Archive for John Buck

The 2011 baseball season is almost upon us, so we here at RotoGraphs put our collective heads together to come up with some aggregate positional rankings.  I’ll be taking the lead all year with the catchers, but as a group, here’s what we came up with for now:

Despite last year’s power decline, we know the potential is there so Mauer gets the nod for the top spot.  Welcome to the big time, Buster!

Happy to have any one of these guys on my roster.  Santana is on the rise, but this could be the last chance for Wieters in the fantasy trust department.

Stable group of guys who can just tow the line for your backstop position.  Martin could be a nice sleeper in hitter-friendly Yankee Stadium.

No major investment needs to be made here.  Some will rise, some will fall.  Arencibia’s power potential puts him at the top of the sleeper list.

Maybe a pair of diamonds in the rough in Lucroy and Snyder, but I wouldn’t want to invest more than a buck on the rest of the lot.

You’ve got to be pretty desperate to be living with these guys on your roster.

We’ll all be chiming in throughout the week with more detailed thoughts on some of the backstops and the overall rankings will be updated on a monthly basis, so stay tuned for more!

Earlier in the week we showed that you can still get a comparative advantage over your fellow drafters by drafting an elite catcher that will rack up 10-12% more plate appearances than other catchers. But that’s only half the picture – what the catchers do with their plate appearances is the rest of the picture. If you can’t get too much of a comparative advantage in terms of the other statistics, the plate appearances won’t matter much.

In order to do that, we’ll take a look at some of the projections for catchers that should go early and catchers that go later. We’ll use draft picks from the Stupidly Early Mock Draft over at RotoHardball.com to approximate ADP (but there’s more help coming from RG when it comes to rankings and mocks, don’t worry).

First, let’s just take the Bill James projections for the top 12 catchers, grouped not in tiers, but just in groups of four. These jerry-rigged tiers will allow us to compare the top, middle, and bottom catchers without too much discussion about getting them into the correct tiers. A straight average of the groups should put this into focus.

2.10 Joe Mauer .338 BA, 15 HR, 3 SB, 93 R, 87 RBI
4.1 Brian McCann .280 BA, 24 HR, 4 SB, 68 R, 94 RBI
4.2 Victor Martinez .298 BA, 19 HR, 1 SB, 69 R, 88 RBI
4.3 Buster Posey .308 BA, 21 HR, 1 SB, 74 R, 83 RBI

Top-“Tier” Average: .306 BA, 20 HR, 2 SB, 76 R, 88 RBI

7.5 Geovany Soto .276 BA, 20 HR, 0 SB, 56 R, 72 RBI
7.8 Carlos Santana .280 BA, 22 HR, 7 SB, 83 R, 91 RBI
9.4 Matt Wieters .288 BA, 16 HR, 0 SB, 55 R, 74 RBI
12.11 Mike Napoli .246 BA, 24 HR, 4 SB, 62 R, 66 RBI

Mid-“Tier” Average: .273 BA, 21 HR, 3 SB, 64 R, 76 RBI

14.6 Jorge Posada .260 BA, 16 HR, 2 SB, 49 R, 60 RBI
14.7 Miguel Montero .273 BA, 14 HR, 0 SB, 51 R, 58 RBI
15.9 Ryan Hanigan .281 BA, 5 HR, 0 SB, 39 R, 37 RBI
16.12 Kurt Suzuki .266 BA, 13 HR, 4 SB, 65 R, 73 RBI

Bottom-“Tier” Average: .270 BA, 12 HR, 1 SB, 51 R, 57 RBI

It looks like you get what you pay for, but the middle tier might get you the best value. The bottom tier looks pretty bad, but if you replace Hanigan with John Buck, whose projections are a little rosier (.248 BA, 17 HR, 0 SB, 47 R, 60 RBI), then your averages for the bottom tier look a little nicer – .262 BA, 15 HR, 53 R, 63 RBI.

While the top three in plate appearances will show a comparative advantage over the rest of the field, plate appearances can be hard to predict. Going by projected performance, it looks like the best plan may be to wait, but not wait too long.

Saturday was the deadline for clubs to offer a contract to arbitration-eligible players. There were plenty of non-tenders yesterday. Let’s take a quick look at some of the more intriguing position players now hitting the open market. I included each player’s CHONE projection for the 2010 season.

