JR House

[TommyD4207]

Over the course of this season, I found that JR House had a huge cult following amongst the members of this board. There was a very fast growing sentiment that House would be a much, much better option at back-up catcher than Paul Bako. While I knew that Paul Bako was no superstar (not even close), I was a bit skeptical about JR House and a defensive reputation that left much to be desired.

In August, Hangout was fortunate enough to have Migrant Redbird tally up the catchers from Norfolk and how many guys they were having steal on them. He came up with that JR House had had 65 guys attempting to steal on him in 41 games. This came out to be a decent CS % and immediately it was concluded that he had done well and that was the final nail in the coffin.

There was just one problem: Sheer volume of guys attempting to steal. It's a bit like the Fielding Percentage argument in which the stat is often very, very misleading because the official scorer can count a play as an error on a certain fielder when he gets to a ball that another fielder would never get to. As long as he has the ability to get to balls that the other field could never get to, the amount of errors he makes is negligible so long as he fields his zone just as well.

A Hardball Times Article (courtesy of os1971) revealed that House had 119 attempting to steal on him in 565 innings in 2006. His CS % wasn't all that awful, but again, it goes back to having so many guys attempting to steal on him.

Now let's look at Paul Bako. In 2005-2006 (seasons combined in order to develop a larger sample size) Bako had 33 attempting to steal in 509 innings. That's about half as many guys attempting to steal in about 1/12 as many innings. That's crazy. In 2007, he had 34 attempting in 412 innings.

Let's do some math:

We'll assume that JR House caught every single inning of the 41 games that he was credited for (which I doubt, but we'll do it for argument's sake) and we'll combine Bako's 2005 and 2006 season in order to gain a larger sample size. I'll take it a step further, I'll extrapolate it by equalizing the amount of innings for both House and Bako:

In 2006, there would be 71 guys more guys in scoring position with House as catcher than there would be if Bako was. In 2007, there would be 28 extra guys in scoring position with House catching than if it were Bako.

In any case, there would be quite a big effect. Would JR House be able to make up for this with his bat? Well, that's pretty unclear as well unfortunately. So long as we're basing this off of House's minor league statistics, why not?

JR House allows 1.5-2 steals per game while Bako allows .5 steals per game. This is between 1-1.5 bases per game.

The Run Expectancy Matrix shown here (courtesy of Drungo Hazewood):

#	YEAR	RUNNERS	EXP_R_OUTS_0	EXP_R_OUTS_1	EXP_R_OUTS_21.	2007	000	0.52681	0.28144	0.109052.	2007	003	1.39815	0.98806	0.393313.	2007	020	1.16461	0.71666	0.35354.	2007	023	2.13081	1.44391	0.627295.	2007	100	0.91272	0.53155	0.23436.	2007	103	1.80339	1.20412	0.507587.	2007	120	1.48621	0.88028	0.465378.	2007	123	2.31803	1.57854	0.79511

This essentially concludes that someone stealing 2nd base with 0 outs is .25 runs per game. With 1 out, it's .18 runs per game. With 2 outs it's .12 per game. Now, I would definitely assume that most steals come with either 0 or 1 out, so let's go with .20 runs per game, the median between the 3, plus .02. As previously stated, the difference between the amount of that may be on 2nd base if House were in instead of Bako is anywhere in between 1-1.5 base stealers per game (based on the last two seasons). That equates to the difference between House and Bako being anywhere between a .20-.30 run per game difference.

Also, again courtesy of Drungo Hazewood, Marginal Line-up value. Unfortunately, I am not a subscriber to Baseball Prospectus, but he was back on August 20th and at that point, Paul Bako's marginal lineup value was -0.213. Ramon Hernandez on that very day had a .005. Ramon Hernadez had a 696 OPS at that point. Essentially, that's the median in between how many base stealers JR House would allow and how much more he would contribute via his bat.

Would JR House hit for a 696 OPS as a back-up catcher? Again, many probably say yes but I'm not so sure of that. Many might say that it's too small of a sample size, but I would disagree. If we're talking about a back-up catcher, 425 AB's is about as much of a sample size as you're ever going to get. One of the many things that goes overlooked is how guys can be much more productive from positions other than catcher. This is common sense based on how bad catching is on the knees. Let's look at his numbers the past two years as a catcher:

In 2007, he had a 783 OPS behind the plate, almost 100 points difference from where he was as a first baseman. In 2006, he had a 792 OPS behind the plate.

