Sunday, April 16, 2023
Statcast Lab: CS accuracy model
The Catcher Caught Stealing Leaderboards will be upon us any day now. As part of that, you will see a breakdown for Catcher Accuracy. The baseline uses this CS data (click to embiggen):
The top row is how many feet the ball is from the 2B bag, along the baseline. The first column is the height of the throw, if the throw reaches the baseline. Otherwise, we look at the second column, which is the number of feet the ball hits the ground in front of the baseline.
As you can imagine, the best throw is a couple of feet toward the incoming runner, and a couple of feet above the ground. You can see the general radius, as 2 to 4 feet into the 2B bag, and 1 to 3 feet high. And the more the ball is away from the target radius, the lower the CS percentage is.
If we assume the average CS is 27%, then a throw in the target radius of 62% means that the throw is worth +.35 CS in accuracy. Naturally, a throw far away from the 2B bag and way high off the ground will have an estimated CS% of 0%, and so the accuracy value will be -.27 CS.
