Comments on: Young’s Company

By: Brian Cartwright

Brian Cartwright — Sat, 02 May 2009 00:25:59 +0000

The past three seasons, Young’s SB-CS have been 41-4, 44-0 & 15-1. His catcher’s have also been below average when working with other pitchers. Considering the number of runners in stealing situations, and the records of his catchers with other pitchers, Young’s expected totals were 18-3, 18-2 & 10-2. Total observed for three years, 100-5 .048 CS%, expected 46-7 .132 CS%. MLB avg CS% (by catcher) is .240

By: Brian Cartwright

Brian Cartwright — Fri, 01 May 2009 22:48:15 +0000

Check out this article
http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/index.php/stealing-on-catchers-not-named-molina

By: Samg

Samg — Fri, 01 May 2009 21:30:09 +0000

The thing is with some of the other pitchers: it hurts much less when you let less runners reach first.

By: LarryinLA

LarryinLA — Fri, 01 May 2009 17:16:04 +0000

I’m assuming he hasn’t gotten better because it isn’t fatal enough (I say before actually looking up numbers). In 2007, he gave up 44 SBs. The value of a SB is about 0.19 runs/SB (according to Tango’s Linear Weights). If we assume an average pitcher allows SBs at the break-even point, then Young is giving up an extra 8.5 runs in a historically bad season. He gives up ~70 runs in a normal season.

OK, that is bad. Very bad. It looks like it is getting worse, too. On the other hand, he gave up more than 80 runs in 2006 and 66 runs in 2008. If ignoring runners means getting better at other run prevention skills (like more K’s or preventing HRs) then he might as well. He outpitches his FIP too, though that may be the ballpark. Other than embarassment, he may not want to change what he’s doing.

By: Matt

Matt — Fri, 01 May 2009 08:02:39 +0000

Is it possible that Burnett/McGowan from 2007 were the result of a putrid Zaun? 2 of the worst 6 seasons on the same team makes me think the catcher played a large role, especially since AJ didn’t show up on the worst violators list…

By: Lee

Lee — Fri, 01 May 2009 03:46:53 +0000

I’m just wondering if anyone has come up with an analysis to predict a catcher’s true CS% ability. For every Chris Young there is an Andy Sonnanstine, so it would be great to know what catchers benefit and get hurt by a pitcher’s ability to hold runners.

By: Brent

Brent — Fri, 01 May 2009 03:01:00 +0000

I realize Young will never be able to hold runners like Andy Pettite, but it amazes me that he hasn’t improved over the last few years. There’s little things you casn do w/o messing with your mechanics to at least reduce steal attempts.

Also, bringing in a defensive minded catcher wouldn’t help. Blanco is probably better than Hundley, but he doesn’t catch Young.