Figuring Your Catcher's Fielding Percentage

[chazbz1]

KEEPING STATS ON YOUR CATCHER? When our daughter first started catching it seemed so difficult to get a straight answer on how to keep stats on her defensively to track her stats for when she would become a world famous catcher a get a full ride scholarship. While some ACC catchers have been offered full rides, Mackenzie's goals were such that the fame and fortune that fastpitch catchers receive were not for her. But tracking her stats was still important and helped her build her resume for college. Stuff like fielding percentages, put outs and assists were a foreign language to her mother and I. (And as it turned out, to many of her coaches!) But it doesn't have to be for you. Let's break it down.

Fielding percentage is the key indicator for your catcher's defensive skills. You must know how many put outs, assists, and errors are made to calculate FP. Put-outs are the outs actually recorded by your catcher. Any time they tag someone out or have a force out at the plate is a put out. Catching a pop up is a put out. Every time your catcher catches a third strike is also a put out. Assists on the other hand, are tallied any time your catcher "assists" in a putout. Such as a pick off at first or third or throw down to second or third. (They field the ball and throw it to a team mate who records a "put-out") Errors must also be known because we need to know the total OPPORTUNITIES a catcher had for put outs and assists. Passed balls and wild pitches are considered to be part of the act of pitching rather than fielding. Thus they are kept as separate statistics and are not recorded as errors.

So lets say your catcher has made 400 put outs and 100 assists but has had 5 errors. To find the Fielding percentage we add all three which totals 505 opportunities to make an assist or get a put out. Simply divide the successful put out and assist total (500) by the total opportunities (505) to find that your catcher's fielding percentage is .990.

 

[riseball]

Hate to burst your bubble but stats along with $1 might get you a Coke, but they will have a negligible effect on getting a scholarship. Get the NECC DVD and get out in the back yard. That will payoff much more than homegrown stats.

 

[guero_gordo]

Hate to burst your bubble but stats along with $1 might get you a Coke, but they will have a negligible effect on getting a scholarship. Get the NECC DVD and get out in the back yard. That will payoff much more than homegrown stats.

You have no idea who Chaz is, do you? ;-)

 

[CoogansBluff]

Fielding percentage is the key indicator for your catcher's defensive skills.

Answer: False.

 

[riseball]

You have no idea who Chaz is, do you? ;-)

Does not matter. Home cooked stats are home cooked stats. The accuracy is unknown so they provide little or no value. In addition there is no way to put them into a useful context.

Are we seriously considering that mommy or daddy should keep their own book of DD's stats and provide them to a coach to validate their DD's worthiness for a scholarship? I have had ACC and SEC coaches ask for videos, transcripts, and other objective information but never TB or HS stats. And I would not insult them by offering them.

 

[Greenmonsters]

I have to agree that fielding percentage is a poor way of evaluating a catcher's defensive prowess.

Several examples:
-a catcher could catch a game perfectly and have no recognized "fielding chances"
-a catcher's fielding percentage is primarily affected by the number of strike out related put outs which simply require her to catch the ball; a catcher receiving for a K dominant staff will almost always have a higher FP than a catcher for a contact staff
-WPs and PBs are defined differently in the different association's scoring guidelines
-scorekeeping while at best consistent by an individual routinely is inconsistent between different scorekeepers
-in TB and HS and lower levels scorekeeping bias to favor their DD who pitches or catches is not uncommon
-receiving isn't taken into account
-successful blocks (i.e., those not resulting in base runner advance) are rarely tracked and recorded
-a catcher receives an E for a perfect throw if base coverage gets blown by the IF on a stolen base attempt

 

[Eric F]

Get the NECC DVD and get out in the back yard.

I literally LOL'd when I read this ^

Chaz is one of the few people not on the NECC payroll that are endorsed by NECC to teach the NECC program.

I agree that catcher stats probably don't mean a lot, but some people have fun with them anyway.

 

[riseball]

I literally LOL'd when I read this ^

Chaz is one of the few people not on the NECC payroll that are endorsed by NECC to teach the NECC program.

I agree that catcher stats probably don't mean a lot, but some people have fun with them anyway.

By all means have fun with them. Just don't give them to a college coach. They will be polite and may humor you but it will not be well received and you become one of "those parents". My DD was a national HS player of the year, averaged over 2k's per inning, blah, blah, blah, it did not matter because it was High School/TB so it was never discussed. Like one college coach said "I will start looking at HS stats when I start playing HS teams."

 

[chazbz1]

I thought it might be interesting to discuss something a bit different than gloves and gear. I didn't realize just how interesting though. First off, I seem to have over emphasized fielding percentage as a statistic. It is not THE key indicator but rather A key indicator for your player's defensive skills. If I gave the impression this is the stat you want to pin your catcher's scholarship on, I apologize as it's not. It is however one of 44 fielding stats (Standard and Sabermetric) kept by MLB on all players. Assists, Put Outs and Fielding Percentage is also tracked by nearly every (I didn't ask everyone) collegiate softball and baseball program in the country.

As GM eluded to, some stats are not tracked well in high school or travel ball programs. That is why this "DADDY" decided to get help in assisting with score keeping and track his daughter's stats. We kept the books per ASA score keeping guidelines and stayed objective. If we weren't sure on a call we got a second opinion. If that makes me some type of weirdo or one of "THOSE PARENTS" then I'm guilty as charged. We provided as much information to prospective coaches as possible. All of her stats, who she played high school ball with, her travel ball teams as well as who she trained with. (Her catching coach was the late Dave Weaver at The New England Catching Camp) She was very proud to include him on her resume. (Not one coach acted insulted or seemed put off) But the fielding percentage was just one line of many on the resume. And it by itself won't get any kid a scholarship.

Riseball is correct that practicing and working on your skills with quality instruction will provide the best benefit for your catcher with their defensive skills. I have 2 wrapped NECC videos available for purchase should anyone need a copy. Also be sure to check out WassermanStrength.com's High Level Throwing Patterns Instruction It is the throwing instruction used by myself and NECC. Austin gets pretty technical but has the best throwing and conditioning programs around.

RB, if you would like to ridicule me or make fun of me some more, you are welcome to call me at (816) 589-1674 and do so on a more personal level. If anyone wonders why some very good coaches (Such as CCJR) no longer post in this forum, you need look no further than some of the responses in this thread to understand why.

 

[Eric F]

Don't let RB scare you off, Chaz. There are plenty of other people who benefit from your advice and experience.