Elias: Sisco looks great on defense

[Can_of_corn]

2 minutes ago, Hallas said:

Yes, but you have a lot more leeway when you're OPS+ is 120.  I'd also argue that teams probably didn't change their approach to extra bases as much as they could have because he was so far below the norm.  I measured 4 youtube videos and got 2.11-2.13 for him.    FWIW Wieters never really touched Varitek with the bat, but had 2 seasons more valuable than Varitek's best by WAR because of the difference in defense.

In general I think that the baseline catcher performance w/r/t throwing out attempted basestealers has gotten to the point where it's usually not worth it.  But if teams actually figure out that 2/3 of their team can steal a base at will on the guy and use that to their advantage, then it's a major problem.  And 100+ steals at an 85% success rate is already a major problem.  Matt Wieters averaged around half that, and accrued significantly more kills.  The difference in defense between someone like Varitek and an average defensive catcher is probably something like a 1 win without any wholesale changes in approach.  I could see that jumping to 1.5 or maybe even 2 wins pretty easily if teams test his noodle arm more aggressively.  The difference between a Varitek and a Matt Wieters is probably closer to 2 wins.

But honestly, the second the non-runners start running the kills are going to go up.  Sisco isn't so bad that non runners can steal with impunity.

[HowAboutThat]

59 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

From what we saw last year his non-throwing defense wasn't any worse than Susac.

Yes his throwing is poor but it is very debatable how important throwing is in the grand scheme of things.

Nonsense like repellent and Armageddon are just that, nonsense.

No I stand by what I said. Yes, his throwing is poor, and yes, throwing is not all there is to being a competent catcher( sacrificing running game defense?)  but I haven’t heard any praise for his accomplishments in any of the other aspects of catching either. But it’s clear we disagree so we’ll let it rest there. Let’s hope that he improves enough to be an asset.

 

[tntoriole]

6 hours ago, wildcard said:

Mike Elias on MASN All Access yesterday said that Chance Sisco looks great defensively,  is throwing well and is better than advertised defensively.   On his hitting he says its spring training and he will not get too excited about that.

https://livestream.com/MASNAllAccess/events/8584249/videos/188324942

 fast forward to 17:12 

So, Mike...when you say he  “looks great”, can you give us the analytic data you used to come to that conclusion?   Or was it just the old eyeball test? 

[HowAboutThat]

1 hour ago, makoman said:

Once again I’m curious what very bad or even Armageddon bad means, quantitatively. Is 2.10 pop time worth 2 runs a year vs average? With the way steals seem devalued nowadays? Or maybe it’s 40? Big difference. Is Elias just blowing smoke or is Sisco actually looking better, especially at blocking and framing which seem way more important? I have no clue on these things, but for once I believe the people in charge will have a clue, so that’s a nice feeling. 

Well, it’s hyperbole. And as has been mentioned, throwing is not the only aspect of catching. Jon Shepard had a very interesting article last season about how the oriole pitchers were helping chance with runners on base. Instead of throwing pitches to get the batter out, they were throwing pitches to make it easier to throw out the runner in the event he attempted to steal. That’s why, initially, his caught stealing rate was so high. When that ended, is caught stealing rate tanked.

Make no mistake, I’m not being negative merely for the sake of being negative, But I have yet to hear anything positive about his defense. It is a bit worrisome when the most positive thing one hears is, “he doesn’t throw very well, but throwing isn’t  everything.”

[Frobby]

53 minutes ago, Philip said:

Well, it’s hyperbole. And as has been mentioned, throwing is not the only aspect of catching. Jon Shepard had a very interesting article last season about how the oriole pitchers were helping chance with runners on base. Instead of throwing pitches to get the batter out, they were throwing pitches to make it easier to throw out the runner in the event he attempted to steal. That’s why, initially, his caught stealing rate was so high. When that ended, is caught stealing rate tanked.

