See, we’re not with the team every day. We don’t actually see that the problem all along was the bullpen *catcher*; now, with Moeller, everything will be solved!
Pretty funny also…if you follow CTR’s blog, he’s pretty irritated that his boy Keppinger (a UGA Bulldog, as is CTR) got sent down without giving him any chance to play at all. Of course, Keppinger himself replaced Encar, who didn’t really get a chance to pull himself out of his hitting slump.
The McBeth move seems good, on the other hand. Or obvious, at least.
I guess this means that the fifth starter will get skipped with the Thursday off-day, and that Milton will be back in pretty much the minimum time to make the next 5th starter spot in the middle of next week.
As Tom notes, Moeller has to go on the 40-man, which means we risk “losing” him if we send him down again, which means he’s that much more likely to stick around.
The Reds “risked” losing Moeller when they designated him for assignment the first time. No one else decided to claim him. I doubt it would be any different this time around.
Same bullpen and we are back to three catchers. Damn. There, I said it. I said the word that even George Grande and Thom Brennaman refuse to say. ‘Damn.’ There, I’ve said it again. Thanks Kriv, you’ve made the preacher cuss. Now I’m going to have to spend extra time repenting tonight. Fortunately (I sickengly suppose), I’m a Reds fan and therefore have been driven to my knees over the last month, and being in the cellar certainly keeps me humble. Three catchers, same bullpen. This sucks. Oh, nice bench too. Thanks.
That is very true. Perhaps Harang is more comfortable throwing to him. Larue was Harang’s catcher last year and the prior handful. And when he id DFA again, I doubt very much if he is claimed or acquired. not many teams are that needy for a 3rd or on some cases a 4th catcher.
i actually think the moeller move was good. Marty was talking about Javy’s CERA last night, which i think means that Narron was talking about it. it’s now 1.25 runs higher than Ross’s.
If you look at it, Javy has been a terrible catcher this year in pretty much every way. now he’s just a pinch hitter, and maybe he’ll be a good one. hopefully the pitching staff does better with Moeller.
Hopefully they give Burton and Macbeth some innings and if they’re successful, they get rid of stanton when they next need a starter.
Just don’t see this one, al. Granted Javy is not a very good catcher, but I cannot see how Moeller helps fix a pitching staff. The starters seemingly have no problem with Ross/Javy. It certainly does not justify having Valentin on the bench for nothing other than his bat. He’s not THAT good with the stick, he can’t run, and can’t play other positions. You have Freel as an emergency replacement, Hatte who was a full-time major league catcher, and Ross. No matter how many Bill Plummers you have on staff, they cannot add up to a single Johnny Bench. Being that Narron was a catcher I’m sure that he looks at the position with a more critical eye, granted. I would think though that if a catcher is so important to a reliever’s pitching performance (Apparently starters are a different story since our problems tend to come after the 6th-7th innings), he should be able to relate better to the players and assist in pitch selection and locations.
Sorry, when a team is struggling, has few defensive replacements, and needs bullpen help, adding a third catcher is a bad idea.
i love it when you really make a point well chris, it’s one of the reasons i come back to this site. i’m sure you have all kinds of evidence and insider knowledge to go along with that eloquent post, but here’s what i’ve found:
sure the sample size is small, but are you really willing to go so far out on a limb for javy that you’ll just blindly assert that because you think CERA is a myth, there’s absolutely no chance that he’s having a negative impact on our staff?
seems like a weird position to put yourself in, but that’s just me i suppose. i’ll be fine if the llm never catches another game for the reds.
and if he sucks as a pinch hitter off the bench, then send him out.
That\\\\\\\’s fair, Al. I always criticize blanket, unsupported statements. I was going to put a link to my statement, but got distracted with my actual job here.
First, let me address your numbers. You conceded that the sample size is way too small, since Valentin\\\\\\\’s caught all of 91 innings this year, and we don\\\’t know what offenses those guys were pitching against, what ballparks, etc., etc.. I\\\\\\\’m not sure where you found the splits (or what happened w/ Arroyo), but I\\\\\\\’m going to just move past that part.
