Question About C Errors

[nevdully's]

c-3(+1)e1,T-11(pb-1)

Probably Baseball 101 but in my blind spot.

If someone is an e1 he should make very few errors right?

and pb 1 very low

but T-11 should mean plenty of throws into cf...aren't they usually errors?

Aren't these ratings contradicting each other?

[djmacb]

They're complimentary, not contradictory. The e1 is off of the X Chart - this is for non-throwing errors. The T-11 occurs on certain stolen base chances - I think its 15% of the attempts - a catcher's throwing error is possible based upon the T rating.

[danielz]

Yeah, on a recently completed team, I had Blanchard at C.
He is an E-4, but a T-16
He allowed 199 SBs. He threw out 79. He ended up with 27 errors.

In real life, he played 48 games at C in 1961 and had 3 errors.
He allowed 18 SBs and threw out 5. If you assume that he threw 2 of those 23 into CF, that is .087 pct of the time.

.087 times 278 throws to 2nd equals 24 balls throw into CF. And because he is an E-4, he perhaps missed a couple GB's or whatever. So the fielding results I got were acctually quite accurate.

[nevdully's]

Thanks guys!

[Outta Leftfield]

One thing to keep in mind is that catcher throwing errors are not quite as bad as errors that add a baserunner. An errant throw into CF may let a base-stealer go to third, but it doesn't put an extra man on first. So I'm a little more tolerant about T-? errors than other errors.

Also, those T-? errors can vary a lot from year to year, even with the same player. For example, I've used Ed Bailey's 3.87M card—c-4(+1)e9,T-11(pb-2)—a few times and in one year he had 16 errors (not too bad, considering) and in another, 29 errors (not too good). In the bad year, he also was 209-69 vs the stolen base. What I didn't notice when I made a last minute addition to my starting staff was that Glen Hobbie was a +9 (!) hold vs the steal. My bad, because Hobbie allowed 73 SBs when he was pitching. Reliever Vincente Romo (+4) allowed 23 SBs. So most of the SB damage was done against those two pitchers with really bad holds.

OTOH, in his better defensive year for me (16 errors) Bailey was matched with an all LHP staff including Steve Carlton's -6 hold. Obviously, nobody was running on Carlton. Along with many fewer errors, Bailey allowed just 69 steals with an excellent .645 SB percentage. And with fewer steal attempts, Bailey made fewer throwing errors.

The moral might be that is that if you're going with a +1 T-11 catcher, try to match the C up with some pitchers with good holds and you'll minimize the damage. I do this with Berra, sometimes, too. He's got a -2 arm but with awful T-15 and T-17 throwing in his two ATG6 years. But if you use Berra with SPs with -1 or better holds, the combined -3 or better will deter overall steals and minimize the damage. :wink:

[coyote303]

Really nice post, Outta!

[Outta Leftfield]

[quote:5ec19278ba="coyote303"]Really nice post, Outta![/quote:5ec19278ba]

Thanks! :D

[PotKettleBlack]

Stated simply:

E rating is for non-throwing errors. Since the catcher fields about the same number of balls every year (depending on injury/days off), this number will be fairly constant.

T error is a crime of opportunity. If you play in a world that plays the style of 1995-2009, you will not make many T errors because you will not have much opportunity, no matter how bad your aim. That's kind of the case with Blanchard, as the early sixties were the peak of station to station ball, without much in the way of risky tactics. Now, you put Blanchard into the late 70's-early 80's National League and he's probably be traded to the AL or play a lot more left field. Or, the Cubs would keep him behind the plate, because the crowds are the same no matter how inept the team is.

T error is highly context dependant, as it is triggered by an event that is both external to the catcher (to some extent, no one steals on the I-Rod card) and highly variable in it's own right.