before they implement something.

I don't make any great claim to originality here, as you will see if you read on, but for those of you who want a rough idea of how different catchers "measure up" behind the plate for your MVP arguments or to settle the eternal "I wonder just how bad a guy can be at blocking pitches," question, here is a rough attempt to evaluate every catcher's defensive 2009.

Choosing a Methodology (With Qualifications)

Before I go any further, I should make clear that for the purposes of this post that I assume that it is well-established that the differences between catchers with regard to gamecalling (as expressed in, e.g., "catcher's ERA") are negligible, and thus such issues will not be discussed in this post. When I discuss catcher defense, like most others, I will be discussing preventing stolen bases, blocking pitches, etc.

One of the difficulties with evaluating catcher defense with regard to even these issues is that, much more than with other fielding positions, the catcher's performance is dependent on another player -- namely, the pitcher. No matter now strong or weak the catcher's arm is, he can't escape the reality that he depends on the pitcher's skill with regard to holding runners, quickness to the plate, etc. While the catcher's skill with regard to blocking pitches that are off the mark is clearly important, catching Tim Wakefield poses a unique challenge (just ask Josh Bard). And so on.

For these reasons, probably the best way of measuring catcher defense is Tom Tango's WOWY (With or Without  You) method of defensive evaluation as detailed the 2008 Hardball Times Annual.  You can read about the details in the links provided. Versions of WOWY for catchers have also been done by Brian Cartwright and Dan Turkenkopf. I would do it that way if I could. The main issue is that 1) it's pretty complicated, and beyond my present capabilities, and 2) it requires something like Retrosheet, which isn't available until after the World Series is over, so even if I could do it, I couldn't get the numbers during the season of even now...

In lieu of that, I'm going to be doing something much simpler, which, while not quite as good, is, I think, pretty decent. Just keep in mind the qualifications about not adjusting for particular pitchers made above.

The Method Used Here

For non-WOWY catcher defense, the basic idea is to 1) choose what events you're going to deal with, 2) determine each catchers performance with respect to league average, and 3) decide the run value of each event. Like I said, this post isn't that original: very similar methods are used/suggested by Rally and chuckb. I have most closely modeled my "catcher defense metric" on the method outlined by the Amazing Justin Inaz (now a regular at Beyond the Box Score). His weights for each event seem about right to me, and the general principles are sound. One modification I've made (I'll note the other as I go along) is in the denominator of some stats. when Justin did his version, he was using THT's catcher defense stats, which only recorded catcher innings. Since then, the new Baseball Reference has come out with more detailed individual catcher defense stats, including plate appearances. While the difference isn't huge, I feel that it's more accurate to use plate appearances (batters faced) as the denominator for things like pitch blocking and errors, since while every inning (other than some ninth [or later] innings) has 3 outs, the catcher has to be out there whether there are 3 or 10 batters during those three outs. Otherwise, I'm pretty close to Justin's method, and you can read there for more details.

Stolen Bases/Caught Stealing: First, we figure out the league rate for caught stealing. One cool thing about the new Baseball Reference is that it separates out the catcher caught stealings from the pitcher pickoffs, so we can exclude the pickoffs (not under the catcher's control) from the equation. So we total the CSctch +SB to get total stolen base attempts (SBA) and then to total CSctch/total SBA for the lgCS rate. We use the weight of .63 runs for each caught stealing, which represents the average linear weight of the caught stealing (.44 runs) plus the weight of the stolen base not achieved (.19 runs). The formula for runs above/below average for each catcher is thus (CS - (lgCSrate) * SBA) * 0.63.

Wild pitches/passed balls: The league rate is (WPlg + PBlg)/lgPA. The linear weight for each passed ball/wild pitch is 0.28 runs, which we make negative since the more WP/PBs a catcher has, the worse his defense is. The formula for each player is ((WP + PB) - (lgWPPBrate * PA)) * -0.28.

Errors: Justin accounts for two kinds of errors -- throwing errors and fielding errors. Baseball Reference also includes catching errors (on throws). I've assimilated catching errors to fielding errors. There are separate linear weights for throwing errors (-0.48) and fielding errors (-0.75). The method is the same as above. Get the league rate, then see how far over/under the player is. For throwing errors: (TE - (lgTErate * PA)) * -0.48. Fielding errors: (FE - (lgFErate * PA)) * -0.75.

Then you just add them all up to get the total runs above/below average. It's not perfect, and hopefully, there will be some improved options soon, but the results do seem to reflect reality. I thought about coming up with a "rate" version like UZR/150, but that isn't as simple as prorating for innings caught/PA -- one needs to normalize each sort of event separately, the chart is confusing enough as it is. For now, this is just a value measurement of what each player did this season. But before the big chart, let's take a look at some standout performances. I've rounded to one decimal place to tone down the illusion of great precision.

