[DC 86]

What is the only NCAA championship where the squads contain members of both sexes competing for one championship? Meaning in this context Male and Female.

Fencing.

Rifle?

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It covers assists and putouts.  For catchers, strikeouts are credited to the catcher.

That's my point. Almost all of a catcher's putouts are strikeouts. If you are catching the Brewers staff then your "range" will be sky high and if you are  catching the Cardinals staff your "range" will be well below average. It's not relevant for catchers. There's plenty to ding Pierzynski with but that's a reach.

I don't know that it's all that much of a reach.  Catcher catches the pitches and frames the pitches and they have their own assists, putouts, double plays, etc.  But if it makes you feel better, AJP's fielding Sabrmetrics are almost uniformly negative (average is 0) across his career.  That's true for:

* Total Zone Fielding Runs Above Average (-36)
* Total Zone Catcher Runs Above Average (-36)
* Defensive Runs Saved Above Average (-57)
* +/- Fielding Runs Above Average (-4)
* Catcher Runs Above Average (-15)
* Catcher Strike Zone Runs Above Average (-16)

There are 15 career defensive metrics assigned to catchers.  AJP has two that are positive, three that are neutral (0) and ten that are negative.  Doesn't really scream Hall of Fame to me.

I started off by saying that he was a weak candidate so saying "doesn't really scream Hall of Fame to me" and citing defensive statistics that are actually relevant is a weak attempt to reframe what I was arguing. The fact remains that "Range Factor" is essentially irrelevant to catcher defensive evaluation. All of the other inputs are other very minor or again not dependent on catcher ability.

Got it.  So what are the core, relevant inputs to elect a catcher into the Hall of Fame?

This was a discussion about the irrelevancy of catcher Range Factor, which you disputed and doubled down on, not about the criteria for Hall of Fame election. It was never disputed that Pierzynski is nowhere near serious HoF consideration.

But to answer your question, the objective inputs for evaluating a catcher's HoF candidacy (acknowledging that subjective inputs are legitimate as well) are the obvious ones: the player's net offensive and defensive contributions. The issue is what metrics are the most accurate at capturing what a player's net value is/was. Specifically for catcher defense the best publicly available metric is the BIS version of DRS. There's a reason why both versions of WAR (B-Ref and FanGraphs) use DRS as the catcher defense component. bWAR uses DRS while fWAR uses DRS as well as a proprietary metric for blocking. FanGraphs uses Ultimate Zone Rating for non-catchers but not for catchers since it was never meant to be applied to that position. Range Factor was considered obsolete years ago and in any case was never intended to be used for catchers either, since over 95% of the inputs are external to a catcher's influence.

As you pointed out Pierzynski's DRS Above Average was -57, meaning that he was a poor catcher to the point that his below average offensive performance is not outweighed by superior defensive contribution. But ZR and RF are irrelevant metrics for catchers whether you believe me or not, and there's not a single front office analyst who uses anything akin to those calculations in their evaluations or projections. Of course front offices don't use publicly available models at all but the base defensive modeling that they use for catchers is essentially a proprietary version of DRS. Referencing any versions of Zone Rating or Range Factor is just unnecessary noise that shows a misunderstanding of how to evaluate catcher defense.

[DC 86]

What is the only NCAA championship where the squads contain members of both sexes competing for one championship? Meaning in this context Male and Female.

Fencing.

Rifle?

---

It covers assists and putouts.  For catchers, strikeouts are credited to the catcher.

That's my point. Almost all of a catcher's putouts are strikeouts. If you are catching the Brewers staff then your "range" will be sky high and if you are  catching the Cardinals staff your "range" will be well below average. It's not relevant for catchers. There's plenty to ding Pierzynski with but that's a reach.

I don't know that it's all that much of a reach.  Catcher catches the pitches and frames the pitches and they have their own assists, putouts, double plays, etc.  But if it makes you feel better, AJP's fielding Sabrmetrics are almost uniformly negative (average is 0) across his career.  That's true for:

* Total Zone Fielding Runs Above Average (-36)
* Total Zone Catcher Runs Above Average (-36)
* Defensive Runs Saved Above Average (-57)
* +/- Fielding Runs Above Average (-4)
* Catcher Runs Above Average (-15)
* Catcher Strike Zone Runs Above Average (-16)

There are 15 career defensive metrics assigned to catchers.  AJP has two that are positive, three that are neutral (0) and ten that are negative.  Doesn't really scream Hall of Fame to me.

I started off by saying that he was a weak candidate so saying "doesn't really scream Hall of Fame to me" and citing defensive statistics that are actually relevant is a weak attempt to reframe what I was arguing. The fact remains that "Range Factor" is essentially irrelevant to catcher defensive evaluation. All of the other inputs are other very minor or again not dependent on catcher ability.

Got it.  So what are the core, relevant inputs to elect a catcher into the Hall of Fame?

This was a discussion about the irrelevancy of catcher Range Factor, which you disputed and doubled down on, not about the criteria for Hall of Fame election. It was never disputed that Pierzynski is nowhere near serious HoF consideration.

But to answer your question, the objective inputs for evaluating a catcher's HoF candidacy (acknowledging that subjective inputs are legitimate as well) are the obvious ones: the player's net offensive and defensive contributions. The issue is what metrics are the most accurate at capturing what a player's net value is/was. Specifically for catcher defense the best publicly available metric is the BIS version of DRS. There's a reason why both versions of WAR (B-Ref and FanGraphs) use DRS as the catcher defense component. bWAR uses DRS while fWAR uses DRS as well as a proprietary metric for blocking. FanGraphs uses Ultimate Zone Rating for non-catchers but not for catchers since it was never meant to be applied to that position. Range Factor was considered obsolete years ago and in any case was never intended to be used for catchers either, since over 95% of the inputs are external to a catcher's influence.

As you pointed out Pierzynski's DRS Above Average was -57, meaning that he was a poor catcher to the point that his below average offensive performance is not outweighed by superior defensive contribution. But ZR and RF are irrelevant metrics for catchers whether you believe me or not, and there's not a single front office analyst who uses anything akin to those calculations in their evaluations or projections. Of course front offices don't use publicly available models at all but the base defensive modeling that they use for catchers is essentially a proprietary version of DRS. Referencing any versions of Zone Rating or Range Factor is just unnecessary noise that shows a misunderstanding of how to evaluate catcher defense.