What is the average major league pop time

On the one hand, a 50 grade tool could mean the average of player averages. On the other hand, an average tool could be the actual numerical average of that tool, such as a grade exit velocity tool being equivalent to the average exit velocity of every single batted ball. I will discuss the results of the second approach more in depth in a follow-up article.

Based on the data, I created new pop time tool grades. As a reminder, a point difference in scouting grades represents one standard deviation shift in the tool. I also created another set of tool grades based on the Empirical Rule, as the distribution seemed approximately normal. I tested the normality of the data sets using the Anderson-Darling test along with Q-Q plots.

The first data set passed the AD test p-value greater than 0. For more insight on my methodology, you can check out my Github here. My code for this project is in the Project 3 folder. These graphs simply plotted the average pop times of catcher seasons from to As I established earlier, the distribution is approximately normal, which the blue normal curve demonstrates by fitting the data quite nicely.

Their 50 grade pop time was 1. There are two main takeaways from this graph. Firstly, the Statcast curve has a slightly higher mean than the BA curve.

Secondly and more notably, the Statcast data has far smaller spread than the BA grades, in both directions. Like I said earlier, the best average pop time grade from to was 1.

Clearly, there is a strong disconnect between Statcast pop times and traditional scouting grades. Using the first data set, I created two new pop time grade scales. The Empirical Rule scale is based on, you guessed it, the empirical rule for normal distributions.

The Data Scale is simply based on the actual standard deviation of the data rather than assuming the percentiles and standard deviations match up a certain way like the Empirical Rule does. The BA Grades were ranges rather than concrete values, so I just averaged the ranges to find the grades. When a throw's flight path ends in front of or beyond the base's midpoint, Statcast accounts for the thrown ball's speed and projects how long the throw would have taken to reach the center of the intended base.

Pop Time is a combination of a catcher's footwork getting into throwing position , Exchange glove to release , and Arm Strength velocity of throw. Pop Time is a much better assessment of a catcher's ability to throw out baserunners than the strength of his arm alone. A catcher with a great arm isn't going to throw out many baserunners if it takes him a while to transfer the ball to his throwing hand and then release the throw.

A catcher with a good Pop Time doesn't always throw out baserunners, however. They're also a Category 10 or 11 stat. Pop times describe how well a catcher physically performed a baseball action -- threw to second base -- without necessarily showing how effectively he did it.

In a lot of ways, it's comparable to sprint speed, which can't tell you how good a player is at stealing bases or chasing down fly balls but can definitely tell you the speed he sprints. Unlike stolen bases, though, there isn't already a traditional stat that tells you with much certainty how well a catcher throws out baserunners. Pitchers have a bigger influence on the running game than catchers, so a catcher's caught-stealing percentage is dramatically affected by his pitchers -- and, therefore, can be misleading.

For that matter, his caught-stealing percentage is dramatically affected by how many baserunners attempt to steal against him. A catcher's reputation can shut down the running game before the runner ever takes his lead. It's the most complete measure, it's based on actual results and it's probably the best stat if your question is, "Which catcher added the most value by stopping the running game?

But pop times can answer questions Throwing Runs can't, about individual stolen-base attempts, about a catcher's specific strengths and weaknesses and about his physical tools. If a veteran catcher's throwing success goes down one season to the next, it might be a blip, a fluke.

But if his arm strength goes from 85 mph to 80, it's probably a physical change. And it appears to be correlated to throwing success. As MLB. Based on the data, 0. Only one of the slowest 10 catchers had a caught-stealing rate of 40 percent.

Only one of the top nine -- Hedges -- didn't. It's also a skill that correlates pretty well year to year. At the other end, someone like Stephen Vogt was at 2. It's a combination of two different skills, as you'll see, but we tend to see the same names at the top each season. There's a pretty convincing match between catchers' average pop time and how well they rank on Baseball Prospectus' advanced throwing stats.

BP's top 10 throwing catchers last year all had faster-than-average pop times. Don't use it for what it's not. It's not the final say on how good a catcher is at stopping the running game. It probably can't tell you, without any other context, how good or bad any individual throw was.

It won't prove one catcher is better than another. It doesn't aspire to be any of those things, at least not now. What it does do is introduce you to a catcher's physical skills. In combination with your own eyes, or over the course of dozens of throws, it can illuminate the reasons a catcher was successful at stopping the running game and help separate his skills from those of his pitchers. It can undoubtedly tell you who has the strongest arm, if not the most effective one.

It's primarily descriptive but can be paired with other information to help pass judgment. And as we get more data from Statcast, it could end up even answering the bigger questions about catcher performance, once we can pair the pop times with pitcher delivery times, catcher accuracy, infielders' tag times and baserunners' jumps and sprint speeds.

For now, it's a source of data that gives great color Alfaro's average throw to second is 90 mph! For instance: The fact that pop times are faster on unsuccessful throws than on successful throws is new to me!

It might seem intuitive now that I know, but it's definitely not something I already was intuiting. Pop times taught me something about catcher behavior. I imagine it won't be the last time. Skip to main content Skip to navigation. New York Yankees. Gausman or Ray? Kershaw or Verlander? Breaking down MLB offseason pitching market. San Francisco Giants.