Garrett Atkins (.275/.345/.440, .342 wOBA)

This 30 year-old righty batter has been billed in the past as a power-hitting third baseman. But when one considers his substandard D at the hot corner (career -5 UZR/150 at 3B) and adjusts for the context of Coors, Atkins isn’t all he’s cracked up to be:

Atkins’ Park Adjusted Batting Runs, by season:

2005: -2.1
2006: +38.5
2007: +13.1
2008: -2.6
2009: -16.3

Atkins isn’t the cipher that his 2009 numbers would suggest, as he suffered from a .247 BABIP. But his Isolated Power has dipped four years running: .228 in 2006, .185 in 2007, .165 in 2008, and just .116 in 2009.

John Buck (.223/.304/.399, .305 wOBA)

With the Jason Kendall era inexplicably beginning in Kansas City, Buck got the boot. The 29 year-old backstop has ample power for the position (career .171 ISO), though he struggles to make contact (26.1 K%). Buck posted a career-high .332 wOBA in 2009, but that figure is likely to regress next year. He posted a .309 BABIP in an ’09 season interrupted by a back injury, compared to a .283 career mark. As a slow-footed catcher (career 2.5 Speed Score) who pops the ball up a lot (12.2 IF/FB%), expect Buck to hit more around his career .304 wOBA.

(Update: Buck inked a 1-year, $2M deal with the Blue Jays.)

Ryan Church (.267/.339/.419, .332 wOBA)

Bothered by back problems and a pulled hamstring, Church didn’t hit with much authority in 2009 (.111 ISO). Injuries have plagued the 31 year-old the past two seasons, as post-concussion syndrome slowed him in 2008. But when he’s able to take the field, Church is a fairly useful player. He’s a career .272/.345/.441 hitter, displaying a decent eye (9.3 BB%) and average power for his position (.169 ISO). The former Expo, National, Met and Brave has done most of his damage against righty batters.

Jack Cust (.229/.365/.426, .349 wOBA)

Cust revived his career in Oakland, as he walked nearly 20% of the time and posted a near-.250 ISO over the 2007 and 2008 seasons. The Three True Outcomes hero appeared to make a concerted effort to make more contact in 2009. His outside-swing percentage increased from roughly 14% in ’07-’08 to 17.5% (still well below the 25% MLB average), and his in-zone swing percentage climbed from 62% to 68% (65-66% MLB average). The result? Fewer K’s (relatively speaking: 36.1 K% in ’09, 39.5% career mark), and walks (15.3 BB% in ’09), as well as less pop (.177 ISO).

Ryan Garko (.273/.352/.444, .347 wOBA)

29 in January, Garko is a good, not great hitter at a position where players are supposed to mash. The average MLB first baseman swatted .277/.362/.483 in 2009 (.366 wOBA).

The former Indian has performed much better vs. southpaws during the course of his big league career. Here are Garko’s sOPS+ numbers against lefties and righties since 2007. sOPS+ compares a player’s performance in a given split to the league average (100 is average, better than 100 indicates the hitter was above-average, less than 100 means he was below-average)

2007
vs. RHP: 123 sOPS+
vs. LHP: 128 sOPS+

2008
vs. RHP: 99 sOPS+
vs. LHP: 121 sOPS+

2009
vs. RHP: 97 sOPS+
vs. LHP: 126 sOPS+

Jonny Gomes (.247/.333/.487, .351 wOBA)

The archetypal slugger, Gomes bops (career .230 ISO) and plays defense like a guy wearing cinder blocks instead of cleats (-22.3 UZR/150 in the outfield). As such, his game might be more palatable to an A.L. club. In a fantastic environment for a pull-oriented righty, Gomes compiled a .373 wOBA for the Reds in 2009.

Kelly Johnson (.268/.346/.436, .341 wOBA)

Let’s compare Johnson’s 2008 and 2009 seasons:

2008: 8.7 BB%, 20.7 K%, .159 ISO, .344 BABIP, .346 wOBA
2009: 9.6 BB%, 17.8 K%, .165 ISO, .249 BABIP, .306 wOBA

The lefty batter (28 in February) walked a little more this past season, punched out less, and hit for a similar amount of power. Johnson’s BABIP, however, dipped nearly 100 points. Kelly’s XBABIP was .329 in 2008 and .313 in 2009. Here are what Johnson’s lines would have looked like in ’08 and ’09, based on his XBABIP figures (and this is assuming all additional hits were singles):

2008 actual line: .287/.349/.446, .346 wOBA
2008 adjusted line: .272/.334/.431, .333 wOBA

2009 actual line: .224/.303/.389, .306 wOBA
2009 adjusted line: .288/.367/.453, .359 wOBA

Johnson is no great shakes at second base (career -7.4 UZR/150), but he can also man the outfield corners and looks to be a strong candidate to bounce back in 2010. He’s still a quality offensive player.