Catcher Errors

The sad thing is we are only at game 108.

A lot of the deadball era catchers have high throwing errors and high passed balls. At least your passed balls aren't too bad, which goes with Bresnahan's pb-7 and your backup's pb-5.

One way to get the most out of a card like this Bresnahan card (c-1(-2)e10,T-15(pb-7)) is to choose SP's with good hold ratings. A -2 or -3 hold plus Bresnahan's -2 arm would be -4 of -5, which would really deter steal attempt, lowering the TErr's. I have typically used Berra this way, since both cards are -2 with high throwing errors.

Hahn (-2 hold) has a 17-11 record vs. steals, which is good (a 67% success rate is the break-even on steals). If the other guys on your staff had similar holds, you'd be in good shape.

All of this said, catcher throwing errors are less bad than most other errors. They don't add a baserunner or lose an out (no TErr's on CS), so the result, usually, is a runner on third instead of second.

A lot of the deadball era catchers have high throwing errors...

This seems true, but why is it so? The results seem to be much higher than throwing errors than in real life. The number of steal attempts in SOM doesn't seem abnormally high (at least looking at my current league).

It seems high to me. Out of curiosity, I checked a recent team with John Beckwith as my primary catcher (c-5(+2)e13,T-16(pb-6))
He ended the season with 20 errors total.

It seems high to me. Out of curiosity, I checked a recent team with John Beckwith as my primary catcher (c-5(+2)e13,T-16(pb-6))
He ended the season with 20 errors total.

I've never had the nerve to use Beckwith as a starting catcher. If you don't mind telling us, lab, how did he do with Throwing Errors and SB / CS?

One think that I really look at is PB. With steals, at least you have chance to throw the runner out, but with PB, it's just a free base. So a catcher with a lot of PBs is giving up an awful lot of bases. Beckwith has pretty decent PBs, so that's a plus.

Piazza's two earliest cards have a range of 4 with +1 arms, but he has low PBs, and in one case 0. So he's not as bad as he might be at C. OTOH, King Kelly's big card has a lot of killer features: c-3(-2)e13,T-20(pb-20). Piazza might offer the better total defensive package.

He is now at 35 Errors, 18 PB's and 28 Throwing Errors. The sad thing is that Ainsmith from another team in the league has 43 Errors, 14 PB's and 33 Throwing Errors. Crazy

As the guy who's playing Ainsworth and losing badly, I'll note my team's given up 80+ unearned runs. A lot of them from guys who went from first to third (or second to home) on an Ainsworth throwing error.

Used him in my last Deadball League and made it to the Finals. He had about 30 errors, which was a lot, but he's on route to give up at least 50 this go round, and not hitting nearly as well as last time, either.

A lot of the deadball era catchers have high throwing errors...

This seems true, but why is it so? The results seem to be much higher than throwing errors than in real life. The number of steal attempts in SOM doesn't seem abnormally high (at least looking at my current league).

Answering my own question: I forgot to take into account that our starters play a lot more in Strat.
E.g., real life Ainsworth started 105 games. Sim Ainsworth played in 148 games, and I'm betting 145+ were as a starter.
And the # of attempts is higher (although not insanely so).

Although error ratings were normalized (at least through ATG5), this did not include catcher's T & PB ratings. Old-time baseball involved a lot of guys running around the bags and fielders chased errant throws into the stands!