For 2006, Sean Smith (my personal favorite baseball stat guy when it comes to minor league to major league translations) put House at a 719 OPS in neutral MLB parks. This is altogether mind you, not just as a catcher. That, is right at where Ramon Hernandez is. If you took only as a catcher, it'd be much lower. He seems to decide that the Texas League is 84.49% as difficult as Major League Baseball. If we were to extrapolate his hitting statistics as a catcher for that, we'd end up with a 669 OPS. That would make him a statistically worse overall player than Paul Bako when we're considering steals and hitting.

For 2007, Sean Smith is yet to post his minor league-major league translations, so I'll go with a more generous 88%. That puts him right at 689 OPS.

So to say that it's a foregone conclusion that House would outproduce Paul Bako due to the fact of the amount of steals that he allows versus the contribution that he would give with his bat is simply untrue. Is it possible? I guess. He would have to surpass his minor league-major league translations but I suppose it's possible. Baseball is an entirely unpredictable game. But statistics is the bread and butter of baseball analysis and simply assuming that a player will improve based on nothing after a track record of otherwise is simply illogical if you ask me.

There's also the issue of being a catcher that handles pitchers well. Paul Bako is known for being somebody that does that very well. This article, courtesy of Frobby:

http://baltimore.orioles.mlb.com/news/gameday_recap.jsp?ymd=20070818&content_id=2155993&vkey=recap&fext=.jsp&c_id=bal

As far as catching goes, I believe that it's an issue of how the Orioles believe that the young pitchers that they were putting out there would respond. The season was completely lost for a very long time. If they believe that having Paul Bako back there for the rest of the season would help the young pitchers, as in, they may perform a little bit better and it will up their confidence or Bako may be able to mentor them better, that's fine with me.

Some may say that why shouldn't that be the case in the minors? Well, in addition to the fact that the minors it's a time of experimentation, it's also entirely true that one bad outing in the minors is entirely easier to get over. No one really remembers it and more importantly it's MUCH easier to go out and dominate the next outing because of the level of competition.

It's very common in the minors to play somebody in a position where you know they will likely be a liability in order to try to make your big league team better. Jack Cust in 2003 played the OF for AAA. If anybody believes he's a good defensive outfielder, well, I don't know what to tell you. Being -7 FRAA reveals him to be quite the terrible OFer. Anyway, I believe that they were trying to give him enough of an opportunity to gauge his ability and what they saw, well, they weren't all that impressed with. That's just my guess based on the fact that there were 3 other guys taking away innings from him and that once he got to the bigs, he's barely caught.

Some say that they believe that there might be some sort of a vendetta that exists behind House catching, and that very well may be true, but I don't buy it. Gary Allenson, the Norfolk manager is a former big league catcher himself. Dave Trembley has known JR House since he was 19 years old. They supposedly have a very good relationship.

Is House not very good at mentoring his pitchers? I have no idea. I distinctly remember that for the September 1st game, Trembley let House catch Olson. On Olson's next start, House did not catch. Now, correlation does not necessarily equate to causation but it's enough to raise your eyebrows a bit.

It's also been asked who I would want out of Bako or House for next year's back up catcher spot. The answer, is none of the above. Personally, I would like to have Mike Redmond. He hits OK. He has a reputation from his pitchers for having a very good personality with them. I distinctly remember when Joe Mauer missed time that it was reported that he was a great person to fill in for the void that was left by Mauer's presence behind the plate.

I think it’s important to remember what the typical role of a back-up catcher is. Typically, a back-up catcher’s main job is to build rapport with the pitchers. A lot of times they will spend time in the bullpen and catch them up. They’re there as support to the pitchers, as someone that can help guide them through situations and calm them down if need be. As that article showed, Paul Bako has been sucessful in doing this.

Conclusion? If Mazzone and others believed that Bako over the next few games might have helped the young pitching development, fine. I trust Leo Mazzone, Gary Allenson, and Dave Trembely enough. If it was Mike Flanagan, Jim Duquette or Jim Beattie? No. But since it's more than likely them making the decisions, two of which being Trembley who has a very good relationship with House and Allenson who was a professional catcher for many years, I trust in that. My main stipulation is don't bring back either next year for the back-up catcher spot.

If House would've hit better than Bako in a few games this year, so what? What difference would that have made? It more than likely would've been neutralized by him letting base stealers steal on him but even if that didn't happen, if Bako helped a few young pitchers this year have some confidence, that'll help a lot more in my opinion. If the Orioles trade Huff, Millar, and/or Mora and want to bring House back for a role when he rotates around 1B/3B/DH I'd definitely be interested in giving him a shot. But not at back-up catcher. Neither him nor Bako. But if they felt Bako helped the young pitching for the very end of this season, fine. The point of a team that's nowhere near contention in a single year is to get better for the future. Adding a bit of offense that would be a drop in the bucket is negligible. Having a back-up catcher that could potentially help your young pitchers has easily more potential for a much greater effect. Again, my choice for next year is neither and I think they should've gotten someone better than Paul Bako but I do not believe JR House is a solution at all.

