So Ian Kinsler commented that Jeff Mathis of the Anaheim Angels is the catcher he fears most when stealing a base. (Thanks to Angel Hawker for posting the video clip.)
Was Kinsler speaking the truth that he really fears running on Mathis? Most likely not. I take it as a Phil Jackson-esque dig against Mathis and also against Sosh for playing him. I can even picture Napoli telling his Ranger teammates, "Why did I never became the #1 catcher in Anaheim? Sosh says he wants somebody who is very athletic and can throw the ball straight. Ha ha ha."
But that got me thinking a bit about the following question: "Are runners really afraid to run against Jeff Mathis?"
How can you even tell statistically if runners are afraid to run? According to fangraphs, base runners make 1.222 SB attempts/GS for Jeff Mathis. That is 8th most/42 for catchers with at least 10 GS.
To contrast this:
2011 League Average = .942 SB attempts/GS (w/ 28% CS rate)
2011 Hank Conger = 1.158 SB attempts/GS ( w/ 22.7% CS rate)
2011 Yadier Molina = .567 SB attempts/GS (w/ 41% CS rate)
Mathis Career = .911 SB attempts/GS (w/ 22.6% CS rate)
So it appears runners are not afraid to run on Jeff's current 21.7% CS rate. But I also noticed that Kurt Suzuki of Oakland has 1.17 SB attempts/GS despite a 51% CS rate. So what gives? Runners don't appear to be afraid to run on him despite him throwing out runners.
Using more data from fangraphs, I correlated SB attempts/GS vs. CS rate and the data can be summed in the table below.
SB Attempts/GS vs. CS Rate |
Regression Correlation Coefficient |
Career statistics catchers with at least 100 GS since 1990 |
-.2047 |
2011 MLB catchers with at least 10 GS |
-.2106 |
Selected handful* catchers SB attempts/GS vs. CS rate for same year |
-.2092 |
Selected handful* catchers SB attempts/GS vs. CS rate for previous year |
-.4413 |
(* Selected handful of catchers = Mathis, Napoli, Suzuki, Pudge Rodriguez, Ramon Hernandez, and Jose Molina. It was time consuming to put the data together, hence only 7 catchers used for this particular data.)
On average there is a slight correlation between SB attempts and CS rate for a catcher. This makes sense, a catcher that throws out fewer runners will have more runners test him. There is an even stronger correlation for SB attempts per GS vs previous year's CS rate.
Sure enough Suzuki only threw out 22.4% of runners in 2010 and is being tested this year. Mathis dropped from 25% down to 20% in 2010 and is now being tested this year.
SB attempt/GS |
CS Rate |
SB attempt/GS |
CS Rate |
|||
Mathis 06 |
1.071 |
20.0% |
|
|
|
|
Mathis 07 |
0.923 |
16.7% |
|
Suzuki 07 |
0.590 |
19.4% |
Mathis 08 |
0.856 |
26.0% |
|
Suzuki 08 |
0.640 |
36.8% |
Mathis 09 |
0.897 |
25.7% |
|
Suzuki 09 |
0.818 |
25.0% |
Mathis 10 |
0.871 |
20.4% |
|
Suzuki 10 |
0.702 |
22.4% |
Mathis 11 |
1.211 |
21.7% |
|
Suzuki 11 |
1.129 |
51.4% |
Mathis Avg |
0.911 |
22.6% |
|
Suzuki Avg |
0.730 |
29.3% |
So Suzuki is stepping up to his challenge and Mathis is not. We can expect less runners to challenge Suzuki later this year and next year. And runners will will continue to dare Mathis to throw them out.
Are runners afraid of running on Mathis? I think not. Jeff, you better do something about it. I have a feeling Conger will.