Maybe it’s the rush of the holiday season with two kids or the fact that some major cash is flowing in free agency, but I feel like this year’s offseason is just whizzing by. This will be the last sort of “stat review” for SAGNOF before I head into the territory of value plays for steals in 2014. This post will lay out some of the best and worst catchers in terms of their caught stealing percentages (CS%). Keep in mind that pitchers have a lot to do with holding baserunners as well, and you can find my previous post on the best and worst pitchers against the stolen base here at Razzball. A quick note on the catcher tables – I sorted them by qualified and non-qualified catchers. “Qualified” catchers played more than 1/2 of their team’s games, while “non-qualified” catchers played less than that. Catchers who split times between two teams, like Kurt Suzuki, also end up on the “non-qualified” list. The league average caught stealing percentage in 2013 was 28%, and that hasn’t really changed much over the last 3 years (27% in 2012, 28% in 2011). Last but not least, consider that playing time situations can fluctuate with free agent signings and trades, creating new opportunities for previously non-qualified catchers as the offseason transactions continue. Green columns indicate guys that are easy to run against, and red columns designate the toughest to run against:
| 2013 Catcher CS% (Qualified – >81 Games Played) | |||||
| Player | Games | 2013 CS% | Player | Games | 2013 CS% |
| A Avila | 96 | 17% | A Ellis | 109 | 44% |
| C Iannetta | 102 | 19% | Y Molina | 128 | 44% |
| J Saltalamacchia | 111 | 21% | R Martin | 117 | 40% |
| J Lucroy | 122 | 22% | M Wieters | 134 | 35% |
| J Arencibia | 115 | 25% | S Perez | 126 | 35% |
| B McCann | 91 | 24% | A Pierzynski | 111 | 33% |
| J Castro | 95 | 25% | M Montero | 111 | 33% |
| C Ruiz | 83 | 25% | C Stewart | 97 | 32% |
| B Posey | 119 | 30% | |||
| W Castillo | 107 | 30% | |||
| D Mesoraco | 84 | 29% | |||
Notes: While the Angels will remain an easy target with Chris Iannetta behind the plate, the Red Sox should really improve their situation by bringing in A.J. Pierzynski. He’s a 12% improvement over Jarrod Saltalamacchia, who takes his services to Miami in 2014. By the way, Saltalamacchia and his crazy long name really screws with my OCD when I’m creating tables of data. A.J. Ellis and Yadier Molina will stay put and should continue making the Dodgers and Cardinals tough to run against. What’s interesting about Russell Martin (and I mentioned this in my mid-season review last year) is that his 40% is actually 9% higher than the Pirates as a team, so if you are going to stream steals against Pittsburgh, try to wait for Martin’s day off. Now onto what I find to be the more interesting table…the non-qualifieds…
| 2013 Catcher CS% (Non-Qualified – <81 Games Played) | |||||
| Player | Games | 2013 CS% | Player | Games | 2013 CS% |
| J Montero | 25 | 4% | R Hanigan | 66 | 46% |
| Y Grandal | 26 | 8% | J Pinto | 18 | 46% |
| K Suzuki | 82 | 12% | Y Gomes | 79 | 41% |
| J Jaso | 42 | 13% | D Ross | 33 | 41% |
| M Zunino | 48 | 18% | C Herrmann | 23 | 35% |
| C Santana | 81 | 18% | J Mathis | 70 | 33% |
| R Doumit | 43 | 20% | E Gattis | 38 | 33% |
| T D’Arnaud | 30 | 21% | J Phegley | 59 | 30% |
| T Flowers | 77 | 24% | G Soto | 49 | 29% |
| B Pena | 55 | 24% | W Ramos | 77 | 29% |
Notes: I tried to limit this table to guys I think will actually play a fair amount in 2014 (no Mauer, for example). With the departure of Ryan Hanigan in Cincy, Brayan Pena will likely back up Devin Mesoraco. Mesoraco is about league average, while Pena may be exploited. Meanwhile, Hanigan heads to Tampa where he will most likely platoon with Jose Molina and improve the Rays’ ability to catch basestealers. Minnesota is kind of interesting. With Joe Mauer shifting to first, they have three options in Ryan Doumit, Josmil Pinto, and Chris Herrmann. While Pinto and Herrmann have less experience, they both have better percentages than Doumit. I actually think Pinto has a decent shot at the lion’s share of playing time in the Twin Cities. As a right handed bat, David Ross should create a nice platoon with lefty A.J. Pierzynski in Boston, and both can catch a decent amount of basestealers. Rookies Mike Zunino, Travis D’Arnaud, and Yasmani Grandal fall on the “green light” side of this list, although none of them played in more than 50 games. Lastly…Yan Gomes! Stop reading here if you play in a league with me, because I am taking Gomes whenever possible in 2014. Anyway, for the purposes of this post, he’s quite good at nabbing baserunners too.
As usual, it is a lot of fun looking through all these numbers and I hope this is somewhat helpful. If you have any questions about specific catchers, just let me know in the comments or hit me up on the Twittering Machine and I’ll get back to you ASAP.
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