Matt Wieters

[interloper]

1 minute ago, atomic said:

Why has Caleb become a cult hero?  He has been terrible.   Wieters had some great seasons with the club.  Seen tons of people wearing Wieters jersey's in the stands not too many wearing Caleb jerseys.  

Don't act like you weren't hating on Wieters while he was here.

[interloper]

Just now, Frobby said:

I don’t feel well qualified to judge whether it would materially assist the pitchers to have a veteran major league catcher on hand to work with one of the younger catchers.    I’ll leave that to the guys in the front office to decide.    

Not that I want to make too much of it, but the O’s had a 5.00 ERA with Caleb behind the plate, 5.02 with Sisco and 6.02 with Wynns.

This is hardly worth mentioning at all, really. They could have all seen wildly different pitchers considering the turnover rate in the bullpen, etc. 

[atomic]

53 minutes ago, wildbillhiccup said:

Joseph was actually better defensively than Wieters last year (and considerably cheaper). There's no argument for signing Wieters other than nostalgia. I really enjoy 90% of the discussion on this message board, but I really wish some posters would stop trying to live in the past. There's a big pool of free agents out there who aren't former Orioles and they're not that hard to find. Just Google "MLB free agents".  

 

Wieters threw out a higher percentage of runners stealing in 2018.  Caleb had 5 passed balls to Wieters 2.    Caleb had 38 Wild Pitches to Wieters 10.    Caleb had 7 errors to Wieters 3.  

Caleb played 685 innings to Wieters 559 innings.

Caleb is a terrible ball player.  He doesn't belong in the Major leagues.  

[atomic]

Before someone blames the Wild Pitches on the pitchers.  Wieters backup in DC had 21 wild pitches allowed in 515 innings. 

[atomic]

15 minutes ago, interloper said:

 Don't act like you weren't hating on Wieters while he was here.

I never said a bad word about Wieters in my life. I have his jersey.  Markakis, Jones, Hardy, and Wieters I never had one word negative about them.  I get it that people on here like to support the terrible players on the team while being negative towards the great ones. 

[Frobby]

2 minutes ago, atomic said:

Before someone blames the Wild Pitches on the pitchers.  Wieters backup in DC had 21 wild pitches allowed in 515 innings. 

Wieters has always been a very good pitch blocker, though maybe not as good as when he was younger.  That is definitely one of Caleb’s weaknesses.   

Do I think Caleb is terrible overall?  No.   He’s been worth 4.5 rWAR in his career, 0.3 last year.  In this case, rWAR matches the eye test IMO.   He’s marginally above replacement level.    

[wildbillhiccup]

15 minutes ago, atomic said:

Wieters threw out a higher percentage of runners stealing in 2018.  Caleb had 5 passed balls to Wieters 2.    Caleb had 38 Wild Pitches to Wieters 10.    Caleb had 7 errors to Wieters 3.  

Caleb played 685 innings to Wieters 559 innings.

Caleb is a terrible ball player.  He doesn't belong in the Major leagues.  

I was basing it on dWAR. Joseph's was slighting higher last year. I have to admit that past ball disparity is alarming. Make no mistake about it, I don't want either player on the team. 

[Frobby]

28 minutes ago, Frobby said:

Not that I want to make too much of it, but the O’s had a 5.00 ERA with Caleb behind the plate, 5.02 with Sisco and 6.02 with Wynns.

 

26 minutes ago, interloper said:

This is hardly worth mentioning at all, really. They could have all seen wildly different pitchers considering the turnover rate in the bullpen, etc. 

Honestly, I agree it’s of very limited significance.   Just throwing it out there as something to consider when determining if Wynns could handle being our principal catcher. FWIW, he did most of his catching (23 of 33 starts) in August and September when Gausman, Britton, Bleier, Brach and O’Day were gone, and both Cobb and Cashner missed some starts at the end.    So clearly there’s a lot of noise in that stat.    

[atomic]

16 minutes ago, Frobby said:

Wieters has always been a very good pitch blocker, though maybe not as good as when he was younger.  That is definitely one of Caleb’s weaknesses.   