Make no mistake, I’m not being negative merely for the sake of being negative, But I have yet to hear anything positive about his defense. It is a bit worrisome when the most positive thing one hears is, “he doesn’t throw very well, but throwing isn’t  everything.”

Except that you just did, from Elias.   That’s why this thread was started.  

[Legend_Of_Joey]

I want to see how it holds up for a whole season. Remember last spring, he was hitting very well and playing really good defense (except 1 or 2 games,) then was on fire at the start of the season...

Then it went downhill overall. 

Then again, he doesn't have Pedro Alvarez to give him a flying elbow this season.

[Hallas]

1 hour ago, Can_of_corn said:

But honestly, the second the non-runners start running the kills are going to go up.  Sisco isn't so bad that non runners can steal with impunity.

If you go by home-to-first times, the difference of 0.2 seconds equates to 2 grades on the 20-80 scale.  If it takes an 80 runner (or a 70 runner and a curveball) to run on prime Wieters, it would only take a 55-60 runner, or a 45-50 runner on a curveball, to run on Cisco.  If you consider that each letter grade correlates with one standard deviation (in theory) the pool of people that can run on prime Wieters is about 5 people, while the pool of people that can run on Cisco is a little less than 1/2 of all MLB position players.  I don't think it's hyperbole to say that if teams optimized their running cisco could allow 150 steals with a very low kill rate.

 

[Can_of_corn]

5 minutes ago, Hallas said:

If you go by home-to-first times, the difference of 0.2 seconds equates to 2 grades on the 20-80 scale.  If it takes an 80 runner (or a 70 runner and a curveball) to run on prime Wieters, it would only take a 55-60 runner, or a 45-50 runner on a curveball, to run on Cisco.  If you consider that each letter grade correlates with one standard deviation (in theory) the pool of people that can run on prime Wieters is about 5 people, while the pool of people that can run on Cisco is a little less than 1/2 of all MLB position players.  I don't think it's hyperbole to say that if teams optimized their running cisco could allow 150 steals with a very low kill rate.

 

Are the slower players likely to be as skilled at getting a lead, reading pitchers and sliding as the players that steal regularly?

Sisco's numbers fall within the accepted range for catchers.  Yes he is at the bottom of the range but the other catchers who have lived there haven't had to deal with what you are proposing.

[Hallas]

18 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

Are the slower players likely to be as skilled at getting a lead, reading pitchers and sliding as the players that steal regularly?

Sisco's numbers fall within the accepted range for catchers.  Yes he is at the bottom of the range but the other catchers who have lived there haven't had to deal with what you are proposing.

Varitek toward the end of his career came pretty close.  His 2011 season he played about 1/2 a season's worth of games and allowed 73 steals with a 19% catch rate.

The video I checked his pop times was from 2009, when he allowed 108 steals with a 13% catch rate.

[Hallas]

32 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

Are the slower players likely to be as skilled at getting a lead, reading pitchers and sliding as the players that steal regularly?

Sisco's numbers fall within the accepted range for catchers.  Yes he is at the bottom of the range but the other catchers who have lived there haven't had to deal with what you are proposing.

 

24 minutes ago, Hallas said:

Varitek toward the end of his career came pretty close.  His 2011 season he played about 1/2 a season's worth of games and allowed 73 steals with a 19% catch rate.

The video I checked his pop times was from 2009, when he allowed 108 steals with a 13% catch rate.

Adding more here: for the sake of argument, you could say that it takes a plus-runner can steal on Cisco.  That's still 1/3 of MLB position players.  Maybe only 75% of them know how to read a pitcher and take a lead.  That's around 20% of the league that can steal a base with decent regularity.  Then you have another 5% who are 70 or 80 runners, that can treat every pitch like a hit-and-run because Cisco has no chance to get them out.  That's a lot of stolen bases.

