Elias: Sisco looks great on defense

[LookinUp]

This is a great thread for understanding why people are down on Sisco because of his defense. Add in that there are major questions about his offense, and you get a good sense of what he has to overcome. It's a lot. Not saying it's not doable, but he has a hill to climb, and he's supposedly already been trying to climb that hill for a couple of years now.

[Redskins Rick]

14 hours ago, Frobby said:

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

Hyperbole and Buck isnt here to blame for just playing up his "guys."

 

[Legend_Of_Joey]

Question for the 2 guys that know how to calculate all this stuff: 

Stolen bases aside, do you believe a catcher having a slower pop time can lead to runs in other ways? Such as a runner getting a bit better lead and getting an extra base on a hit (1st to 3rd, or even home on a ball in the gap) when they don't have to worry about a catcher pick off too?

Or they feel more comfortable with a running start on a "hit and run." Or taking a base on a ball in the dirt that should normally be blocked, but isn't handled properly and is now a "wild pitch?" (Not arm strength related on that one, but more so the overall defense.)

[jsbearr]

10 minutes ago, Legend_Of_Joey said:

Question for the 2 guys that know how to calculate all this stuff: 

Stolen bases aside, do you believe a catcher having a slower pop time can lead to runs in other ways? Such as a runner getting a bit better lead and getting an extra base on a hit (1st to 3rd, or even home on a ball in the gap) when they don't have to worry about a catcher pick off too?

Or they feel more comfortable with a running start on a "hit and run." Or taking a base on a ball in the dirt that should normally be blocked, but isn't handled properly and is now a "wild pitch?" (Not arm strength related on that one, but more so the overall defense.)

Yeah, it would be a measure of whether the move is a definite break or if it is a secondary lead.  A hit and run situation will fall onto the pitcher's time to plate when it comes to advancement.  On a passed ball that would be a secondary lead issue.

All of this is calculable, but I do not have the data.  I have advancement data, but it is all linked to the outfielder.  I do not have data on secondary leads, but, again, one could do that.

[LookinUp]

1 minute ago, jsbearr said:

Yeah, it would be a measure of whether the move is a definite break or if it is a secondary lead.  A hit and run situation will fall onto the pitcher's time to plate when it comes to advancement.  On a passed ball that would be a secondary lead issue.

All of this is calculable, but I do not have the data.  I have advancement data, but it is all linked to the outfielder.  I do not have data on secondary leads, but, again, one could do that.

I imagine it would be a very marginal difference. The argument about 3/6 feet is what it is because it's the difference in a runner going full speed. A runner taking a larger secondary lead will have to get back to the base from essentially a full stop, or worse. The distance benefit gained from a slightly slower pop time to 1B would be a much smaller difference.

[jsbearr]

Just now, LookinUp said:

I imagine it would be a very marginal difference. The argument about 3/6 feet is what it is because it's the difference in a runner going full speed. A runner taking a larger secondary lead will have to get back to the base from essentially a full stop, or worse. The distance benefit gained from a slightly slower pop time to 1B would be a much smaller difference.

Probably...then again, who ever would have thought that pitch framing was as momentous as it is.  I imagine that it could be worth anywhere.  One instance of an extra base is about 0.3 runs added or a bit more if starting from second.  Players and coaches are incredibly conservative in those chances (case in point, Bobby Dickerson was an aggressive 3B coach on sends and he probably should have been sending a lot more people down the line), so the benefit probably would rarely be seen.

[interloper]

I thought at times Sisco looked great defensively last year. Seems to me that consistency is a problem and then he lost confidence and the rest is history. He's an infielder, folks forget. 

[jsbearr]

6 minutes ago, interloper said:

I thought at times Sisco looked great defensively last year. Seems to me that consistency is a problem and then he lost confidence and the rest is history. He's an infielder, folks forget. 

Maybe. His feet always look wrong to me and that is despite years of instruction.  Catching is hard.  I did a study a while back based on catching defensive grades at time of draft.  http://camdendepot.blogspot.com/2014/05/receivers-in-name-only.html

A simple study, but it well evidenced the issue about learning how to catch.  Often, you either got it or you don't.  That pilot actually resulted in me talking to a few front offices about it and it was my impression that a few team refuse to spend any high round selections on catchers who are substandard behind the plate.  One club told me their view was that catchers who are not elite defensively in the first three rounds must be top three round values at their next probable position or they will pass.  Ideas change though. It has been five years.

[interloper]

4 minutes ago, jsbearr said:

Maybe. His feet always look wrong to me and that is despite years of instruction.  Catching is hard.  I did a study a while back based on catching defensive grades at time of draft.  http://camdendepot.blogspot.com/2014/05/receivers-in-name-only.html

A simple study, but it well evidenced the issue about learning how to catch.  Often, you either got it or you don't.  That pilot actually resulted in me talking to a few front offices about it and it was my impression that a few team refuse to spend any high round selections on catchers who are substandard behind the plate.  One club told me their view was that catchers who are not elite defensively in the first three rounds must be top three round values at their next probable position or they will pass.  Ideas change though. It has been five years.

What does this mean?

[jsbearr]

19 minutes ago, interloper said:

What does this mean?

I notice a few things.  He has bounce when he is in the athletic position.  When he comes up, his back leg goes everywhere.  When he then throws, his front foot is often a little closed.

Go on youtube and watch video of Sisco receiving and video of him throwing and compare that to Realmuto.  Differences are pronounced.

[LookinUp]

Feet are critical to throwing at any position. 

[Frobby]

1 hour ago, Legend_Of_Joey said:

Question for the 2 guys that know how to calculate all this stuff: 

Stolen bases aside, do you believe a catcher having a slower pop time can lead to runs in other ways? Such as a runner getting a bit better lead and getting an extra base on a hit (1st to 3rd, or even home on a ball in the gap) when they don't have to worry about a catcher pick off too?

Or they feel more comfortable with a running start on a "hit and run." Or taking a base on a ball in the dirt that should normally be blocked, but isn't handled properly and is now a "wild pitch?" (Not arm strength related on that one, but more so the overall defense.)

I doubt anyone here can calculate that.   Maybe Sig Mejdal could.  

[Ohfan67]

17 hours 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.

 

But of course stolen bases are not all about speed. A lot of those slower runners are never going to get the lead necessary to steal, etc. If I understand the scoring grades for running (and I could certainly be wrong), that's more of an estimate of raw speed. Is that correct? If so, then I think you are overestimating the number of steals. 

[weams]

23 hours ago, makoman said:

Which was good for 65th out of 67 with a min of 10 attempts.

https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/poptime

Apparently average was 2.01...Caleb was 2.04 last year, Wynns and Sucre 2.01. The real question is, how much does this matter? Put another way, what would be the difference in steals, and runs, between him and someone who is just average? I would wager (but don't know) that things like pitch blocking and framing are more important.

I am not as big a TTTP and POP Time guy as some others.