This at the Biz of Baseball somewhat amazed me. Ratings for Pirates games on FSN Pittsburgh were up almost 20% this season. For all the gnashing and rending of teeth from Yinzer Nation about trading away all these awesome players that we were losing 90+ games a season with, they don't seem to have minded tuning in on TV to watch.

I can only speculate as to why. Maybe it was Andrew McCutchen and Garrett Jones. Maybe the increased volume in high definition broadcasts. Maybe the fireworks and bobblehead crowds that propelled attendance to almost break-even against 2008 were starting to tune in on TV. Or those of us that actually watch baseball stayed away from the park and watched at home (I personally only made it to the home opener this year but every evening we were home I had the Buccos on). Maybe it was passersby rubbernecking at the trainwreck. Maybe there was nothing to watch all summer. Maybe all the lifelong Penguins fans that suddenly came out of the woodwork got confused and thought they were watching hockey.

At any rate, I was surprised to see the Pirates post the 8th largest increase in local TV ratings this season.

I'm annoyed by all this "calling a good game" hooey we keep hearing as justification for playing Paulino, a man who can't hit or play defense and has exhibited no interest in trying to do either, over Doumit, a man who can definitely hit and while just as bad defensively at least puts forth some effort. So, I thought I'd do what I could to see if I can measure any such thing.

I'm not a big believer in ERA, or even RA, as a good measure of a pitcher's ability. Especially the ability of a pitcher who relies strongly on his defense, given how bad the Pirates' defenses have been for as long as I can remember (and how many of our recent pitchers rely on said crappy defense). So I measured effectiveness by the percentage of plate appearances against a pitcher that resulted in a strikeout, a walk, or a home run. I also looked at percentage of runners caught stealing. This helps strip out the effect that big fluctuations in BABIP can have. Also, this is how baseballreference.com presents pitcher splits when broken down by catcher, so it's easier for me to play with the data in this way.

I looked at Pirate starters who have started at least 7 games for the Pirates over 2006-2007. This gave me a list of Duke, Snell, Gorzelanny, Maholm, Chacon, Armas, Santos, Perez, and Wells. Using baseballreference.com's splits, I looked at each pitcher's line with Paulino, Doumit, or Cota behind the plate (hey, we've heard the same damned things about Cota, too).

Now, the simple results (with total plate appearances):

CATCHER	%K	%BB	%HR	%CS	TPA
Paulino	15.7	8.3	2.3	41.9	4913
Doumit	14.9	10.0	2.4	40.0	1272
Cota	16.7	11.3	3.3	29.5	2239

Now, there are a number of problems with this data. The most obvious, to me, is that Paulino's is less prone to being victimized by the fluctuation that a smaller sample size will endure. Also skewing the data is that Paulino does tend to catch the better pitchers more often than Doumit does. Let's compare Snell and Gorzelanny.

SNELL	%K	%BB	%HR	%CS	TPA
Paulino	21.3	8.4	2.5	32.0	1149
Doumit	15.4	9.6	4.8	33.3	188
Cota	15.0	11.3	4.4	16.7	160

GORZELANNY	%K	%BB	%HR	%CS	TPA
Paulino	16.1	8.2	0.9	29.4	547
Doumit	12.6	8.0	3.4	33.3	174
Cota	17.6	10.8	4.1	100.0	74

It appears that Paulino also has the edge here, but remember again, Doumit's figures are more likely to be skewed (especially the Snell line) because there's much less data to work with.

Let's translate those numbers into a per-nine-innings basis, which are a lot easier to understand (for me, anyways). There are an average of 38.86 plate appearances per nine innings this season. ("Trans. innings" is translated innings.)

OVERALL	K/9	BB/9	HR/9	%CS	Trans. Innings
Paulino	6.09	3.21	0.90	41.9	1138.1
Doumit	5.80	3.88	0.95	40.0	294.7
Cota	6.49	4.37	1.30	29.5	518.7

At this point, we can attempt to correct for the biases in the pitchers each catcher caught by weighing each pitcher equally. After that, we get:

OVERALL	K/9	BB/9	HR/9	%CS
Paulino	5.89	3.49	0.98	41.9
Doumit	6.19	3.79	0.98	40.0
Cota	6.07	4.85	1.35	29.5

So what do these statistics tell us (or me, anyway)?

1. There is no clear, meaningful statistical proof here that Paulino is any better a game caller than Doumit is. The only thing I can say with any degree of confidence is that Doumit's starters walk an extra batter about every 18 innings. Using linear weights, a walk is worth about .4 of a run these days. That's 1 run every 45 innings. Using baseballreference.com's RC/27 formula, Doumit at the plate, for his career, would be worth .9 of a run more than Paulino over those 45 innings. That other .1 of a run is more than made up for by a) Paulino's 2006 being a flukey offensive year, skewing his offensive value upwards, b) Doumit at least makes a friggin effort out there. And this doesn't take into account the fact that Doumit's pitchers, in the evenly-weighted sample, strike out more batters than Paulino's.