Here's a bit more theory crafting:

It looks like about 20% of plate appearances are with a runner on first.  Assuming there are ~40 PAs per game, and a catcher plays 130 games, that puts them at 5200 PAs per year caught.  If 5% of runners have a good chance of stealing off prime Wieters, then there should be around 52 "good" opportunities per year.  There are a few other nuances here, such as runners trying to steal in curveball counts, and the ball hitting the dirt, or SB on pitches that ended up being wild pitches.  However, this tracks pretty well with Wieters averaging about 50 SB allowed per season.

Based on what I said above, I don't think it's unreasonable to figure that 20% of runners have a good chance to steal a base off of Chance.  That would mean that there should be around 200 base-stealing opportunities off of Cisco.  But if we use Varitek's numbers as a reasonable approximation of Cisco, then it would appear that teams are leaving a significant number of SB opportunities on the table.  I personally believe that it's because players have been trained not to look for them, because you're usually not going to be facing a catcher that throws that badly.

[Frobby]

46 minutes ago, Hallas said:

 

Adding more here: for the sake of argument, you could say that it takes a plus-runner can steal on Cisco.  That's still 1/3 of MLB position players.  Maybe only 75% of them know how to read a pitcher and take a lead.  That's around 20% of the league that can steal a base with decent regularity.  Then you have another 5% who are 70 or 80 runners, that can treat every pitch like a hit-and-run because Cisco has no chance to get them out.  That's a lot of stolen bases.

Here's a bit more theory crafting:

It looks like about 20% of plate appearances are with a runner on first.  Assuming there are ~40 PAs per game, and a catcher plays 130 games, that puts them at 5200 PAs per year caught.  If 5% of runners have a good chance of stealing off prime Wieters, then there should be around 52 "good" opportunities per year.  There are a few other nuances here, such as runners trying to steal in curveball counts, and the ball hitting the dirt, or SB on pitches that ended up being wild pitches.  However, this tracks pretty well with Wieters averaging about 50 SB allowed per season.

Based on what I said above, I don't think it's unreasonable to figure that 20% of runners have a good chance to steal a base off of Chance.  That would mean that there should be around 200 base-stealing opportunities off of Cisco.  But if we use Varitek's numbers as a reasonable approximation of Cisco, then it would appear that teams are leaving a significant number of SB opportunities on the table.  I personally believe that it's because players have been trained not to look for them, because you're usually not going to be facing a catcher that throws that badly.

BB-ref indicates the average team had 2,221 stolen base opportunities last year, defined as at bats with a runner on first or second and the next base open.   Yet, they only averaged 114 attempted steals, about 5% of the opportunities.   

I remember Tony worrying that teams would go wild running on Sisco last year.   They attempted 42 steals in 385 innings, or about .98 per 9 innings.    That’s high — about 50% higher than average.   But it’s not insane.    It’s not some crazy merry-go-round.    

[Beef Supreme]

I think the claim that a "disaster catcher" has nearly no negative impact on team defense and pitcher confidence is fallacious and ignores the fact the the players are humans, not robots.

One-off faux-scientific hypothesizing is not nearly enough to warrant devotion to this spurious claim.

[Frobby]

Quote

 

* Chance Sisco was hit by a pitch yesterday, struck out looking at a breaking ball and grounded to first. He was bound to cool off a little, but he found a way to contribute behind the plate by throwing out Willy Adames, the first runner who’s attempted a stolen base against him this spring.

His defense is going to be scrutinized as determinations are made about whether he’s worthy of again breaking camp with the team. In that regard, Sisco had a good day.

Sisco has a quiet personality that is unusual for a catcher, as people in the organization observed in the past, but he’s becoming more vocal on the field at the urging of Hyde and catching instructor Tim Cossins.

His leadership came into play in the fifth inning after Luis Ortiz loaded the bases with no outs on a single, double and walk.

Adames’ at-bat was interrupted by Sisco’s visit to the mound and an adjustment to Ortiz’s delivery, and what followed were three fly balls to right field, the first two scoring runs. It could have been a lot worse.

