Pop time, also known as POP, is a baseball statistic that measures the time it takes for a catcher to make a throw from home plate to second base during a stolen base attempt.
The primary criticism of the statistic is that it values speed over accuracy, as it does not account for whether the throw reached its destination.
[2] MLB.com's Mike Petriello said, "pop time does matter in preventing stolen bases, though it's also unsurprisingly a pretty noisy relationship".
[5] Salvador Perez's 1.74 pop time during a 2017 throw was considered "stretch[ing] the boundaries of the position".
[6] Austin Hedges led MLB in pop time in the 2017 season, with a 1.86 second average.