Archive for Catchers

I had big hopes for Brian McCann this season. He moved from a pitcher friendly stadium in Atlanta to arguably the best hitting venue for lefties in all of baseball (I’m willfully ignoring Coors Field…). He often spends time on the disabled list, but there was reason to hope a smattering of starts in the designated hitter role would keep him healthy AND lead to a career best in plate appearances.

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Atlanta Braves catcher Evan Gattis was supposed to tell us a lot this season. After a power-filled 2013, fans and analysts seemed to take two different paths when discussing the 26-year-old rookie. The fans thought he was ready to breakout, while the analysts saw plenty of signs that pointed to regression. Who was right in 2014? After looking at his stats, it’s fair to say no one. Gattis put up mostly identical numbers during his sophomore season. He posted an identical walk rate, a slightly elevated strikeout rate and hit one more home run in 2014. While the overall offensive performance was better based on his batting line and wOBA, you couldn’t call it a breakout. That wasn’t necessarily the case at midseason, when Gattis was looking like an elite offensive catcher.

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Each season you nabbed him as a sleeper. You expected him to deliver on his top prospect promise. But he kept disappointing, or simply didn’t earn the playing time you had hoped for. So you gave up. And then he broke out. Sound familiar? It happens a lot. It’s when the former top prospect sheds all the hype, everyone forgets about him, and then he goes off. Everyone then remember that perhaps they hadn’t given that player enough of a chance, jumping off the train far too soon.

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Let’s start with a multiple choice question.

1) Russell Martin has been lucky on the following balls-in-play type(s):

a) Grounders

b) Liners

c) Flies

d) at least Grounders and Flies

If you chose a) grounders, you would be wrong. If you chose d) flies, you would be wrong. If you chose b) liners, well… you could be partly right, however, the correct answer is d) at least grounders and flies. You could argue that there should be an e) option, ‘all of the above.’

According to Zach Sanders’ End of Season Catcher rankings, Russell Martin bamboozled his way into the top 10 at #7 overall and produced what would have been his 2nd best fantasy season if he approached 150+ games.

By bamboozled, I mean BABIP’ed.

Look at his 2014 ground ball, fly ball and line drive-related BABIP’s on each individual balls-in-play type in 2014 relative to his career; relative to 2013 (still with the Pirates); and relative to the mean if we considered his career rates as a one year performance:

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The last backstop with positive value – OK, basically, he was a zero, but we’re looking at the bright side, here – in 2014, according to the Zach Sanders end-of-season catcher rankings, is none other than Tyler Flowers. That finish of 16^th among those whose primary responsibilities came behind the plate – so, excluding Carlos Santana and Joe Mauer – made him a viable option for those in two-C mixed leagues all season.

No rational person would have predicted that the Chicago White Sox’s squatter would continue to produce like he did in March/April: .354/.398/.415 in 88 plate appearances. He struck out 35.2% of the time that month and registered a .560 BABIP. The starting surge came without much in the way of extra-base hits, as the .061 ISO that month demonstrated. If Flowers wasn’t going to hit any bombs, what good was he? Some serious regression was on its way, and it was probably going to include a rest-of-the-way batting average of about .150.

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A quick skim through Zach Sanders’ catcher rankings reveals some familiar faces.

Buster Posey sits at the top. Breakout sensation Devin Mesoraco is third. Evan Gattis, Miguel Montero and Travis d’Arnaud are all there.

And ranking eighth: Dioner Navarro?
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It was another productive season from Salvador Perez, at least from a fantasy baseball perspective. He earned the fifth most value among catchers and set a new career high in plate appearances and homers. But all is not well.

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Matt Wieters was having a great season in 2014 until early May when his elbow began barking. Eventually his season was lost and he needed Tommy John surgery. Owners may not want to own a hitter coming off such an injury, especially a catcher. So looking forward to 2015, I will lay out a couple points on how to evaluate Wieters as a huge buy low candidate.

So for a timeline of Wieters last season.

April – Everything is fine and Wieters is hitting: .333/.381/.544 in 74 PA

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I’ve been a staunch supporter of Wilin Rosario for awhile now, and was especially high on him coming into this year. As I pointed out in my preseason Bold Predictions column, the 25-year-old had hit 49 homers in his two previous seasons, and was reportedly set to start playing some first base, to keep his bat in the lineup on an everyday basis.

As it turned out, Rosario played first base for a measly 25 innings in 2014, likely due in no small part to the fact that Justin Morneau had his best season since 2010. Still, that extra playing time for Rosario never materialized. He ended up hitting the disabled list twice — once in May with a viral infection, and again in August with wrist inflammation — limiting him to 106 games.

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The verb in the headline is a person. But once a person has broken out like Devin Mesoraco has this year, the first instinct is to look for lightning to strike again in the same fashion. Given the season Grandal just had — 15th-best in the end-of-season rankings — maybe he’s even further along than Devin Mesoraco once was. Maybe it’s still fair to wonder if he can Devin Mesoraco.

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