Standouts and "Standouts"

Caught Stealing: Gerald Laird of the Tigers dominates here at + 11 runs.  The next closest player was Johjima at  +6.5 runs, then Koyie Hill at +5.4. Now, Laird had a lot more time behind the plate to accomplish that, but one wonders why teams kept trying to run on him. At the bottom of the rankings for CS runs are fan favorite A.J. Pierzynski at -4.5 runs, Yorvit Torrealbea at -5.1 runs, and blowing away the field is defensive legend and Boston Red Sox stalwart Jason Varitek, at -10.7 runs.

Pitch blocking: As for the actual "catching" part of catching, the best in baseball this season was the Phillies' Carlos Ruiz, at +5.6 runs. Jason Varitek gains some of his cred back here at +5.1 runs (I wonder what it would be if he had to catch Wakefield). The Man, the Myth, the Legend, Matt Wieters may not have quite cemented his Hall of Fame credentials, but he can block a pitch decently at +3.9 runs. The players are grouped by their performance for separate teams, so I just noticed that one of my favorites, Gregg Zaun, was +2.9 for the Orioles, and +1.4 for the Rays, which puts him at +4.3, or the real number 3. Maybe Baltimore let him go to soon -- he definite brings his Z-Game when he's blocking pitches. At the bottom of the rankings, Jorge Posada, Josh Bard, and and Rob Johnson (why did he get so much playing time?) are all tied at -3.8, Russell Martin (?!) is at -5.1 (although he saw more PA than just about any other catcher on the list). And bringing up the rear... this is going to be a shock, prepare yourself... Miguel Olivo, at -7.8. Think about that -- it's only -0.28 runs per WP/PB. Sure, he's "only" -2.7 runs worse thatn Martin, but Martin saw almost 1400 more PA than Olivo this season. This shows we're on the right track, as Brian Cartwright's WOWY study done previous to this season showed Olivo to be historically terrible at blocking the plate. Another great job of scouting by Dayton Moore and the Process Servers.

Throwing errors: Given that there's so little variance with this stat, there's probably less of a repeatable "skill" when it comes to this stuff. In other words, if we were doing a projection, there would be much more regression for TE and FE runs than others. Still, we're measuring value here, so it goes on the record. Gerald Laird leads the pack again at +1.5 runs, followed closely by Yorvit Torrealbea at +1.3 the Kurt Suzuki and  Henry Blanco at +1.2 each. At  the bottom, we have Rod Barajas (otherwise a good defensive catcher) at -1.6, Miguel Montero at -1.7, and sadly, my boy John Buck at -3.0. He had some really, really horrible games at the beginning of the season. At least he can move two inches to his right or left.

Fielding errors: Jason Kendall justifies his major league status with a +1.0 here, as does Russell Martin. Rod Barajas shows he's Joe Mauer's equal, as they both have +0.8. Mike Napoli is -1.6, the traitorous Paul Bako is at -2.0, and Brian McCann, who's decent at everything else, has an anomalous -3.6.

The Best and The Worst, and Others of Note: One Man, Five Tools, Indeed: Gerald Laird blows away the field at +13.3 runs. The Tigers made a conscious effort to improve their defense in the offseason, and whatever else happened, with Laird they certainly succeeded. At 0.9 WAR player without defense, with it he's about 2.2.  Kenji Johjima might be overpaid, but at +8.8 runs defensively, he seems a bit less ridiculous. Dave Ross and Ryan Hanigan come in at +7.0 runs. Yadier Molina was very good, if not quite as godlike as some would think, but +6.6 runs is nothing to sneeze at, and makes him about a 4 WAR player this season. Joe Mauer's +4.3 is good, but he's not the best in baseball or the league, and that certainly doesn't make him a better MVP candidate than Zack Greinke. Matt Wieters is +2.5, so he'll probably stick at catcher, at least for a while.

Victor Martinez isn't as bad as some would say, being only -2.2 betweeen Boston and Cleveland. Jeff Mathis is a "great" defensive backup at -2.0.  Or how about Jose Molina at -1.1 backing up Jorge Posada at -5.9? Giants cleanup hitter Bengie Molina is at -3.4

As for the bottom ranks... Josh Bard is at -7.3, the human swing machine, Miguel Olivo, is at -8.8, and the Living Stereotype, Mike Napoli, is at -9.7. No wonder the Angels think Mathis is a good defender.

The Big Chart

That's it. Keep in mind (along with the limitations mentioned above) that current season performance is not the same thing as true talent.  I hope you will find this handy when trying to get various catchers' "real" WAR, and let others know about it. Let the arguments begin!