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Around SBN: Africa Cup Of Nations Semifinal: Black Stars Ripe For Upset?

Paulino vs. Doumit

I'm annoyed by all this "calling a good game" hooey we keep hearing as justification for playing Paulino, a man who can't hit or play defense and has exhibited no interest in trying to do either, over Doumit, a man who can definitely hit and while just as bad defensively at least puts forth some effort. So, I thought I'd do what I could to see if I can measure any such thing.

I'm not a big believer in ERA, or even RA, as a good measure of a pitcher's ability. Especially the ability of a pitcher who relies strongly on his defense, given how bad the Pirates' defenses have been for as long as I can remember (and how many of our recent pitchers rely on said crappy defense). So I measured effectiveness by the percentage of plate appearances against a pitcher that resulted in a strikeout, a walk, or a home run. I also looked at percentage of runners caught stealing. This helps strip out the effect that big fluctuations in BABIP can have. Also, this is how baseballreference.com presents pitcher splits when broken down by catcher, so it's easier for me to play with the data in this way.

I looked at Pirate starters who have started at least 7 games for the Pirates over 2006-2007. This gave me a list of Duke, Snell, Gorzelanny, Maholm, Chacon, Armas, Santos, Perez, and Wells. Using baseballreference.com's splits, I looked at each pitcher's line with Paulino, Doumit, or Cota behind the plate (hey, we've heard the same damned things about Cota, too).

Now, the simple results (with total plate appearances):

CATCHER %K %BB %HR %CS TPA
Paulino 15.7 8.3 2.3 41.9 4913
Doumit 14.9 10.0 2.4 40.0 1272
Cota 16.7 11.3 3.3 29.5 2239

Now, there are a number of problems with this data. The most obvious, to me, is that Paulino's is less prone to being victimized by the fluctuation that a smaller sample size will endure. Also skewing the data is that Paulino does tend to catch the better pitchers more often than Doumit does. Let's compare Snell and Gorzelanny.

SNELL %K %BB %HR %CS TPA
Paulino 21.3 8.4 2.5 32.0 1149
Doumit 15.4 9.6 4.8 33.3 188
Cota 15.0 11.3 4.4 16.7 160
GORZELANNY %K %BB %HR %CS TPA
Paulino 16.1 8.2 0.9 29.4 547
Doumit 12.6 8.0 3.4 33.3 174
Cota 17.6 10.8 4.1 100.0 74

It appears that Paulino also has the edge here, but remember again, Doumit's figures are more likely to be skewed (especially the Snell line) because there's much less data to work with.

Let's translate those numbers into a per-nine-innings basis, which are a lot easier to understand (for me, anyways). There are an average of 38.86 plate appearances per nine innings this season. ("Trans. innings" is translated innings.)

OVERALL K/9 BB/9 HR/9 %CS Trans. Innings
Paulino 6.09 3.21 0.90 41.9 1138.1
Doumit 5.80 3.88 0.95 40.0 294.7
Cota 6.49 4.37 1.30 29.5 518.7

At this point, we can attempt to correct for the biases in the pitchers each catcher caught by weighing each pitcher equally. After that, we get:

OVERALL K/9 BB/9 HR/9 %CS
Paulino 5.89 3.49 0.98 41.9
Doumit 6.19 3.79 0.98 40.0
Cota 6.07 4.85 1.35 29.5

So what do these statistics tell us (or me, anyway)?

  1. There is no clear, meaningful statistical proof here that Paulino is any better a game caller than Doumit is. The only thing I can say with any degree of confidence is that Doumit's starters walk an extra batter about every 18 innings. Using linear weights, a walk is worth about .4 of a run these days. That's 1 run every 45 innings. Using baseballreference.com's RC/27 formula, Doumit at the plate, for his career, would be worth .9 of a run more than Paulino over those 45 innings. That other .1 of a run is more than made up for by a) Paulino's 2006 being a flukey offensive year, skewing his offensive value upwards, b) Doumit at least makes a friggin effort out there. And this doesn't take into account the fact that Doumit's pitchers, in the evenly-weighted sample, strike out more batters than Paulino's.

