You Decide

Last week, Mark Gonzales, the Tribune’s Cubs’ beat writer, did a story that showed just how bizarre the new metrics can be in evaluating catchers.  If you believe that pitch framing and an equation some mad mathematician cooked up, aka defensive runs saved, are accurate measures, you’re likely to believe anything.

 

Willson Contreras isn’t considered a good pitch framer while Tyler Flowers ranks as one of the best.  Excuse me, Tyler Flowers, who did a pretty good imitation of a statue crouching behind the plate those seven long, long seasons he was the on-again, off-again catcher for the White Sox?  Flowers, who played in only 83 games for Atlanta last season, led the National League in passed balls with 16; Contreras, playing in 99 games, had six.  Flowers has a career caught-stealing rate of 23 percent vs. 31 percent for Contreras.  So, who do you want catching in the ninth inning of a one-run game?

 

Gonzales noted that ex-Sox catcher Josh Phegley, despite having a career-best 62 RBIs in 106 games in 2019, was released by the A’s and found it hard to attract interest from other teams given his low pitch-framing and defensive-runs-saved marks.  (Phegley signed a minor-league deal with the Cubs, including an invitation to spring training.)  To offer some context to what the metrics might say, Gonzales talked to ex-Sox pitcher Chris Bassitt, also with the A’s last year.  Phegley caught Bassitt in 17 of his 28 pitching appearances in ’19.

 

This is how Bassitt put it:  “I don’t understand the numbers” that Phegley has.  Bassitt also said he “loved” throwing to Phegley and suggested anyone curious enough should “Go ask a pitcher: Do you like throwing to this guy?  If the answer is yes, they they’re a good catcher.”

 

Just don’t expect the numbers to say so.