[Tony-OH]

Wow, interesting article, thanks for posting...

[Why Not?]

Excellent stuff TommyD.

[mweb]

Did you say what House's caught stealing % was? If not, what is it? And is that being factored into your equation that compares him to Bako?

[os1971]

Good info as always. I personally think House would be better suited as a third string catcher. I'd love to see him over Millar next year as the primary DH/Backup 1B/Third String Catcher, and just move Huff to 1B. Like to see what kind of numbers he could put up.

Another thing to consider is that AL teams (particularly AL east teams other than ours) just don't run that much and many don't have much team speed. Under these circumstances, perhaps House could be managed as a backup Catcher with a more favorable rate of attempts per game than in the minors.

I guess my main concern would be what happens when Hernandez goes down like he did this year.

[RShack]

I'd really like to know what's wrong with what TommyD said. Anybody?

[Moose Milligan]

I'd really like to know what's wrong with what TommyD said. Anybody?

Flawless victory.

[now]

I'd really like to know what's wrong with what TommyD said. Anybody?

Stunned silence.

:SuN038:

[mweb]

I'd really like to know what's wrong with what TommyD said. Anybody?

Well it doesn't seem he factored in caught stealing into his formula. If the amount of runners caught stealing also goes up, that brings down the impact of the extra stolen bases. I don't see any data on how many times guys were successful on stealing off House, just attempts, so it seems that he may just be using attempts in his run expectancy, not steals, which would screw things up. Plus, he's assuming more steals happen with 0 or 1 outs compared to 2, that may be true, but we don't know. Lastly, the formula has all bases stolen being second base, which obviously wouldn't be the case.

But lets just say he would need to have a .696 OPS to justify him being on the team, I'm rather confident a guy with a career .872 minor league OPS can do that. Although I hope this doesn't turn into another thread about minor league numbers translating into major league numbers.

[Dipper9]

Is there some type of award for longest...post...ever? Just kidding. nice work man!

[Dipper9]

Well it doesn't seem he factored in caught stealing into his formula. If the amount of runners caught stealing also goes up, that brings down the impact of the extra stolen bases. I don't see any data on how many times guys were successful on stealing off House, just attempts, so it seems that he may just be using attempts in his run expectancy, not steals, which would screw things up. Plus, he's assuming more steals happen with 0 or 1 outs compared to 2, that may be true, but we don't know. Lastly, the formula has all bases stolen being second base, which obviously wouldn't be the case.

But lets just say he would need to have a .696 OPS to justify him being on the team, I'm rather confident a guy with a career .872 minor league OPS can do that. Although I hope this doesn't turn into another thread about minor league numbers translating into major league numbers.

I don't think the % matters in the point he is making. What he's saying is that if 80 people try to steal on House, even if he has a 50% thrown out percentage, that is still 40 stolen bases. If Bako has only 40 guys attempt to steal against him, and his % is 25%, then there were only 30 stolen bases against him. The point is the more times people attempt to steal, the more success they will have, regardless of the percentage.

Of course, if you wanted to open up another discussion, you could also say the more they try to steal against House and get caught, the more that baserunners are eliminated from the basepath. How many batters got hits during the at bat when a guy was thrown out trying to steal? Now there's a question for some research!

[mikezpen]

I hope that post is read by the people who count. Well done, TommyD.

Os71 has good points too.This guy has enough versatility to get into the lineup, and he can be used effectively if Orioles management has half a brain. Here was a player who was among the leaders in a number of hitting categories in the International League last year. He s/have been given a thorough look.Whether they ever will do that is doubtful. He's probably gone, and I don't blame him.

[ChrisP]

Wow, interesting article, thanks for posting...

That sums it up.

[DrungoHazewood]

I don't think the % matters in the point he is making. What he's saying is that if 80 people try to steal on House, even if he has a 50% thrown out percentage, that is still 40 stolen bases. If Bako has only 40 guys attempt to steal against him, and his % is 25%, then there were only 30 stolen bases against him. The point is the more times people attempt to steal, the more success they will have, regardless of the percentage.

Of course, if you wanted to open up another discussion, you could also say the more they try to steal against House and get caught, the more that baserunners are eliminated from the basepath. How many batters got hits during the at bat when a guy was thrown out trying to steal? Now there's a question for some research!

It certainly does matter, because no matter how often they attempt to steal if they're not over about 70% success rate they're giving runs back to the Orioles.

[srh523]

Wow, interesting article, thanks for posting...

Hey Tony,

Give that man a contract!