Please practice your catching, House

[Zaimoku]

What the stats don't show.

How often House drops foul tips. Some of them become strikeouts. If he can't handle strike one foul tips, it is also a disturbing sign.

How he fields bunts

How often he can't get to pop flies that drop quickly in foul ground.

How good or bad he is at blocking pitches in the dirt.

How often he lets pitches get past him, including strike or ball one with no one on base.

How he frames the plate.

How well he blocks the plate and/or deals with runners trying to score.

Hey, let's give him a short trial! It's not as if his manager and former catcher Gary Allenson didn't see any of this in Norfolk.

[RShack]

Nah, too long

Might not be a bad idea... I knew v. little about the guy before... no real opinion either way... but, as sometimes happens, a couple guys did some homework on the issue... I learned a bunch... you just gotta ignore the noise along the way...

[Lucky Jim]

What the stats don't show.

How often House drops foul tips. Some of them become strikeouts. If he can't handle strike one foul tips, it is also a disturbing sign.

How he fields bunts

How often he can't get to pop flies that drop quickly in foul ground.

How good or bad he is at blocking pitches in the dirt.

How often he lets pitches get past him, including strike or ball one with no one on base.

How he frames the plate.

How well he blocks the plate and/or deals with runners trying to score.

Hey, let's give him a short trial! It's not as if his manager and former catcher Gary Allenson didn't see any of this in Norfolk.

I'm not even a big proponent of the JR House-for-catcher agitprop that's floating around OH these days, but I think your earlier post overlooks an important point touched upon by Drungo --

The reasons why a spread sheet can sometimes be preferable to traditional baseball thinking is in part a function of bounded rationality -- those who are "in" and "close" to the game may find that they suffer from certain limits to their ability to understand both risk and reward...

...this can come in the shape of availability bias (a single event easily remembered may cloud other positives - see Jack Cust stumbling); endowment effects (whereby that which we've acquired takes on an additional value above its actual value simply because we're holding it - see Paul Bako); loss aversion (we're so afraid of House making a mistake that costs us a game that it takes precedent in our accounting over what House can do to WIN games).

Some of these function as heuristics and some of these are simply the inability to think objectively about risk and reward. Perlozzo, I think, for all his "good baseball guy" attributes suffered from such a severe case of loss-aversion that he sacrificed long-term gain to avoid short-term loss (over-working his bullpen). He was clinging to his first managerial job so tightly that his managing method became virtually unsustainable.

A spreadsheet, however, can offer a clear-eyed perspective. There's nothing wrong with this. We should look to them.

Assuming the O's know what they're doing with House simply because they're professionals IS wrong-headed -- if it's possible that some kind of bounded rationality is at work (does Trembley over-value defense? It's possible...)

That said, in terms of watching House play, the O's organization is much better positioned to make a determination of just what House is capable of. We shouldn't discount THIS either. Both sides get too locked in at times.

In the end, bounded rationality isn't a criticism of the F.O., it's simply a fact of human existence - even an "organizational" mind is capable of only so much risk and reward calculation. Sometimes they rely on shorthands or whatever that just aren't rewarding long-term. Crunching numbers may help alleviate this problem.

[SteveA]

What the stats don't show.

How often House drops foul tips. Some of them become strikeouts. If he can't handle strike one foul tips, it is also a disturbing sign.

How he fields bunts

How often he can't get to pop flies that drop quickly in foul ground.

How good or bad he is at blocking pitches in the dirt.

How often he lets pitches get past him, including strike or ball one with no one on base.

How he frames the plate.

How well he blocks the plate and/or deals with runners trying to score.

Hey, let's give him a short trial! It's not as if his manager and former catcher Gary Allenson didn't see any of this in Norfolk.

And I'll add, how he calls a game. Whether he can get in a rhythm with his pitcher and call what needs to be called and not get shaken off a lot, which makes it more difficult for the pitcher to concentrate. Just the fact that a lot of good pitchers have favorite catchers, or catchers they don't like, indicates that this is a skill that some catchers have and others do not.

That being said....tomorrow's Olson start is an EXCELLENT chance to get him in a game as catcher. We are facing two lefties tomorrow, we really don't want Bako starting agianst a lefty. And we know that House has worked with Olson this year, I'm sure he's caught more of his games than Bako or Hernandez. I have a feeling Trembley will have him behind the plate in Game 2.

[tim27]

I'd find it hard to believe that House is so bad defensively that he couldn't catch once a week and be the backup catcher.

If he was that bad, how could he possibly have lasted all year as the starter in the minors?

I'd be shocked if his defense was so bad that it cost us more runs than the amount his bat will gain us over guys like Paul Bako, especially considering Bako's defense isn't anything special.

This has been addressed. He wasn't a starter in the minors at catcher. He had caught 41 of 89 games. That's pretty much platoon.

[Sports Guy]

This has been addressed. He wasn't a starter in the minors at catcher. He had caught 41 of 89 games. That's pretty much platoon.

Platoon, starter..Whatever..Doesn't matter...If he is that bad, why is he getting any time at all?

Why has Olson pitched well with him as a catcher?

[tim27]

Platoon, starter..Whatever..Doesn't matter...If he is that bad, why is he getting any time at all?

Why has Olson pitched well with him as a catcher?

First of all, how many of Olson's starts did House catch? You keep using this argument but we don't even know if House was Olson's primary catcher. I think that is pertinent information. Secondly, this is AAA. The primary goal isn't winning games- something which Castillo could have been better at for all we know- but the development and evaluation of players. The O's probably looked at it as a time to evaluate House's ability to catch at the major league level. Apparently, they were less than overwhelmed- including his manager, a former major league catcher himself. Now, if you and Drungo and others need to see it for yourself maybe you should have made a little trip to Norfolk but inisisting that the O's don't know what they have simply because you haven't seen it with your own eyes is absurd.

[Sports Guy]

First of all, how many of Olson's starts did House catch? You keep using this argument but we don't even know if House was Olson's primary catcher. I think that is pertinent information. Secondly, this is AAA. The primary goal isn't winning games- something which Castillo could have been better at for all we know- but the development and evaluation of players. The O's probably looked at it as a time to evaluate House's ability to catch at the major league level. Apparently, they were less than overwhelmed- including his manager, a former major league catcher himself. Now, if you and Drungo and others need to see it for yourself maybe you should have made a little trip to Norfolk but inisisting that the O's don't know what they have simply because you haven't seen it with your own eyes is absurd.

I am not sure how many games he caught for Olson...But he did catch his 1 hitter.

And with the development of players, young ptchers are part of that....So, why let a bad catcher with no catching ability catch young pitching?

[Lucky Jim]

I am not sure how many games he caught for Olson...But he did catch his 1 hitter.

And with the development of players, young ptchers are part of that....So, why let a bad catcher with no catching ability catch young pitching?

Well, the Orioles have been doing that for years.

[RShack]

I wish there was some way to tell if anybody was gonna say something new vs. repeat what's been said already for 12 pages...

Any bets?