KBO Catchers Pop Times

With the Korea Baseball Organization regular season over, I'll soon be releasing the 2013 KBO WAR rankings. This year, I don't believe there will be a real defensive component as there just isn't enough good data. Last year's data was especially unhelpful when it came to catcher defense. There are many facets to catcher defense, such as receiving and game calling, but the simplest facet is measured by a stopwatch, measuring the time it takes for a catcher to catch the ball and throw it to 2nd, a catcher's poptime. In this post I wanted to look at the poptimes of catchers in the KBO, so I looked at the main catcher from each team (and an extra catcher for Doosan), found a video of a throw down of each, and timed it several times. I labelled the results with each catcher's name and made a GIF of them throwing, just for a visual look.


Choi Jae-hoon: 1.91-1.94

Hyun Jae-yoon: 2.00-2.10

Heo Do-Hwan: 1.90-1.95

Lee Hong-gu: 2.00-2.05

Yang Yi-Ji: 1.84-1.85

Kang Min-ho: 1.9-2.00

Jung Beom-mo: 1.97-2.00

Jin Kap-Yong: 2.09

Kim Tae-goon: 2.00

Jung Sang-ho: 2.00