 Do I think Caleb is terrible overall?  No.   He’s been worth 4.5 rWAR in his career, 0.3 last year.  In this case, rWAR matches the eye test IMO.   He’s marginally above replacement level.    

I don't buy the defensive WAR rating of catchers.  If it is not based on throwing guys out and passed balls and wild pitches what is it based on?  How many pop out they get to?  I am not sure where to get that stat as it looks like the put outs stat includes strike outs 

[atomic]

Ok just reading about Defensive WAR. It is a bogus stat.  As they put positional adjustment into the score.  So a terrible fielding catcher or shortstop would be rated higher than a great fielding Corner Outfielder or first baseman.  

Kind of makes sense why a good fielding right fielder like Markakis was rated low in DWar but a bad fielding catcher like Joseph has a positive WAR score.  Because the calculation is bogus.  And that is why you can't add DWar and OWar and get total WAR.  

[Frobby]

14 minutes ago, atomic said:

I don't buy the defensive WAR rating of catchers.  If it is not based on throwing guys out and passed balls and wild pitches what is it based on?  How many pop out they get to?  I am not sure where to get that stat as it looks like the put outs stat includes strike outs 

I think it is mostly based on those things you listed.    

For what it’s worth, BP provides a detailed defensive breakdown of catchers, including framing, blocking and throwing.    

Joseph: https://legacy.baseballprospectus.com/card/58842/caleb-joseph

Wieters: https://legacy.baseballprospectus.com/card/57712/matt-wieters

(You have to click on “catching” on the grey bar above the stat lines to get to the catching stats.)

They have Wieters as the better blocker but Joseph the better framer and better overall last year.   

[atomic]

8 minutes ago, Frobby said:

I think it is mostly based on those things you listed.    

For what it’s worth, BP provides a detailed defensive breakdown of catchers, including framing, blocking and throwing.    

 Joseph: https://legacy.baseballprospectus.com/card/58842/caleb-joseph

Wieters: https://legacy.baseballprospectus.com/card/57712/matt-wieters

(You have to click on “catching” on the grey bar above the stat lines to get to the catching stats.)

They have Wieters as the better blocker but Joseph the better framer and better overall last year.   

I have to say if Umpires are affected by framing they should be replaced.  An umpire should not be looking at where the ball is caught to make the call of balls and strikes.  

 

 

[Frobby]

8 minutes ago, atomic said:

Ok just reading about Defensive WAR. It is a bogus stat.  As they put positional adjustment into the score.  So a terrible fielding catcher or shortstop would be rated higher than a great fielding Corner Outfielder or first baseman.  

Kind of makes sense why a good fielding right fielder like Markakis was rated low in DWar but a bad fielding catcher like Joseph has a positive WAR score.  Because the calculation is bogus.  And that is why you can't add DWar and OWar and get total WAR.  

I don’t think the positional adjustment makes the stat bogus. Playing SS or C is harder than playing the OF or 1B.   They still include the fact that a guy is below average at his position as a component of WAR.   In any event, if you are comparing two catchers, the adjustment is the same.   

[foxfield]

5 minutes ago, atomic said:

Ok just reading about Defensive WAR. It is a bogus stat.  As they put positional adjustment into the score.  So a terrible fielding catcher or shortstop would be rated higher than a great fielding Corner Outfielder or first baseman.  

Kind of makes sense why a good fielding right fielder like Markakis was rated low in DWar but a bad fielding catcher like Joseph has a positive WAR score.  Because the calculation is bogus.  And that is why you can't add DWar and OWar and get total WAR.  

I am not a sophisticated baseball analyst.  But I believe the bolded part is wrong.  I agree that people still misread what the data gives us and that alone is problematic, but the information itself is not inherently bogus.  I do however remain deeply skeptical of defensive war interpretations for reasons you point out.

[atomic]

9 minutes ago, Frobby said:

I don’t think the positional adjustment makes the stat bogus. Playing SS or C is harder than playing the OF or 1B.   They still include the fact that a guy is below average at his position as a component of WAR.   In any event, if you are comparing two catchers, the adjustment is the same.   

But they also include the positional adjustment in offensive WAR.  So you can't add them together.  They should be able to be added together to get total WAR but they aren't that is what makes it bogus.