   EDIT: I had to rethink this after realizing that I had forgotten that baseballreference's RC/27 is how many runs a team full of that player would score. Doumit creates 1 run every 6.00 plate appearances. Paulino creates 1 run every 10.38 plate appearances. Figure 4 plate appearances every 9 innings for each player. Over 9 innings, Doumit creates .67 run versus Paulino's .39. While Doumit's "poor game-calling" is creating 1 more run every 45 innings for Pirate opponents, Doumit's bat is creating 1.4 more runs than Paulino's is.

2. There is a TON of noise in trying to figure out the impact a catcher has on his staff. I haven't looked at relief pitchers, I haven't controlled for day vs. night games (Doumit does a lot of catching Sunday day games). I haven't controlled for home vs. away (if there even is a different, I have no idea). I don't have passed balls or wild pitches included. I haven't controlled for quality of opponent. It may be that Paulino's pitchers, tending to be the better pitchers, face tougher lineups more often. I don't know.
3. EDITED: I am more confident in saying that this so-called "gamecalling" skill (if it exists) is so insignificant that it is utterly buried by the noise from other, far more meaningful influences on the batter-pitcher contest than I am in saying that Doumit's bat is .4 of a run more valuable than Paulino's finger-wiggling over 5 games (or almost 13 runs in a season). Given this much noise, .4 (or 13) are just too small in their respective contexts to really be meaningful.
4. Even with the weighting, Ollie Perez really screws with Cota's numbers.

So, anyways, I still can't find any reason to believe that Paulino's a better "game caller" than Doumit, or to believe that this is relevant to winning baseball games.

I was bored, so I did a quick count of the number of home games teams have some sort of promotion scheduled this year. I just used MLB.com's schedules. These count all kinds of promotions, whether it's bobbleheads or fireworks or just theme nights or dollar hot dog nights. Whatever they are.

One problem is that not all team sites have a separate promotional schedule, so I had to go off the normal schedule and count games with the "promotion" asterisk. Games that are rained out don't appear to keep their asterisk. So these may not be exactly accurate, but they certainly signify a trend.

The numbers in parantheses are the number of additional games the team had promotions for in the preseason. I can't say that I'm particularly surprised by who came out on top (although I'm surprised and skeptical about the last team. Well, not who the team is, but the number I counted.)

Pirates 79
Braves 77
Marlins 72
Mariners 71
Astros 70
Rangers 69
Royals 66
White Sox 65
Blue Jays 62
Angels 59
Indians 59
Padres 59
Reds 59
Twins 59
Cubs 57
Orioles 54
Devil Rays 53 (1)
Dodgers 47 (2)
Yankees 46
Giants 45
Tigers 44
Diamondbacks 43
Phillies 42 (1)
Mets 41
Brewers 40
Rockies 40
Athletics 37
Cardinals 37
Nationals 31 (15)
Red Sox 0

I haven't been bothered by a game like I have been by this one in a long time. Not even That Game last year at PNC. You know the one. Pirates had the bases loaded in the bottom of the ninth. Nobody out. Three batters all struck out. That was maddening. That was frustrating. The sweep at the hands of the Royals. Maddening. Frustrating. Blowing that huge lead against the D-Backs earlier this season? Maddening. Frustrating.

But it didn't eat at me like this one. We can't just lose a game. We have to come up with a brand new way to do it. Maybe I've got a guy like Matt Capps on too much of a pedestal, but he quite literally is the only relief pitcher Pirates fans are comfortable with. The only one!! And he was busting his ass out there in what had to be an immensely pressure-filled situation, and was just absolutely let down.

I think yesterday's draft is more responsible for this feeling than the game itself. But to follow that godawful performance with this immense dissappointment tonight? My wife's described my Pirates' fandom as something similar to a battered wife/abusive husband relationship, and that analogy might be overstating it just a tad, but how long can I (we) put up with this? The failures, the abuse (of our pocketbooks!!), the neglect, and the occassional, faint, just-enough-to-bring-you-back hope that maybe, just maybe, they're turning things around.

I've long thought that I never really can give up on the Pirates. I identify my childhood extremely closely with my love of baseball. Baseball was my childhood, and of course the Pirates were the team I chose. To give up on the Pirates is to cut ties with my childhood, and I just can't bring myself to do it. I know sports fans like to talk about the "pain" of defeat, but to do that would, I think, be something painful to me.

I can't give up on the Pirates because I want to be a little kid again. My first baseball game was freaking Game Three of the 1992 NLCS. I want to be in the stands again the next time the Pirates enjoy glory again. I can't just leave and come back. That wouldn't be right. I know that if the Pirates ever rose again, and I had quit on them (and on myself), I wouldn't be able to truly enjoy that triumph.

I'm rambling uncontrollably now. I am intrigued by sociological study of sport, specifically that modern sport is an awful lot like religion. The symbols, the "saints", the leaders, the congregations. I almost feel like ditching the Pirates would be harder than converting my religion. I can withhold my money from the McNuttings. But I can't withhold my fandom from the Pirates.

I always get overwhelmingly sad whenever I sit and think about sports and myself this way. I just want to be a happy little kid again. I want to sit in the "cheap" outfield seats at Game Three surrounded by a bunch of other little kids, both literal and figurative, and watch my boyhood heros win. And I honestly get a bit choked up that it really doesn't seem like I'll ever feel that feeling again. This hopelessness is stifling.