“Great job,” Hyde said. “You guys probably can’t hear, but there’s multiple times when he’s verbally saying things out loud to our infield that he wasn’t doing early in camp. He tried to pick behind a guy today, which hit the umpire, so it looked funny, but he’s just doing things aggressively and that’s what we’re trying to get out of him. He’s taking what we’ve been talking a lot about and he’s taking it in the games. He did a great job.”

 

http://www.masnsports.com/school-of-roch/2019/03/leftovers-for-breakfast-86.html

[jsbearr]

11 hours ago, Frobby said:

BB-ref indicates the average team had 2,221 stolen base opportunities last year, defined as at bats with a runner on first or second and the next base open.   Yet, they only averaged 114 attempted steals, about 5% of the opportunities.   

I remember Tony worrying that teams would go wild running on Sisco last year.   They attempted 42 steals in 385 innings, or about .98 per 9 innings.    That’s high — about 50% higher than average.   But it’s not insane.    It’s not some crazy merry-go-round.    

Using those numbers extrapolated over a full season, you find something in the neighborhood of 7.5 runs below average.  Based on pop times every year, that apparently is about where the lowest level of acceptable defense is historically.  The range is about 4 runs saved to 8 runs given, which makes sense due to how conservative teams have gotten on the base paths and how many organizations put an incredible amount of important on the running game.

The running game was of great importance during the Showalter era.  The time to plate was a major sticking point in the organization and something previous pitchers (e.g., Arrieta, Davies) have grumbled about.  As the catcher's defense goes south, it puts a lot more pressure on the pitcher to deliver the ball quickly and that might impact his performance. 

Ivan Rodriguez was notorious for hampering his pitchers because he wanted to nail every single baserunner.  Pitchers (and pitching coaches) would fight with him about how in running situations he kept calling for fastballs up in the zone. 

[makoman]

5 minutes ago, jsbearr said:

Using those numbers extrapolated over a full season, you find something in the neighborhood of 7.5 runs below average.  Based on pop times every year, that apparently is about where the lowest level of acceptable defense is historically.  The range is about 4 runs saved to 8 runs given, which makes sense due to how conservative teams have gotten on the base paths and how many organizations put an incredible amount of important on the running game.

The running game was of great importance during the Showalter era.  The time to plate was a major sticking point in the organization and something previous pitchers (e.g., Arrieta, Davies) have grumbled about.  As the catcher's defense goes south, it puts a lot more pressure on the pitcher to deliver the ball quickly and that might impact his performance. 

Ivan Rodriguez was notorious for hampering his pitchers because he wanted to nail every single baserunner.  Pitchers (and pitching coaches) would fight with him about how in running situations he kept calling for fastballs up in the zone. 

Yeah, the Red Sox stole 125 bases last year at an 80% success rate. Their wSB was 8.7 runs above average.

Intuitively it makes sense that even a really bad catcher isn't going to cost you more than about 10 runs a year vs average on the bases. The SB% in the AL last year was 73%. As noted above, teams had close to 1 attempt per game against Sisco, which is way above normal (~0.7/game last year in the AL). So even if you catch 140 games, which is very high and very rare, that's ~140 attempts. If you allow a pretty terrible 85% SB% (Varitek in his last 3 years allowed 85% and almost 1.2 attempts/game, someone above said his pop time may have been worse), that's an extra 17 steals a year above average. A steal should be worth less than half a run, so that's less than 8 runs a year.  

Now that's not nothing and it's not good, but I think it's playable. There are -8 defenders all over the place. I have to ignore blocking and framing, which I think he's also not good at, but I have nothing to go on. I think, to paraphrase Corn, Sisco is probably within, but at the bottom of, the acceptable range. It'll depend on whether he can hit enough to overcome that.

Also, yes, this might put different pressures on the pitchers, which are probably not quantifiable. But I have always felt that steals matter a lot less if you get the batter out, so that should be the main concern.