2011 Marlins Season Review: Overview and Catcher

I think the biggest concern would be to get that surplus from those three, you’re right. The idea was to get a 6-win player from Ramirez, but it’s hard to imagine that now, and at 4 wins it’s much more likely he would be worth his deal. Johnson simply needs to remain healthy to yield bonus value. Nolasco, well, he’s not being paid much (3-win player) but it’s doubtful he is doing much, so it remains to be seen whether he can provide value.

A big part of contention next year is to just see some positive regression from those three. If we get that, then we’re on our way with some free agent help.

What you’re saying is you don’t like John Buck.

- Regarding Buck’s throwing, yes, it was poor this season, there’s no doubt about that. In this article on catcher defense, it shows that Buck cost the team half a win with his poor stolen base prevention. But consider what else he did this season: Buck allowed about 11 fewer wild pitches or passed balls than the average pitcher would have in the same number of innings. Credit has to be given to Buck for blocking pitches as well, which it seemed like he did well this season. Throwing isn’t the only aspect of catcher defense.

- Buck’s HR/ / 600 PA in Kansas City (an admittedly pitcher’s park when it comes to home runs): 19 HR / 600 PA
Buck’s HR / 600 PA in Florida: 18

Is this enough to justify his low OBP? Maybe not, but as a catcher you don’t have to be a great hitter to be a good player. There were five catchers not including Buck who hit worse in 2011 than his career .309 wOBA.

- Was he good last season? Clearly not, but I struggle to find where in the piece I said he was unequivocally “good” last season.

- Last season, it was fair to say that Buck was among the worst regular starters at catcher. However, if one were to take into account all of his recent, including that of his two seasons before 2011, you would probably be OK to call Buck in the lower third among catchers in baseball, meaning he would be among the ten worst catchers, closer to the top of that list than the bottom.

Are we paying him like an upper-echelon catcher? No, we’re paying him $6 million a season, equivalent to guy who would be worth about 1.5 wins. Buck is around that region, perhaps a bit worse as a catcher. The point is that while he may not be an elite catcher, the Marlins never expected him to be one.

- Hayes, in limited time, was a worse hitter than Buck for his career. Baker has been injured the last two years, and it would seem based on his track record that he is about even on Buck in throwing and worse than him at receiving pitches (over his career, Baker has allowed 4 fewer passed balls / wild pitches than the average catcher, while Buck prevented 11 just last season). Baker was the better hitter when kept against left-handers, but at this point we don’t know whether he’s healthy either.

You can’t give Buck one season of not-terrible play (and it wasn’t terrible when you consider how bad you can be to be a playable catcher) and declare him a failure. Again, he isn’t Brian McCann or Joe Mauer, but he isn’t Chris Snyder or Miguel Olivo either.

and as mentioned, they offered arbitration and had it declined, so they would’ve taken him back if he had accepted it. In addition, there are a variety of reasons why teams let a guy go, and they aren’t all logical or related directly to performance. In the case of Buck with Toronto, it was simply a matter of cheaper options available.

- Your point regarding Paulino being “run into the ground” should not be forgotten. Being able to play a lot of games (something that Buck apparently handled for the Fish) has value as well, because it means less time for your replacement-level backup. Paulino couldn’t handle a starter’s workload, and when given one, he hit worst than Buck did this season.

- With regards to Hayes vs. Buck and how they managed the staff:

Buck’s 2011 Catcher ERA (ERA of pitchers while Buck was catching): 3.90
Hayes 2011 Catcher ERA: 4.12

Now, that barely means anything, as catcher ERA is a pretty terrible statistic, as there is a LOT of noise going on with that stat. But if you are looking for how the team’s pitchers fared with either man on the mound, that would give you your answer for 2011. Does it mean Buck is better at handling the staff? I have no idea, but the front office insists that he has been a positive influence. I can’t necessarily prove or disprove them.

- Were there better options last year for a catcher? Yes, and I said as much last year: http://marlinmaniac.com/2010/11/30/could-marlins-have-done-better-with-signings/

Yes, they could have paid a similar player less money, absolutely. But that was last year, we can’t change that. The Marlins are going to pay Buck $12 million over the next two years, and he has a decent shot of being worth that money (given that one Win Above Replacement is worth somewhere around $4-5 million). He’s being paid like a guy worth 1.5 wins. He can definitely make that value.

- Yes, I watch the games as often as I can, but honestly, I’m not a scout, and a good number of us aren’t either; we’re just fans when we watch the game. I’m better with the numbers than I am with telling you how Buck should be catching the game. I’ll leave that to the guys who the Marlins pay to do that for them.

the more the better. But let’s remember the rules to the show: everyone has to bring their evidence. I don’t want you to think that I’m dismissing your points, but I do disagree with your assessment of Buck.

“I’m afraid that we were meant to fundamentally disagree. Regarding Paulino. He did very well for quite some time but the team never gave the guy a rest. Anyone would tire under those circumstances. "

In 2010, Ronnie Paulino started 84 of the team’s 120 games while he was on the team. That was 70% of the team’s games. I don’t have the innings, because I can’t split them up by when he was with the team, but it probably wasn’t more than around 70%.

John Buck caught 1,144 of the team’s 1,459 innings last year; he caught 78% of the team’s total innings.

He fell apart in August from over use, and if not for that, his season likely would have looked even better. He got his OPS up to .722 on Sept. 1, but had already started 83% of the team’s games up to that point and clearly hit a wall.

