Jarrod Saltalamacchia, Meet Jarrod Saltalamacchia

There weren’t too many who were bullish on Jarrod Saltalamacchia coming into 2014 even after his 2013 totals ranked him about eighth overall for catchers. Salty was coming off his finest season as a professional, reducing his strikeout rate and increasing his walk rate, all while producing a .273/.338/.466 slash line with 14 home runs and career highs in runs and RBI with 68 and 65, respectively. He even stole four bases.

But the prognosticators rightly pointed out a career high, and likely not sustainable, .372 BABIP and a move to a park in Miami which wasn’t quite as friendly to hit in as he had in Boston. Most saw him as a guy who might hit under .240 but ought to sniff 20/60/60 by way of counting stats given regular playing time and a decent slot in the batting order.

But by the end of April, we all looked like fools. In nearly 100 plate appearances, Saltalamacchia was slashing .299/.409/.980 with five home runs, 15 runs scored, and nine RBI. He was striking out at a Salty-like clip, but his walk rate had spiked to over 16% and he was crushing fastballs. Saltalamacchia owners were reaping the rewards for what was a very low cost pick after the first month of the season.

And you know where this goes already.

For the remainder of the season, Saltalamacchia hit .199/.295/.307 with six home runs, 28 runs, and 35 RBI. Or put another way, about 50% of his home runs and 35% of his runs were in the first month of the season. He was simply a black hole offensively from May to the end of the season.

The question is, of course, why. And if you were a Miami Marlins fan, you can probably point to this. If you watch the video, it’s alarming at how innocuous that foul ball seemed, and if you don’t have time to watch the video — on May 31st he took a foul ball off the mask. He grabbed a replacement ball, threw it back, spit a little, and finished the inning – there was no game delay or call for the trainer. It looked as routine as routine gets. But he wouldn’t return to baseball until June 19th diagnosed with a concussion. And when he returned, he was just a completely different player than he was in April.

That’s not to say he was going to maintain his April pace of course, because he probably wasn’t. But as you prepare for your 2015 drafts, the lingering thought in my head is whether he could replicate any close facsimile of that April player.

If you look strictly at his splits, there is some encouraging data in there.

	LD%	GB%	FB%	IFFB%	HR/FB
1st Half	18.00%	38.10%	43.90%	6.60%	14.80%
2nd Half	28.10%	36.50%	35.40%	5.90%	5.90%

The line drive rate was up significantly and he appeared to have a good deal of bad luck on home runs relative to fly balls in the second half (his career HR/FB rate is 13.2%). His strikeout rate was about a point higher than the first half and he still managed a 12.2% walk rate in the second half and he actually had a much higher percentage of doubles per plate appearance in the second half than the first. Practically speaking, his slugging percentage was simply hurt by the lack of home runs.

Looking at the distance on his fly balls and home runs from the first half to second half really doesn’t reveal much in the way of a smoking gun either. In the first half, Saltalamacchia averaged roughly 280 feet on his home runs and fly balls. In the second half it was roughly 277 feet. So it wasn’t as if his power absolutely disappeared.

The rational minded ought to go forward on Salty looking at his career averages, probably eschewing his 25 home run year in 2012 and doing the same with his .273 batting average in 2013. All in all, you’ve probably got much the same kind of catcher that people were hoping for coming into 2014 — someone who probably won’t break .240 (and might hit .220) with 20 home run potential and the ability to cross the plate 60 times and drive in 60 teammates. But that’s probably close to a ceiling projection. As such, he’s still a fringey second catcher in most standard formats.