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As I wrote earlier this week, Carlos Ruiz had a nice season with the bat in 2009 that put him on the list of the best hitting catchers in baseball. Prior to ’09, though, Ruiz hadn’t excelled offensively with the Phils. Despite the lack of offensive production, Ruiz had a reputation as a solid defender and as a guy who helped to get the most out of the Phillies pitchers.

Did Phillies pitchers really fare better when pitching to Ruiz than they did when pitching to other catchers on the team did? Well, some did and some didn’t. In today’s post I’ll look at the six Phillies who started the most games for the team in 2009 and compare their results when pitching to Ruiz and when pitching to somebody else.

The best cases for Ruiz among the ’09 starters from the Phils were for Happ and Hamels. The table below shows how Happ fared when pitching to Ruiz in ’09 compared to how he fared when pitching to other Phillies catchers:

So that table suggests that Ruiz was catching for 63.5% of the batters that Happ faced and other Phillies catchers was catching for the other 36.5% of hitters. With Ruiz catching, opponents hit 226/292/369 against Happ and with another Phillies catcher behind the plate they hit 276/343/456 against him.

Opposing teams scored about .079 runs per plate appearance against Happ for the year. .069 runs per PA against him with Ruiz behind the plate and .096 runs per PA against him with someone else behind the plate. .096 is about 1.39 times as much as .069.

Happ didn’t face the same batters with Ruiz behind the plate as with the other guys catching, so maybe it was a fluke and maybe it wasn’t. Either way, Happ clearly had better results in 2009 when pitching to Ruiz.

So did Hamels.

The numbers for Hamels pitching to Ruiz improved a lot as well, even more than they did for Happ. The difference between what batters did with Ruiz catching and others catching is so dramatic it makes you wonder how much of a role the catcher he was throwing to played a role in the disappointing year for Hamels. Opponents hit 330/368/570 against Hamels when he was pitching to Bako, for example. Given how high the percentage of the batters that Hamels faced with Ruiz catching, though, I would guess that even if you were to pull out the ugly numbers with Bako behind the plate for Hamels his numbers were still a lot worse than they had been in 2008.

Anyhow, if you were trying to argue that the Phillies pitchers get better results with Ruiz behind the plate, the ’09 outcomes for Happ and Hamels would be a great place to start.

Things a little less sunny after that, though. Moyer and Myers had worse results throwing to Ruiz in 2009. Lee didn’t throw to him much, but his results were worse throwing to Ruiz as well compared to the other catchers for the Phils. Blanton was kind of in-between. Here’s Blanton:

Blanton’s numbers for 2009 were very similar whether Ruiz was catching or wasn’t catching. The opponent OPS was a little better when someone other than Ruiz was behind the plate, but he allowed fewer runs per plate appearance with Ruiz behind the dish.

Moyer, Myers and Lee had worse results with Ruiz catching.

Moyer was much worse.

The slugging percentage is the thing that sticks out for the Moyer table. By batters faced, Moyer pitched to Ruiz about half of the time. He faced 699 batters on the season. The 334 batters he faced with someone besides Ruiz catching combined to hit seven home runs. The 365 batters he faced with Ruiz catching hit 20 home runs.

Myers also threw to Ruiz and other catchers about equally and had better results pitching to other guys:

Like Moyer, opponents posted a much higher slugging percentage against Myers when Ruiz was behind the plate.

Ruiz caught in just three of the 12 games that Cliff Lee started during the regular season. The numbers below include just his results throwing to Phillies catchers last year (not Cleveland catchers).

Not sure what you want to make of that, if anything. Ruiz and Lee had a whole lot of success working together in the post-season.

Finally, here’s what the table looks like for all Phillies pitchers combined (not just the six mentioned above):

With Ruiz behind the plate, opposing batters scored .109 runs per plate appearance compared to .120 runs per PA with someone else behind the plate. That’s about 91.1% of the runs allowed per plate appearance with Ruiz behind the plate as with someone else.

The Phillies also allowed fewer runs per plate appearance overall with Ruiz behind the plate in 2008 and in 2007. In 2008 they allowed about 95.5% of the runs per plate appearance with Ruiz behind the plate as with other catchers and in 2007 they allowed about 97.0%.

The Phillies signed pitcher Oscar Villarreal to a minor league deal and will invite him to Spring Training. The 28-year-old righty did not pitch in 2009 after having Tommy John surgery in April. He has thrown 336 career innings, all in the NL, pitching to a 3.86 ERA with a 1.37 ratio. The linked article says he will not be ready for Opening Day.

The Phillies also signed switch-”hitting” outfielder Freddy Guzman to a minor league deal. Guzman is 29 and has a career on-base percentage of .255 and a career slugging percentage of .274. The linked article says the deal does not include a Spring Training invite, so it’s not clear what his role will be. Just throwing things out here, but my guess would be that his role is to have someone athletic-looking to fill a uniform if everyone on the 40-man roster is killed in some kind of tragic blimp accident. In the good news department he stole 116 bases over the past two seasons in the minors so he may be able to help your Triple-A roto team. In his defense, his career line of 211/255/274 has come in just 102 plate appearances and he’s hit a more respectable 270/344/360 over more than 3,000 at-bats in the minors.