Second, I don\\\\\\\’t dispute that LLM is an inferior defensive catcher. I don\\\\\\\’t even dispute that he may \\\\\\\”call\\\\\\\” a poor game. I just \\\\\\\”know\\\\\\\” that CERA isn\\\\\\\’t a viable metric.
Really quickly, I\\\\\\\’ll give you some of the backup for my statement:
In the linked article, Keith Woolner goes through 475,431 calculations (none of which I understand), designed to see if there\\\\\\\’s any way to measure a catcher\\\\\\\’s effect on pitcher performance. His conclusion: \\\\\\\”For now, at least, the hypothesis most consistent with the available facts appears to be that catchers do not have a significant effect on pitcher performance.\\\\\\\”
Unfortunately, CERA, even as envisioned by Wright, has several limitations. The first is a problem of sample size. In small numbers of innings (particularly with backup catchers), wide fluctuations are expected. Wright himself does admit this. However, there\\\\\\\’s little attempt to quantify the amount of natural variation that would be present even if no true game-calling ability was present. Therefore it\\\\\\\’s impossible to tell how much of the variation should be attributed to simple chance, and how much of it lies with a catcher\\\\\\\’s actual ability. The other problem is that Wright doesn\\\\\\\’t systematically check whether game-calling ability correlates from year to year (that is whether good/bad CERA tends to stick around from year to year, as opposed to being random). A true innate ability should manifest itself as good (or bad) players tending to stay good or bad from year to year. That\\\\\\\’s not to say that you won\\\\\\\’t see some players flip-flop, but overall, the tendency should be that good catchers should be expected to continue being good the next season, and so on. Wright does use some anecdotal examples to show that Rick Demspey, Mike Macfarlane, and Doug Gwodsz were good defensive catchers, Geno Petralli and Jamie Quirk were poor defensive cathers, and so on. However, without a comprehensive analysis (which was not provided in The Diamond Appraised) it\\\\\\\’s impossible to tell whether these examples are selected because they serve to make CERA look good, or whether they are truly representative of a larger phenomenon.
—
I hope that helps. There\’s a lot of math there, and I don\’t understand much of it, but I am convinced that Woolner and James know what they\’re talking about. More importantly, I\’ve not seen any research to the contrary. Like defense and clutch hitting, \”calling a good game\” may actually exist, but there isn\’t any valid way to measure it, at this point.
Actually, it’s no big deal – it’s a minor groin strain that will only cause him to miss one start. (7-day DL in the minors.) Louisville’s manager said that if Bailey had been in the majors he would have pitched through it. But just while we’re all saying woe is me, might as well add this to the pessimism.
I’ll correct myself about the pending 40 man roster move. Denorfia and McBeth swapped a roster spot, and then Cormier was eventually released. Keppinger, Livingston, Burton, Salmaon, etc…. everyone else involved in a recent move was already on the 40 man. Thus, Moeller assumes the open 40 man spot vacated when Cormier was released.
i posted a longer response, but it disapeared. here’s a summary:
what they’re talking about is a macro level problem with generalizing CERA across all catchers and all times.
I’m talking about one catcher who may well suck. If you acknowledge that he might suck, then you have to acknowledge that he might have an effect, and preliminary data shows that he might. maybe it’s a moving target, maybe he smells bad, who knows, but it could be true for him and not true across all catchers.
smart thing to do is see what happens when he catches harang and belisle less. if it’s nothing, then my numbers are an aberration, but they might not be, and looking at all catchers would never tell you that.
so i think the reds are being smart and looking at the micro level problem they have right now, which is two starters with ERAs over 9 when they throw to this guy.
I think I understand what you’re saying, but disagree. If a stat is proving to be essentially random across all of baseball, you can’t say, “yeah, but it works for this one guy.”
If you could show me sufficient-sample-size data that shows that throughout his career, Valentin has a worse CERA than his partner, for the same pitchers, and for roughly the same opponents, then I’d at least be open to being convinced.