I find it very sad that you would not grant Buck the same concessions you do to Paulino based on playing time and the possibility of fatigue. Clearly you don’t like Buck, and that’s fine, you’re entitled to that, obviously. But I think you are being inherently unfair to him, and it clearly shows right there.

“Pretend you have a game that the team must win. Would you use Hayes or Buck? Bottom of the ninth inning, bases loaded, do you want Hayes or Buck to bat.”

What has Hayes ever done to earn the benefit of the doubt over Buck in a “clutch” situation?

For their careers, John Buck has a .761 OPS in situations defined as “high leverage,” meaning they have a high impact on the outcome of a game. Hayes is at a .286 OPS in those situations. Never mind that Buck is a better hitter overall.

Granted, Hayes’ comes in just 53 PAs, but that’s kind of the point: Hayes has done absolutely nothing in his career to justify thinking he’s a better option in a late game situation than Buck. The best thing Brett Hayes could ever do, in your eyes, seemingly, is to not be John Buck. Well that’s not enough for me.

John Buck is clearly the best option for this team moving forward as an every day catcher. Honestly, I think our best option is to bring John Baker back, not Brett Hayes. Baker can start twice a week, shield Buck against the tougher RHP, and provide more bat than Hayes will.

Stanley, we may have to agree to disagree. I’d like not to trust just my eyes on everything because I don’t trust my judgment as much as I do the numbers. You’re of course entitled to your opinion. My point is that we watch next season and see what happens, because at this point it’s obvious what the Marlins are planning on doing at catcher.

Let’s keep this straight, however. I’m not necessarily praising Buck for his performance, but there was definitely good and bad about his 2011 season. I’m doling out credit where credit is due and discussing his problems otherwise.

I think it’s funny that of all people for the idea of a player’s tie to actual wins and losses to come up, it’s Buck. Buck had one of the rarer seasons in recent memory in terms of how he performed and when.

I’m sure Michael will get into it whenever it makes sense, but because baseball is a game of discrete events (aka individual PAs, or even individual pitches), and we have millions upon millions of them over the years, there’s a huge history to which we can compare situations. We know, for example, that historically, about 71% of the time the home team has had a man on first with no outs in a tie game in the bottom of the ninth, they go on to win. We also know that about 70% of the time the home team has had a man on second with one out in a tie game in the bottom of the ninth, they go on to win. This is important strategically, since it shows that the sac bunt in that situation is basically no help. But it also means that we can compare the effect that every player has on his team’s win probability, just by comparing the change in win probability before and after his at-bats. We call this WPA, or win probability added.

Now, to back up a bit, we also know how often a team scores whenever it has a man on first and no outs (about 43.7% of the time). Not only do we know how often they score, we know how often they score one run (17.6%), two runs (13.2%), three runs (6.7%), and so on. There are 24 combinations of possible base-out states (8 base states [think empty, man on first, men on the corners, etc] and 3 out states). Similar to how we can measure a player’s impact by checking the change his PAs have on win probability, so too can we check his effect on how many runs we expect them to score. We call this RE24, or run expectancy with respect to the 24 base-out states.

Now then, you may notice two big differences between WPA and RE24. The most obvious is that WPA is measured in wins and RE24 in runs. The bigger difference, however, is that WPA takes into account the full context of the game — not only the base-out states, but also the score and the inning.

So to get back to Buck, last year, the outcomes of his at-bats cost the Marlins 7.81 runs by RE24. Like you said, there were a number of times when Buck hurt the team at the plate. But here’s the thing: he actually posted a positive WPA at +0.36 — better than guys like Gaby, Bonifacio, Infante, and yes, Brett Hayes. How is it possible to have such a negative RE24 and still have a positive WPA? Remember the things WPA takes into account that RE24 doesn’t: inning and score. We can talk anectodally about bad Buck PAs, but the fact of the matter is that in the biggest spots, the times when his PAs were most important, he came through.

In fact, comparing his context-neutral performance with his complete context (that is to say, what we’d expect his performance to contribute in WPA without knowing his specific context compared to what his actual WPA contribution) — you might even go so far as to call something like that “clutch hitting” — Buck was one of the dozen most clutch batters last season.

More than that though is just how dramatic the difference was between Buck’s RE24 and his WPA. For one, nobody in the league posted such a poor RE24 and still had a positive WPA. In fact, nobody in baseball has had a positive WPA with a RE24 of less than -7 since 2009. It’s only happened five times in the last five years.

Now, the important point is that none of anything above matters going forward. Well, none of it relating to Buck — hopefully somebody has learned something regarding run expectancy and win probability. WPA is not predictive. Clutchiness is not predictive.

But if you want to raise the point of how Bucks performance was “helpful” or how it affected wins and losses, or his place on a “winning team” as measured by how he did last year, well… you really couldn’t have picked a more interesting case.

I’m utterly opposed to any rule change that forces people who have built their livelihoods off of pitching from 60’6" to have to adjust to that.

There are changes to be made, but I think things that change the actual dimensions as they have been for a hundred plus years is taking a hatchet where a scalpel would work best.

making him very similar to John Buck when he was younger. Hayes should return as the backup, but at this point the team sees him as nothing more than that, which is fine. No harm no foul in holding onto him,

Hayes has quite as much power as he flashed last year. This is a guy who never really showed any power of note in the minors, with a .119 ISO during his time down there.