Kyle Schwarber at Catcher

Earlier this week, Cubs GM Theo Epstein told reporters that they plan to give Kyle Schwarber some innings at catcher this spring so that he can serve as the team's third catcher during the season. One concern is whether Schwarber can handle catching duties given that he is less than a year removed from tearing the ACL and LCL in his left knee.

Another concern is his ability to handle the position defensively, in particular in limiting the opposing team’s running game. In 2015, Schwarber caught 21 games, and he failed to throw out any of the 13 runners who tried to steal second base against him. There is no doubt that Schwarber can hit, but if he is that bad defensively at catcher, is it worth potentially risking his health at the position, even in a limited role?

It turns out, Schwarber may not be as bad at catching as the stolen bases against him would suggest. Research has shown that a team's ability to throw out baserunners depends more on its pitchers than on its catchers, and the Cubs' staff has not done its catchers any favors. Since 2015, Cubs' right-handed pitchers have the slowest average delivery times to home plate on stolen base attempts of second base in all of baseball. Left-handed pitchers were excluded here because additional factors like deception in the delivery affect stolen base rates against them. Of course, there is also the famous example of left-hander Jon Lester, who Schwarber has never caught, but whose refusal to throw over to first surely made David Ross' life more difficult.

As you can see in the next table comparing individual catchers, Schwarber hasn’t had it quite as bad as teammates Willson Contreras and David Ross, who have seen the slowest and third-slowest average delivery times from the right-handed pitchers who were on the mound while they were catching. But Schwarber has still seen worse-than-average delivery times on the stolen bases against him.

The remarkable story here is Contreras, who has produced a stellar 44.4 percent caught stealing rate — MLB average is 28.6 percent — despite seeing the slowest average delivery time from his right-handed pitchers. Still, Schwarber's 0.0 percent caught stealing rate is totally out of sync with his average pop time of 1.98 seconds, which is equal to the MLB average. Schwarber's average pop time is actually faster than teammate Miguel Montero, who has thrown out 14.0 percent of attempting basestealers, and just between regulars Travis d'Arnaud and Stephen Vogt, who have 23.3 percent and 27.0 percent caught stealing rates catching pitchers with faster delivery times.

Note: Catcher pop time is recorded from the moment the catcher catches the ball up until the time it touches the glove of the defensive player at second base.