You say the Reds are “being smart and looking at the micro level problem they have right now.” I say they are wildly overreacting to a miniscule sample size. (Or, they’re making a decision that Valentin can’t handle pitchers based on something other than CERA, which is theoretically defensible, though I think they’ve made several rash decisions based on too little information).
Al, I just read this in the Post. I guess we’re arguing over nothing:
Both Narron and Krivsky said the role was not because of Valentin’s skills as a catcher, but because of his skills as a pinch hitter. Valentin is 2-for-10 as a pinch hitter this season with two RBIs. In the past, Valentin has been a valuable pinch hitter because of his ability to do it, as well as the fact he’s a switch hitter. Valentin is hitting .227 overall this season.
“It’s not a knock on Javy’s defense,” Krivsky said sitting in Narron’s office in the post-game interview session.
“Not at all,” Narron interjected. “It’s not a knock on any of them. Javy’s got tremendous value coming off the bench to pinch hit and we don’t want to waste that – and at times we have.”
2009 stats: Sarasota 2-1 8 Games 8 Games Started 42.1 IP 4.89 ERA 1.44 WHIP
Carolina 3-2 6 Game 6 Game Started 36 2/3 IP 2.95 ERA 1.09 WHIP
Louisville 2-2 5 Game 5 Game Started 29 IP 2.48 ERA 1.21 WHIP
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The Big Board -- In-Depth Reds Organizational Depth Chart (updated 2/23/10)
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See, we’re not with the team every day. We don’t actually see that the problem all along was the bullpen *catcher*; now, with Moeller, everything will be solved!
Alright, we’ve got 3 catchers again! That ought to fix the bullpen.
The bench is fixed with this move, there’s that right handed power off of it.
Seriously, if Valentin is a pinch hitter just come out and say he’s a pinch hitter. Having Moeller on this team just tempts Narron into using him.
Pretty funny also…if you follow CTR’s blog, he’s pretty irritated that his boy Keppinger (a UGA Bulldog, as is CTR) got sent down without giving him any chance to play at all. Of course, Keppinger himself replaced Encar, who didn’t really get a chance to pull himself out of his hitting slump.
The McBeth move seems good, on the other hand. Or obvious, at least.
Moeller will have to be added to the 40 man roster. The easy move to clear the room for him would be to move Gil to the 60 day DL.
so we made two roster moves and neither of them got rid of a bullpen guy with an ERA over 7? How does that help fix the problem with the team?
I guess this means that the fifth starter will get skipped with the Thursday off-day, and that Milton will be back in pretty much the minimum time to make the next 5th starter spot in the middle of next week.
And it will really help the bullpen if they use mcbeth like they used salmon – mopup/blowout games.
As Tom notes, Moeller has to go on the 40-man, which means we risk “losing” him if we send him down again, which means he’s that much more likely to stick around.
Any bets on whether McBeth is only here until Tuesday (when they’ll next need a 5th starter)?
The Reds “risked” losing Moeller when they designated him for assignment the first time. No one else decided to claim him. I doubt it would be any different this time around.
Same bullpen and we are back to three catchers. Damn. There, I said it. I said the word that even George Grande and Thom Brennaman refuse to say. ‘Damn.’ There, I’ve said it again. Thanks Kriv, you’ve made the preacher cuss. Now I’m going to have to spend extra time repenting tonight. Fortunately (I sickengly suppose), I’m a Reds fan and therefore have been driven to my knees over the last month, and being in the cellar certainly keeps me humble. Three catchers, same bullpen. This sucks. Oh, nice bench too. Thanks.
That is very true. Perhaps Harang is more comfortable throwing to him. Larue was Harang’s catcher last year and the prior handful. And when he id DFA again, I doubt very much if he is claimed or acquired. not many teams are that needy for a 3rd or on some cases a 4th catcher.
i actually think the moeller move was good. Marty was talking about Javy’s CERA last night, which i think means that Narron was talking about it. it’s now 1.25 runs higher than Ross’s.
