The Frustrating Catcher Position
Posted on April 15th, 2008 by dchase
I received this email/question from Mr. Krake:
“So I’ve always had problems maximizing my catcher position. I never know when a catcher is getting a day off so I can plug in another catcher and make sure I get all my at bats in. In all my leagues where we start only 1 catcher, I usually have a second catcher on my bench so that if I notice day of that the catcher isn’t starting, I can swap him out, but that doesn’t always happen. Is there a place to go or a strategy for finding out in advance if a given catcher is starting or not?
I didn’t really have a good answer for Glenn, maybe you can help him out?
The Yahoo page will usually show who is starting, an hour or so ahead of time. Sometimes a Google search of “Twins (or your catcher’s team), lineup, blog” will show lineups two or more hours ahead. I am with you on getting players into every position every game. However, I never felt it important to have two catchers on my team, as I would rather make sure to maximize production of the other positions.
you just have to know, mauer would probably sit vs. Dontrelle willis, for example, paulino would start vs. lefties, but not always because if they face for example, hamels and moyer in a row they might put in doumit for one of those. Brian McCann sits vs. lefties sometimes too. you may sometimes see Shoppach and V-mart in the lineup at the same time, same with Redmond and Mauer, and apparantly now, both KC catchers. Cincinatti, SD, Arizona, Milwaukee, seem to have 1, 2, or ?? mediocre catchers that I would never have on my team, because I can just steam in platoon players for free, so cant help you there.
It kind of the rule of thumb that a catcher sits when a day game follows a night game. This is why you see guys generally sitting on Sunday afternoon’s.
I generally play my backup on days off for my starters team. This gets me to about 150GP or so with Mccann playing in 120-130 games. It’s really tough to sit a starter when he could come in like V-tek last night and hit a home run as a pinch hitter.
That’s a good point, Troy. What’s better, one pinch hit AB by VMart, or 4 ABs from Josh Bard?
Of course, it would be different if you’re talking about Geovany Soto, because he’s probably not going to be used as a pinch hitter on his day off, so in that case, I’d rather have 4 ABs from a John Buck than only a hopeful pinch hit AB.
I wonder if there is any research to support this theory: 1AB from VMart vs 4AB from replacement catcher.
Google the team your catcher plays for to see if the team’s backup catcher is a “personal caddy” to one starting pitcher (like in Houston with Brad Ausmus or Boston with Kevin Cash). If this is the case, then you can bench your primary catcher on game days when that particular pitcher is starting.
Otherwise, sum’s comment about day games after night games is pretty reliable, especially later in the season.
I’ve always felt it’s a good idea for your back-up catcher to be a West Coast catcher. It’s much easier to get him in the lineup when your everyday catcher sits.
Great tips across the board here.
If it isn’t pretty evident by most of the stuff you read ’round these parts, I put a lot of faith in the predictive value of numbers.
I think one of the best indicators about regular playing time for a catcher is how many PAs he received over the course of his career.
It’s a position that is hard to micro manage in general. My best advice would be to target/draft players who are likely to get a lot of PAs over the season, and stick by them through off days.
It’s probably not worth burning a bench spot on a 3rd catcher anyway. Unless your strategy dictates that the catcher position is hugely undervalued.
but you cant do that, because every team targets guys who have alot of PA’s ? duh?? so you have to decide if you want to pay in $$ or high draft pick on these “better” catchers, or churn through the WW for ones who will start.
1 ab from martinez in a pinch hit situation is preferable to me on a 1 game basis as the replacemnt could easily go 0-4 or 1-5 and hurt your BA. The v-mart pinch hit could come in an rbi situation most likely.