Looking back at Community Projections: Catchers

by KLSnow on Nov 3, 2009 2:00 PM CST in Statistical Analysis Comment 7 comments

Darren Hauck - AP

Jason Kendall is very proficient at getting hit by pitches, but that's about the only thing Brewer catchers did really well in 2009.

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Now seems like as good a time as any to start a series looking back at our expectations for 2009, who met or exceeded them, and who fell short. We'll start today with a look at catchers, to get them out of the way.

Performance:

Jason Kendall
Projected: .251/.333/.324
Actual: .241/.331/.305

Mike Rivera:
Projected: .260/.315/.406
Actual: .228/.326/.342

Surprisingly enough, we as a community were a little optimistic on Kendall, at least as optimistic as one can be while projecting a .659 OPS. While it was a narrow underperformance, Kendall underperformed our expectations in all three slash stats.

Sadly, Mike Rivera also fell short of our expectations. A year after performing exceptionally well in limited opportunities, Rivera was still used sparingly (although slightly more often), but failed to recapture 2008's magic.

Playing time:

Player	Projected %	Actual %	Diff
Jason Kendall	77.2%	79.8%	+2.6%
Mike Rivera	14.4%	22.5%	+11.1%
Angel Salome	7.5%	0%	-7.5%
Vinny Rottino	.6%	0%	-.6%
Brett Lawrie	.3%	0%	-.3%
Carlos Corporan	0%	.2%	+.2%

It looks like most of us expected the Brewers to try out some other options at catcher this season. Both Kendall and Mike Rivera gained playing time over our expectations, mainly at the expense of Angel Salome, who some of us projected to play as much as 40% of the time.

Two of sixteen projectors thought Vinny Rottino would sneak in some plate appearances this season, and one reader, before Brett Lawrie's move to second base, projected perhaps the most ambitious promotion in Brewer history. Neither of those happened, of course.

We also completely failed to project the possibility that Carlos Corporan would see fill in duty this season. His one plate appearance resulted in a hit, but his overall contribution is pretty negligible.

Overall:

	AVG	OBP	SLG	OPS
Projected	.253	.327	.343	.669
Actual	.240	.331	.313	.644
Difference	-.013	+.004	-.030	-.025

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Comments

If we do community projections again for next year

I look forward to what we foresee at the catcher position if we don’t re-sign Kendall.

by NoahJ on Nov 3, 2009 2:14 PM CST reply actions 0 recs

I want to.

Probably won’t have time to do quite the in-depth stuff at each position we did last year, but I think everyone gets the concept of how they should be done and I can refer them back to last year’s posts too. We’ll have to wait until the roster is a lot more settled though. They’re pretty valuable in projecting the overall performance, because then I can convert all the numbers and come up with a win estimate.

E: George 4 (5, throw, throw, throw, throw).

by Jordan M on Nov 3, 2009 3:29 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs

by tcyoung on Nov 3, 2009 8:25 PM CST up reply actions 1 recs

I think that I am probably rec'ing just about everything that mentions that trade.

Just because I want it to be true so badly.

by NoahJ on Nov 3, 2009 11:02 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs

Mike Rivera

Rivera did play well he just didn’t play enought. ’Cause Macha likes Kendall because he is older.

by Erik10o on Nov 18, 2009 4:06 PM CST reply actions 0 recs

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