If you look at it, Javy has been a terrible catcher this year in pretty much every way. now he’s just a pinch hitter, and maybe he’ll be a good one. hopefully the pitching staff does better with Moeller.
Hopefully they give Burton and Macbeth some innings and if they’re successful, they get rid of stanton when they next need a starter.
Just don’t see this one, al. Granted Javy is not a very good catcher, but I cannot see how Moeller helps fix a pitching staff. The starters seemingly have no problem with Ross/Javy. It certainly does not justify having Valentin on the bench for nothing other than his bat. He’s not THAT good with the stick, he can’t run, and can’t play other positions. You have Freel as an emergency replacement, Hatte who was a full-time major league catcher, and Ross. No matter how many Bill Plummers you have on staff, they cannot add up to a single Johnny Bench. Being that Narron was a catcher I’m sure that he looks at the position with a more critical eye, granted. I would think though that if a catcher is so important to a reliever’s pitching performance (Apparently starters are a different story since our problems tend to come after the 6th-7th innings), he should be able to relate better to the players and assist in pitch selection and locations.
Sorry, when a team is struggling, has few defensive replacements, and needs bullpen help, adding a third catcher is a bad idea.
Hey, nice to see other people are looking into our bullpen situation:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/space/20070515/sc_space/nasarobottoexplorebottomlesspit
CERA is a myth. Really, it is.
i love it when you really make a point well chris, it’s one of the reasons i come back to this site. i’m sure you have all kinds of evidence and insider knowledge to go along with that eloquent post, but here’s what i’ve found:
starters ERA with valentin:
lohse, 4.05
harang, 9.30
belisle, 9.39
milton, 6.57
starters ERA with other catchers:
lohse, 3.96
harang, 4.01
belisle, 2.12
milton, 5.00
sure the sample size is small, but are you really willing to go so far out on a limb for javy that you’ll just blindly assert that because you think CERA is a myth, there’s absolutely no chance that he’s having a negative impact on our staff?
seems like a weird position to put yourself in, but that’s just me i suppose. i’ll be fine if the llm never catches another game for the reds.
and if he sucks as a pinch hitter off the bench, then send him out.
That\\\\\\\’s fair, Al. I always criticize blanket, unsupported statements. I was going to put a link to my statement, but got distracted with my actual job here.
First, let me address your numbers. You conceded that the sample size is way too small, since Valentin\\\\\\\’s caught all of 91 innings this year, and we don\\\’t know what offenses those guys were pitching against, what ballparks, etc., etc.. I\\\\\\\’m not sure where you found the splits (or what happened w/ Arroyo), but I\\\\\\\’m going to just move past that part.
Second, I don\\\\\\\’t dispute that LLM is an inferior defensive catcher. I don\\\\\\\’t even dispute that he may \\\\\\\”call\\\\\\\” a poor game. I just \\\\\\\”know\\\\\\\” that CERA isn\\\\\\\’t a viable metric.
Really quickly, I\\\\\\\’ll give you some of the backup for my statement:
A Bill James research project determined that: \\\\\\\”even if catchers do have a significant defensive ability, there will be too much variation from year to year for CERA to be a reliable indicator of it.\\\\\\\”
In the linked article, Keith Woolner goes through 475,431 calculations (none of which I understand), designed to see if there\\\\\\\’s any way to measure a catcher\\\\\\\’s effect on pitcher performance. His conclusion: \\\\\\\”For now, at least, the hypothesis most consistent with the available facts appears to be that catchers do not have a significant effect on pitcher performance.\\\\\\\”
In a previous article, Woolner explains the problems with CERA:
Problems of CERA
Unfortunately, CERA, even as envisioned by Wright, has several limitations. The first is a problem of sample size. In small numbers of innings (particularly with backup catchers), wide fluctuations are expected. Wright himself does admit this. However, there\\\\\\\’s little attempt to quantify the amount of natural variation that would be present even if no true game-calling ability was present. Therefore it\\\\\\\’s impossible to tell how much of the variation should be attributed to simple chance, and how much of it lies with a catcher\\\\\\\’s actual ability. The other problem is that Wright doesn\\\\\\\’t systematically check whether game-calling ability correlates from year to year (that is whether good/bad CERA tends to stick around from year to year, as opposed to being random). A true innate ability should manifest itself as good (or bad) players tending to stay good or bad from year to year. That\\\\\\\’s not to say that you won\\\\\\\’t see some players flip-flop, but overall, the tendency should be that good catchers should be expected to continue being good the next season, and so on. Wright does use some anecdotal examples to show that Rick Demspey, Mike Macfarlane, and Doug Gwodsz were good defensive catchers, Geno Petralli and Jamie Quirk were poor defensive cathers, and so on. However, without a comprehensive analysis (which was not provided in The Diamond Appraised) it\\\\\\\’s impossible to tell whether these examples are selected because they serve to make CERA look good, or whether they are truly representative of a larger phenomenon.
