Does Jeff Mathis Really Make Pitchers Better?

…is that more people will read Mark Whicker’s name here than they ever would have at his blog.

He’s made it clear that he’s willing to sacrifice Offense for Defense. And as a former catcher himself, I have to trust him.

But I have never trusted CERA as a stat or as an explanation for this phenomenon. Mathis is the better defensive catcher, but (with the exception of Tuesday) he is an offensive liability. Thank you for doing this research Matt.

I think the big question is: Does Ervin believe Mathis calls better games for him? If so, then Mathis should catch. Ervin needs to be in his comfort zone. Just think back to how ridiculous his home/road splits were not so long ago.

including what team the pitcher was facing and with what catcher.

For example, a pitcher is likely to do worse against a team with good offensive. And against a high-scoring offense, who is likely to be in the lineup between Mathis and Napoli? Probably Napoli because playing a team with a good offensive would probably equate with Soth wanting his big bat in the lineup since he knows, it could be a high-scoring ballgame.

This is just one example off the top of my head…Im not saying that I believe in CERA but you know…we pick and chose our stats to defend our arguements. This definitely reveals though that the idea of Mathis being the better catcher is at least exaggerated.

all i kno is i get a bit less excited when i see napoli isnt in the lineup

with the pitching staff was ginned up by the Mathis fan boys and girls then repeated often enough where others started believing it. All you have to do is watch the games to know it is a myth. Writers like Mark Whicker are no different as I firmly believe they monitor the fan web sites for the basis of many of their articles.

but the angels have a better winning percentage when mathis starts

Idea: for 2007, split it into Mathis Home, Napoli home, Mathis away, Napoli away…

Maybe he catches a few more games than most back-ups, but if you remember Naps has been fairly injury prone in his MLB career. He’s a big boy too, don’t wear him out behind the plate man.

What do you guys want, a 7.5 million dollar a year backup catcher? Are we the Yankees?

We’re both developing and preserving two young players who play a difficult, body-killing position, for a manager who knows a thing or two about shin guards. As long as we don’t see much of Mathis in the playoffs, I’m good. Just don’t want a 50-50, and don’t want to hear a lot about how Mathis is a much better match for John Lackey.

Another great job.

I was actually working on the same article (Napoli vs Mathis), but I was also looking at the impact offense has on the equation. Here’s a couple things I found in my research:

1) As we all know, Napoli is the much better hitter, but how much better and to what effect does it have on the team’s outcome? So far this season Napoli has accumulated a WAR (wins above replacement) of 3.0, which means Napoli contributed 3 additional wins over what an “average” catcher would produce. Jeff Mathis has a WAR of 0.4. In other words, Napoli has produced a little over 2 and a half more wins than a line up with Mathis.

2) Fangraphs’ value: Napoli = $13.7M, Mathis = $1.6M

3) Defensively the biggest thing I noticed was wild pitches. Napoli has caught 275 games in his career and allowed 92 wild pitches (1 every 3 games). Mathis, who has caught 209 games, has allowed 51 (1 every 4 games). Other than that, there’s really no difference (in the stats I looked at) in the two catchers’ defense. Passed balls? Napoli has 12 (in 275 games), Mathis has 13 (in 209 games). How about throwing out basestealers? Napoli has allowed 195 stolen bases and thrown out 59 runners, or 23%. Mathis has allowed 146 SB and thrown out 40…22%.

The other point I was going to make was addressing the opinion of pitch calling. I’d be curious to know how many times a pitcher shakes off the sign. The way I see it, maybe a pitcher such as Trevor Bell will throw whatever pitch the catcher calls for, but honestly, does John Lackey not know what pitch to throw? If he wants to throw a slider down-and-away and Napoli/Mathis call for a fastball in, wouldn’t he shake him off and throw what he wants? My point and opinion is, the argument on who calls a better game is moot.

Once again, great job Matt!

Listen to the countless people who have actually played in MLB throughout the years. Most, if not all, of them state that the pitcher/catcher relationship is extremely important.

Mathis sucks with the bat, that much is clear. But there is so much more to that position than stats will show you. Being a catcher is about more than just hitting…

keep up with the myth busting posts!

o yea that is right, it was napoli

the ops of a team does not matter, its about how many runs they score
a team can hit a triple and then get a walk every inning, and that equates to a good ops, but no runs

imho stats like ops are used to judge an individual, era and runs scored should be used to evaulate a team

Most catchers at the MLB level will call a game fairly at the same level, with a couple exceptions (mainly terrible calls; typically a catcher doesn’t read the batter well enough to keep the ball from getting roofed, a good example is when a catcher doesn’t catch the batter’s adjustment to the first couple pitches and asks for the same pitch, only to see that ball go as far away from him as possible.)

So to me the answer to the question is that Mathis and Napoli are equal in terms of pitch calling, ie. neither helps improve pitchers more than the other.

However, there is still a large difference between Napoli and Mathis in terms of the kind of catcher they are.
Napoli and Mathis both have decent arms for catchers. Neither are particularly great at throwing out stealers (Napoli has a CS% of .22; Mathis a .21 as noted above). Catchers that are notorious at keeping runners at their bases or throwing out stealers are Joe Mauer: 33%, Kohjima: 56%, Any of the Molinas, etc.

But from what I’ve seen so far, Napoli is purely an offensive catcher. Higher batting average, more RBIs, more HRs, better OPS. Although this would make it nearly a no brainer who you would put in every game, Mathis does boast something that Napoli lacks that isn’t really a highlighted statistic. Mathis is much quicker on his knees (probably due to his smaller size than Naps), which helps when a ball is in the dirt and bounces away from home plate. He can get quickly into a throwing position to keep all runners in check (if you notice, when Napoli blocks a ball and goes over to get it, his throwing position is usually standing up, not on his knees. This takes more time, which allows runners to advance). His vision of the field is great, since he makes great pick offs at nearly any base, while Napoli rarely will try to pick anyone off.

So depending on what kind of catcher a team want on the lineup at that particular day, the Angels can choose between two catchers who have their own strengths and weaknesses. This gives the team much more flexibility in their line up. For example, if the Angels are playing against a team whose line up consists of players with lots of speed and consistency but little power, you may but Mathis in because of his ability to keep runners from stealing and getting that one pick off that could be a clutch out. If the Angels are playing against a power offensive team, the Angels would bring in Napoli to give their offense some power as well, since Mathis’ defensive abilities are pretty much useless if all the opponent ever does is hit homers.

Napoli: 12 errors in 310 catcher games

Given the monstrous disparity in offense, shouldn’t Mathis have every defensive advantage even to have this discussion?