Pittsburgh Pirates: Three Statistical Anomalies in Franchise History

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PITTSBURGH, PA – SEPTEMBER 06: Ryan Doumit #41 of the Pittsburgh Pirates plays the field against the Houston Astros during the game on September 6, 2011 at PNC Park in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. (Photo by Justin K. Aller/Getty Images) /

Ryan Doumit’s “Framing”

Ryan Doumit’s career, in general, is a bit strange, statistically speaking. He was a pretty good hitting catcher, having a career .264/.324/.432 line, .328 wOBA, and 101 wRC+. However, he’s the second least valuable catcher of all time in terms of fWAR. WAR is adjusted to position, so you get high marks if you’re a good hitting backstop, like Doumit was. However, he was so terrible at framing, he has a career -8.6 fWAR.

But the year I want to focus on is Doumit’s 2008 campaign. He was quite a decent hitter this year, flying under the radar with a .318/.357/.501 line, .369 wOBA, and 123 wRC+. Among catchers with 300 or more plate appearances, Doumit ranked 6th in OPS, wOBA, and 5th in wRC+. Only the Silver Slugger winner Brian McCann and Chris Ianetta ranked ahead of Doumit in the NL in wRC+.

But Doumit’s defense? That easily cost the Pirates multiple runs, possibly every game he caught. Only -1 DRS and a 27% caught stealing rate might not sound too bad, but -63.3 framing runs is the worst mark of all time, and it’s not even relatively close. The next closest marks come from Jarrod Saltalamacchia in 2014 and Gerald Laird in 2009. They both are tied for the second-worst mark at -31.6. Doumit was twice as bad as both Saltalamacchia and Laird were in terms of framing. Although most say that you can’t tell who is a good framer and who isn’t through just the human eye, this is one of the rare times that if you watched any Pirates games from 2008 where Doumit caught, it was very clear why he was ranked so poorly in framing.

Next. Smith-Njigba, Park Promoted. dark

Despite having a good bat that season Doumit’s fWAR in 2008 came out to -3.4. WAR might not be the most accurate statistic of all time, but it does give you a decent benchmark. Plus, that doesn’t take away from how odd Doumit’s 2008 campaign was. It was the least valuable season from a catcher of all-time, coming in 1.2 wins above replacement lower than the next worst season of all-time, ironically Doumit again in 2010. Miguel Olivo’s 2011 season is the next worst non-Doumit season of all-time, in terms of fWAR.

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