Rob,
How the percentages are computed makes all the difference. If you look in OBR, they don’t give a great deal of guidance for what the defenses are charges with. SBAs and SBs are required for each runner, so its easy to get an SBPct. But there’s no requirement in the rules for how SBAs/SBs should be counted on the defensive side, other than how the put outs are recorded.
As a result, statisticians count them in different ways. As Fungo noted, most statisticians will charge the pitcher and catcher with each SBA/SB the opposition gets, no matter who’s responsible.
In reality, for pitchers it works because all it means for them is that an SBA/SB took place while they were on the mound. The problems come when people look at catchers. There are few people, including myself, who count SBAs/SBs as taking place on a pitch differently from the ones that take place other ways.
FI, if a pitcher throws a pitch and the ball isn’t put in play, and before the next pitch a runner advances safely other than on an error, a wild pitch, or passed ball, there’s a good chance it was a stolen base, and one that should be charged against the catcher.
However, there are other SBAs/SBs. FI, when a runner gets picked off but manages to advance without an error, it’s a SBA and SB, and if he gets caught trying to advance, its an SBA with a CS. I agree that the catcher shouldn’t be charged with it one way or the other because its unlikely he’d have anything to do with it, but chances are the statistician isn’t trying to determine if he had anything to do with it or not. The same thing happens with the back end of a double steal. If the catcher tries to get one of the runners and doesn’t, he gets banged for 2 SBAs/SBs.
You asked about whether a pitch in the dirt was the cause of the runner advancing. Using OBR, if a pitch touches the dirt in front of the catcher, it can’t be a passed ball, but it can be a wild pitch. It has to do with what the reason was the runner advanced. If it was because of a pitch in the dirt, it shouldn’t be marked as an SBA/SB, but if the runner gets thrown out it goes as an SBA.
When people say a HS catcher throws out X% of the runners attempting to steal, more likely than not they’re talking about all SBs divided by all SBAs.
You also commented about SBa that really come off the pitcher. Well, getting the ball to the plate quickly is very important, but so is holding the runners close. So if you’re seeing a lot of SBAs/SBs, it could be one of several reasons.
You made a comment about a good catcher should block a lot of what otherwise would be WPs, and that’s true. Unfortunately, how would anyone measure that? I track balls and strikes in the dirt and whether they came with a runner on, but I don’t produce a metric that shows it, and I don’t know of anyone who does at the HS level.
I’m not sure how you can track how base runners advanced but ignore the reason. Would you mind explaining?
You’re correct. Catcher stats are pretty bleak, but the reason is, there’s really no common need for catcher’s numbers.