100 Sim Season Results - The Catchers

For good or for ill, the 100 Sims have been run. It wasn't easy.

Recently Diamond Mind upgraded to Version 10 which caused many of the 3rd party add on software packages to stop working due to compatability issues. A staple ATB is our 20 resim process that closes the season and the 3rd party software I use ran into this compatability problem. Of course, the 100 Sim baseline while not nearly as critical to our enjoyment, was quickly falling by the wayside.

However, because the DMB community is simply wonderful to work with, I contacted the software developer, David Pyke, in the hopes of some good news. He came through and kindly passed a long a beta version of his auto-simulation software and it worked wonderfully. Thank goodness.

Given we are in the off-season and in no real rush, I thought it might be interesting to spend a little time on the resims, analyzing the results instead of posting an all-in-one data dump. We'll go position by position for the next few weeks.

Remember, this is a 100 baseline resim (ended up being 96 seasons due to a silly mistake on my part, though I will continue to call it the 100 sim baseline) in completely neutral parks. Injuries were turned on, each team had a strict 5 man rotation, and the schedule was set for 154 games.

First up are the catchers

There are three viable candidates for best catcher in ATB - King Kelly 1886, Josh Gibson 1938, and somewhat surprisingly Bill Dickey 1936.

The first two are routinely the top two catchers taken in each draft. Kelly is the best pure hitter with an average of .310 and on-base percentage of .399. No other catcher even approaches these numbers, especially the OBP, which gives him an overall edge in OPS and TOPS. (TOPS is Total OPS, which weights OBP by a factor of 1.4).

However, he hits only 2 home runs per season and for owners looking for pop, Josh Gibson might be the better option. He averaged 24 bombs a season and slugged .452. The main drawback is fairly large though, his .316 OBP is only slightly above average for the position (.308).

Perhaps the lower cost alternative going forward is Bill Dickey. He offers a blend of Kelly and Gibson, batting .286 / .332 / .430 with 13 HR and an OPS of .762.


Elsewhere of note, five other catchers offer double digit home runs

• 15 - Mike Piazza 1997
• 14 - Johnny Bench 1972
  
• 13 - Roy Campanella 1951
• 12 - Javy Lopez 2003
• 10 - Chris Hoiles 1993

And three others have OBP's above .325

• .366 - Mickey Cochrane
• .333 - Joe Mauer
  
• .328 - Mike Piazza
  

Through a crude formula, here's the Top 15. Please remember these are just the best of the starters in the 100 resims. Other players may end up being better, they just weren't included in my personal original analysis of which player seasons to chose from.

01) 0.310 / 0.399 / 0.380 - 1886 Kelly,King
02) 0.286 / 0.332 / 0.430 - 1936 Dickey,Bill
03) 0.266 / 0.316 / 0.452 - 1938 Gibson,Josh
04) 0.257 / 0.366 / 0.353 - 1933 Cochrane,Mickey
05) 0.279 / 0.328 / 0.404 - 1997 Piazza,Mike
06) 0.277 / 0.333 / 0.337 - 2009 Mauer,Joe
07) 0.248 / 0.277 / 0.447 - 2003 Lopez,Javy
08) 0.257 / 0.295 / 0.383 - 1951 Campanella,Roy
09) 0.279 / 0.302 / 0.363 - 1961 Howard,Elston
10) 0.225 / 0.306 / 0.347 - 1993 Hoiles,Chris
11) 0.248 / 0.292 / 0.344 - 1935 Hartnett,Gabby
12) 0.205 / 0.271 / 0.348 - 1972 Bench,Johnny
13) 0.254 / 0.320 / 0.315 - 2007 Posada,Jorge
14) 0.227 / 0.304 / 0.330 - 1914 Wilson,Art
15) 0.205 / 0.288 / 0.342 - 1992 Daulton,Darren