Buster Posey and Bruce Bochy: The Sordid Truth! (Maybe...)

He is but the difference between a really good catcher and a terrible catcher isn’t as big as you think it is.

there is no proof of this. You are talking out of thin air right now. As marcello says, show me some proof.

Buster Posey is ready today. Jim Callis of Baseball America believe he is. I’m sorry, but I consider that a far more credible source.

Honestly i think his offensive production would way outweigh his defensive liability if there is any. have you seen the Ginats pitching staff? They can get outs, no matter whos catching.

He was considered a very good defensive catcher in college, or he wouldn’t have been drafted at the position. He is still raw behind the plate, yes, since he hasn’t played it for too long but I doubt it’s so bad that he would make a significant difference – enough to make up the difference in hitting.

Nice, you pulled that out of your ass and ran with it, against the general chorus of people who actually watched him play. Please go back into your cave and stay there for eternity.

Before you chastise people for not doing research, you should note that Joe Mauer never went to college.

I don’t understand the dogma that catcher is the most important position on the field. I hope somebody can help me out here. This is how I think about it:

-Catcher is the most important position on the field ONLY if you think about it in terms of “what would happen if you removed one position from the field?”. Of course balls would go to the backstop, runners would steal home, dogs and cats would live together. Mass hysteria. But this is a ridiculous argument. You wouldn’t remove ANY position on the field. It may be an argument to carry a second backup catcher, but one can make the same argument about any position on the field (i.e. we don’t want Winn playing 3B – it has happened!)
-Catcher is the most important position because he is involved in every pitch (outside of calling pitches which I will approach next). True, but the level of involvement or difficulty for the vast majority of each of these situations is incredibly small: pitch thrown, catcher catch, catcher throw back to pitcher. When there is a high leverage situation, then a catcher’s range (what little there is) and ability to block the plate do come into play. But there are very few situations (relative to the 150 or so pitches that make up a game) where a catcher needs to block balls in the dirt. And even then, a large part of the difference between the best catcher and me would largely come down to chance – many of the pitches in the dirt are really impossible to control, or the height of the catcher comes into play, or the distance between the backstop and homeplate, etc.
-Blocking the plate and throwing out runners: in today’s game, they just are not important overall.
-So that leaves calling a game. I will not discount the idea that this is important, but I think it is totally overblown. For one, a pitcher can shake off pitches or tell the catcher between innings that something isn’t working. Secondly, there are scouting reports for each player, gone over by catcher, pitcher, and pitching coach. Thirdly, pitching while enormously complex, is ultimately about keeping a hitter off-guard. So some of it is common sense.
Fourth, there are advanced statistics on the effectiveness if different types of pitches from different hitters and these aren’t being used (that is an assumption on my part, but one I think is likely valid), so teams aren’t really using the best information available anyway which means that they are informing their “advanced” catchers with sub-par information and letting them go out there blind to a certain degree.

Based on my thinking above, I just don’t understand how good catchers reduce that many outs relative to a total scrub (replacement player), and thus how a catcher is “the most important position on the field”.

Then again, I played shortstop, so I am probably biased.

So your saying, There is a chance he might be bad, so he shouldnt be given a chance?

with Posey and those guys that I don’t even know where to start.

Look up age relative to league, draft pedigree, strikeout to walk ratio, everything… those guys can’t tough Posey.

Wily Mo was no can’t miss prospect.

Bowker – hasn’t had a fair chance
Frandsen – hasn’t had a fair chance
Lewis – slumped for about a week and lost the starting role but has since brought his hitting up to his usual numbers

you really don’t know what you are talking about.

in 2004 hit .250/.317/.527, in about 2/3rds of a season with the Reds.

Which would be better than our average corner OF or 1B since Bonds was kicked off the team.

Not that he’s a great hitter or anything… but Posey doesn’t have to BE Pena, he just has to be better than Molina…or in the real universe, better than ELI WHITESIDE.

Whiteside is a rookie getting starts in a pennant race. Posey is a better hitter than Whiteside. We know what the offense can do with EW (not much). Why not find out if it can do more with BP? I have a hard time imagining that BP’s defense could ACTUALLY be so bad as to affect the race as much as his bat. He would OF COURSE defer to the pitchers/dugout when it comes to pitch selection, so we’re really only talking about his ability to block balls in the dirt.

Did EW’s defense and ability to ‘handle the staff’ (TWSS!) make an abrupt jump in the relatively few games of ML experience that he’s gotten? Then why wouldn’t a vastly better player see the same jump?

And actually, I went to bed, because I had to get some sleep, and got sick of repsonding to multiple replies of people telling me I’m an idiot.

I never said Buster would come in and tank it up…. I said he’s not an upgrade (defensively) over Whiteside at this point, and I doubt he’d be much of an upgrade over Bengie. So I don’t understand how his playing this season would seriously help.

I appreciate your classy response, though. Because, yes, I am a fucking idiot.