Catcher Throwing Leaderboard

What is this? A Statcast metric designed to express the skill of catchers at throwing out runners on steal attempts, given the specifics of the opportunities they are presented with.

How this works: Each steal attempt (now including the option to switch between 2B and 3B data) is assigned a probability of being successful or not based on several inputs at the time the pitch crosses the plate, most notably: runner distance from second, runner speed, pitch location, pitcher/batter handedness, and awareness of pitchouts or delayed steals. It’s the Statcast translation of the long-time saying “you steal off the pitcher, not the catcher.”

How to read it: Caught Stealing Above Average is the difference between actual caught stealing and estimate caught stealing based on the attempts seen. Catcher Stealing Runs is a translation of Caught Stealing Above Average to a run value on a .65 runs/CS basis, the difference between a SB (+.2 runs) and a CS (-.45 runs).

Minimum qualifiers: A catcher must have averaged one stolen base attempt against him at second base for every 10 team games to qualify for the 2B leaderboards, and one stolen base attempt at third base for every 50 team games to qualify for the 3B leaderboards.