Even if you look around the ball world, there are very few “catchers who can hit”
Seibu catcher Tomoya Mori announced on the 1st through the team that he has exercised his domestic free agent (FA) rights. Competition is inevitable. There is no doubt that the hitting catcher, who is an “extremely rare breed”, is so desirable that his hand is sticking out of the back of his neck. The financial strength and enthusiasm of the team aiming to acquire it will greatly affect the success, but where is the “really necessary team”? Let’s look at each team’s weak points in the data.
Speaking of Mori, the spell is a rare hit stick that can be expected to hit one. 251 batting average, 8 home runs, and 38 RBI in 102 games this season. Last season, he had a .309 batting average, a reliable number.
Hitting a catcher is one of the challenges for many teams. Whether or not you contribute to the team can be determined not only by batting results but also by numerical values. If you look at the data of DELTA Co, Ltd (https://1point02.jp/), which analyzes professional baseball using sabermetrics indicators, you can see the difference.
We use “wRAA (Weighted Runs Above Average)”, which represents the score contribution by hitting. It’s an index that quantifies how much a team’s scoring increases or decreases compared to when the league average hitter hits the same number of at-bats. Looking at all players (over 300 innings), Mori tops the 12 teams with 6.3. Takuzo Oshiro’s Giant continues with 6.2.
