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Originally Posted by Mike D.
I think that's part of what makes it so difficult...the fact that there's so many facets of the catching game - you mentioned blocking balls in the dirt and throwing out runners. Add in calling a game, ability to work with pitchers young and old, pitch framing, and more, and you've got a lot of things to measure, that take very different skill sets.
We're starting to see study in this area, which is nice compared to even the 90's, when guys who could throw out would-be base stealers won gold gloves, and those who couldn't were considered "poor defensive catchers" (your Piazza example plus say an Ivan Rodriguez).
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A catcher's ability to throw out someone stealing a base also has an awful lot to do with the pitcher, which a catcher can't control or really affect. The ability of many pitchers to be able to hold runners close, or the speed of their delivery and pitch they throw has probably as much, if maybe not even more, to do with the ability to throw out a someone stealing a base, than just the strength of a catcher's arm and how fast they can throw. And along with that is the ability of a pitcher to pitch from the stretch and disguise their motion so that a base runner is delayed as long as possible from being able to tell when the pitcher actually goes into their motion, and is not just getting ready to throw over to pick off the base runner.
Obviously, some catcher's had such incredible arm strength that the speed at which they could throw allowed them to throw out more runners stealing bases than other catchers. But again, a lot more of that may be on the pitcher, and the athleticism and ability of the person covering the base to react and make the tag in a timely manner as well.
There are a lot of people who put down pitchers and claim they get too much credit for wins, saying they owe a lot of it to their defensive backing and the batting prowess of their teammates. Shouldn't the same be said about catcher's as well then and their ability to throw out base runners? They are most definitely not the only player involved in throwing out someone trying to steal a base, and maybe not even the most important after all.