—
I hope that helps. There\’s a lot of math there, and I don\’t understand much of it, but I am convinced that Woolner and James know what they\’re talking about. More importantly, I\’ve not seen any research to the contrary. Like defense and clutch hitting, \”calling a good game\” may actually exist, but there isn\’t any valid way to measure it, at this point.
For all of us who thought things couldn’t get any worse, apparently Homer Bailey went on the DL today.
Actually, it’s no big deal – it’s a minor groin strain that will only cause him to miss one start. (7-day DL in the minors.) Louisville’s manager said that if Bailey had been in the majors he would have pitched through it. But just while we’re all saying woe is me, might as well add this to the pessimism.
I’ll correct myself about the pending 40 man roster move. Denorfia and McBeth swapped a roster spot, and then Cormier was eventually released. Keppinger, Livingston, Burton, Salmaon, etc…. everyone else involved in a recent move was already on the 40 man. Thus, Moeller assumes the open 40 man spot vacated when Cormier was released.
i posted a longer response, but it disapeared. here’s a summary:
what they’re talking about is a macro level problem with generalizing CERA across all catchers and all times.
I’m talking about one catcher who may well suck. If you acknowledge that he might suck, then you have to acknowledge that he might have an effect, and preliminary data shows that he might. maybe it’s a moving target, maybe he smells bad, who knows, but it could be true for him and not true across all catchers.
smart thing to do is see what happens when he catches harang and belisle less. if it’s nothing, then my numbers are an aberration, but they might not be, and looking at all catchers would never tell you that.
so i think the reds are being smart and looking at the micro level problem they have right now, which is two starters with ERAs over 9 when they throw to this guy.
I think I understand what you’re saying, but disagree. If a stat is proving to be essentially random across all of baseball, you can’t say, “yeah, but it works for this one guy.”
If you could show me sufficient-sample-size data that shows that throughout his career, Valentin has a worse CERA than his partner, for the same pitchers, and for roughly the same opponents, then I’d at least be open to being convinced.
You say the Reds are “being smart and looking at the micro level problem they have right now.” I say they are wildly overreacting to a miniscule sample size. (Or, they’re making a decision that Valentin can’t handle pitchers based on something other than CERA, which is theoretically defensible, though I think they’ve made several rash decisions based on too little information).
Al, I just read this in the Post. I guess we’re arguing over nothing:
Both Narron and Krivsky said the role was not because of Valentin’s skills as a catcher, but because of his skills as a pinch hitter. Valentin is 2-for-10 as a pinch hitter this season with two RBIs. In the past, Valentin has been a valuable pinch hitter because of his ability to do it, as well as the fact he’s a switch hitter. Valentin is hitting .227 overall this season.
“It’s not a knock on Javy’s defense,” Krivsky said sitting in Narron’s office in the post-game interview session.
“Not at all,” Narron interjected. “It’s not a knock on any of them. Javy’s got tremendous value coming off the bench to pinch hit and we don’t want to waste that – and at times we have.”
Tonight Harang pitched a gem with Moeller behind the plate.