    EDIT: I had to rethink this after realizing that I had forgotten that baseballreference's RC/27 is how many runs a team full of that player would score. Doumit creates 1 run every 6.00 plate appearances. Paulino creates 1 run every 10.38 plate appearances. Figure 4 plate appearances every 9 innings for each player. Over 9 innings, Doumit creates .67 run versus Paulino's .39. While Doumit's "poor game-calling" is creating 1 more run every 45 innings for Pirate opponents, Doumit's bat is creating 1.4 more runs than Paulino's is.

  2. There is a TON of noise in trying to figure out the impact a catcher has on his staff. I haven't looked at relief pitchers, I haven't controlled for day vs. night games (Doumit does a lot of catching Sunday day games). I haven't controlled for home vs. away (if there even is a different, I have no idea). I don't have passed balls or wild pitches included. I haven't controlled for quality of opponent. It may be that Paulino's pitchers, tending to be the better pitchers, face tougher lineups more often. I don't know.
  3. EDITED: I am more confident in saying that this so-called "gamecalling" skill (if it exists) is so insignificant that it is utterly buried by the noise from other, far more meaningful influences on the batter-pitcher contest than I am in saying that Doumit's bat is .4 of a run more valuable than Paulino's finger-wiggling over 5 games (or almost 13 runs in a season). Given this much noise, .4 (or 13) are just too small in their respective contexts to really be meaningful.
  4. Even with the weighting, Ollie Perez really screws with Cota's numbers.
So, anyways, I still can't find any reason to believe that Paulino's a better "game caller" than Doumit, or to believe that this is relevant to winning baseball games.

This is a FanPost and does not necessarily reflect the views of the managing editor (Charlie) or SB Nation. FanPosts are written by Bucs Dugout readers.

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Thanks
Thanks, I'll promote this after the game. I prettied up your charts; please take a look through and make sure I didn't mess up anything.

by Charlie Wilmoth on Jul 17, 2007 8:21 PM EDT reply actions  

Looks fine to me
I couldn't figure out which tags the site would let me use or not, so I kind of gave up. Thanks for picking up my slack!

by matskralc on Jul 17, 2007 9:38 PM EDT up reply actions  

I just did tables
It's pretty difficult HTML, but it works, as long as you publish the thing first, and then insert the HTML later. I'm not sure why.

by Charlie Wilmoth on Jul 17, 2007 10:09 PM EDT up reply actions  

You should fax this over to Tracy and DL
to let them look at it.  Tracy would still argue to his grave against the data though, cause Ronnie is a "clutch" game calling catcher.

by Travis @ Bucs Dugout on Jul 17, 2007 11:34 PM EDT reply actions  

None of this makes much sense to me
but I think we can agree that Paulino doesn't help the Pirates win.

by The New Guy on Jul 18, 2007 12:06 AM EDT reply actions  

wow
Very thorough, sir.  Not that I wasn't convinced before, but now the numbers back it up.

Maybe they need to consult the lineup-generating computer again.

by psk984 on Jul 18, 2007 8:32 AM EDT reply actions  

Good, but...
It appears that Paulino also has the edge [with Snell and Gorzo], but remember again, Doumit's figures are more likely to be skewed (especially the Snell line) because there's much less data to work with.

Well, yeah.  But, they're the most dramatic numbers on the page.  I'm not going to say it's proof, but wow, it looks like a huge edge for Paulino.

by azibuck on Jul 18, 2007 9:32 AM EDT reply actions  

Right
But the sample of Snell/Doumit or Gorzo/Doumit innings is so small that all it takes is one bad Gorzo or Snell start, and it skews the rest of the numbers. That's why we can't just rely on those numbers. If I feel like it later tonight (not feeling so hot right now!) I'll look at Snell and Gorzo's individual starts with each catcher to see if Doumit's getting skewed by a bad start or if the two are consistently a tick worse with him behind the plate.

by matskralc on Jul 18, 2007 5:05 PM EDT up reply actions  

good stuff
I'd like to see Doumit be the every day catcher for an entire season. What have the pirates got to lose from having him out there every day. The noise for statistics is tremendous, and certainly consistency, or being considered the starter is going to affect a player at catcher, and his relationships to the pitchers.
 Paulino is coasting on last year's efforts.

by vherub on Jul 18, 2007 11:14 AM EDT reply actions  

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