Goddamn Nationals. So useless.
Ain’t that the truth. I’m a Cubs fan, but that won’t stop me from admitting that they had no business winning that game last night. The Nationals gave away the win, and it wasn’t just one thing. Terrible defense, baserunning mistakes, poor pitching. The Washington postseason streak of failures is alive and well.
I knew last night’s game 5 was weird, but…
https://twitter.com/baseball_ref/status/918666181141323777?ref_src=twsrc^tfw&ref_url=http%3A%2F%2Fm.mlb.com%2Fcutfour%2F2017%2F10%2F13%2F258449364%2Fcraziest-twists-from-cubs-nationals-nlds-game-5
Ah, baseball. The same game for decades, and yet there’s always some new weird shit going on.
Awesome! Finally got wifi working here in India. Suffice to say that I am happy to find out the result, no matter how sloppy.
Do you have MLB.tv? I recommend watching the game, not just for the ridonkulous inning described above, but also Maddon going through the entire bullpen in about four at-bats. And that after it looked like it was the Nationals pitching that was struggling.
Had it gone into fairly deep into extra innings, there would have been the very real possibility of a position player pitching in an elimination playoff game. For either side. Which would have been amazing.
Holy crap, that was some finish in Houston. My jaw was on the floor when Altuve decided to keep running around third. Any kind of decent throw-and-catch nails him, but it just takes one mistake.
Verlander was incredible. Regular season, the manager probably pulls him after 7, or for sure after 8. It’s good to see these guys allowed to keep going past that 100 or 110-pitch threshold that’s rarely exceeded these days.
Is there any catcher in MLB other than Sanchez who is part of the everyday lineup for his bat despite his defense? Yes the throw home was a short hop, but I think most MLB catchers would have held on to it.
I remember that, during the Dusty/ Lou Ponella era the Cubs had Michael Barret in, mostly because of his bat. Today? Not sure. A guy like Joe Mauer during his heyday, but he was also a solid defender, if I recall.
Mauer was generally regarded as above average to good.
Going back a ways, didn’t Piazza “play” some catcher?
Piazza certainly didn’t have a catcher’s throwing arm, but I don’t think he had all the problems with passed balls and drops that Sanchez has.
Huh fair enough, I just looked it up and the stats at least don’t hate Piazza’s defense. I think my view was probably tainted by really only weighting the end of his career.
Nice catch by the Utley fan.
Piazza did have a problem with passed balls and errors from the beginning of his career - below are the years he was in the top 10 for each.
Also, he only threw out 23% of base stealers. He is widely regarded as one of the worst fielding catchers, but his hitting more than made up for it.
Passed Balls, # & rank
1993 NL 14 (2nd)
1995 NL 12 (1st)
1996 NL 12 (1st)
1997 NL 10 (3rd)
1999 NL 7 (5th)
2002 NL 8 (4th)
2006 NL 7 (5th)
Errors Committed as C, # & rank
1993 NL 11 (1st)
1994 NL 10 (1st)
1995 NL 9 (3rd)
1997 NL 16 (1st)
1998 NL 11 (2nd)
1999 NL 11 (2nd)
2001 NL 9 (4th)
2002 NL 12 (1st)
2006 NL 8 (4th)
I also like to remind people to check out the volume of stolen base attempts; people ran on him a lot, including baserunners who normally wouldn’t think of swiping second against an average catcher.
But yeah, his hitting was phenomenal (thanks in part to his PED usage, of course).
Yeah, here are the numbers for stolen bases allowed (# & rank). Everyone ran against him.
Stolen Bases Allowed as C
1993 NL 108 (1st)
1994 NL 76 (1st)
1995 NL 88 (1st)
1996 NL 155 (1st)
1997 NL 112 (3rd)
1998 NL 115 (1st)
1999 NL 115 (1st)
2000 NL 110 (1st)
2001 NL 114 (1st)
2002 NL 125 (1st)
2005 NL 82 (2nd)
2006 NL 97 (1st)
Catcher defensive skills in general are not handled well by traditional metrics- then you have to take things like pitch framing into account…
If you want an example of a bad defensive catcher who is played for his bat- Tyler Flowers.
I seriously can’t stand this is a stat, but it has been for ages (although attention has only reached mainstream-level in recent years). Don’t get me wrong; it’s important. However, it’s important only because of umpires making mistakes. /grumpy old man rant
I used to try to frame pitches as a catcher in Babe Ruth in the 1960’s. Every catcher everywhere has done it.
Also, I agree that catchers stats can be really misleading. The Cubs last year are a good example. John Lester never even threw to first base and so was easy to steal on. That stat effects the catcher. A team that can hold runners close to the bag usually has fewer bases stolen on them.