He only threw out 14% of base runners last year, will below league average of 21%. He was basically average in 2022.
3 stolen bases allowed in one inning in Game 7. That hurt. Even if his pop time and his arm only loss a one or two steps... you just have to signal to the pitcher to hold on the runner better.
63 catchers had at least 10 stolen bases attempted against them last year. Maldy's Ct St vs expected Ct St was 21st out of those 63 catchers and in the 71st percentile. He caught 11 out of 70 attempts or 16% but the various metrics say that he really should have only thrown out 9 which is 13%. He was 19th out of those 63 catchers in pop time and 15th in arm strength. Maldy did not throw out runners because the pitchers basically gave the bases away. Base stealers were closer to 2nd base when he got the pitch than any other catcher in baseball last year. There are many things that Maldy was terrible at last year but throwing out base stealers was not one of them.
Diaz was 9th out of 63 "qualified" catchers. He caught 10 out of 36 attempts (28%) but by metrics should have only caught 6 (18%). He was 11th in pop time and 2nd in arm strength. So clearly Diaz was better than Maldy last year, which I never questioned. But Maldy was significantly better than average. His pitchers just gave him the worst estimated opportunity to throw out basesrealers in MLB last year. FWIW the min attempts is 17 not 10. My mistake.
I prefer a catcher who has fewer attempted stolen bases against because everyone knows he's THAT GOOD. Excluding those makes the rating skewed.
There were 6 catchers last year that had at least 5 attempts against but less then 10. 5 of them only caught 1 and the other only caught 2 basestealers. All of them were significantly below Maldy in actual vs expected caught stealing ( Maldy was 21st out of 82, the best of these 6 was Ceasar Salazar who was 34th) Furthermore if you reduce it down to a single attempt, there are 99 catchers and Maldy is still 21st as every catcher w/ 1-4 attempts is behind him. The best of these are tied for 36th.
