Archive for Kelly Shoppach

While the tiers we established in our aggregate pre-season rankings gave you a sound foundation for your draft, you knew there was going to be some movement amongst the backstops.  I’m aware that we’re dealing with a small sample size of at bats, but if you’ve got a guy who’s hot, why not use him while you can? Or, if he’s cold, bench him for now and get yourself a temporary replacement.  Let’s look at a few names of backstops that are both rising and falling in current value. Read the rest of this entry »

Last week I told you to keep an eye on Washington backup Wilson Ramos.  He may have been listed as the backup on the team’s depth chart, but it has been widely speculated that he will receive the lion’s share of the work behind the dish for the Nationals this season as they slowly phase out a declining Pudge Rodriguez.  Platoons can be a tenuous situation for fantasy leaguers, so avoiding them is usually one’s priority come draft day.  But if you’re playing in a deep league or a league that calls for two catchers, you are sometimes forced to take a chance and hope you grab the better half of a split situation.  Here’s a couple of notable interest… Read the rest of this entry »

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!

Kelly Shoppach is a potential non tender or trade candidate this off season. But the soon-to-be 30 year old still does have value despite a disappointing 2009 season.

He’s destined for a raise after making nearly $2 million in 2009 and the Indians have a MLB ready catcher in Lou Marson whose waiting in the wings. And don’t forget about blue chip prospect Carlos Santana who will be banging on the MLB door after destroying Double-A pitching in 2009.

The former Baylor standout was the first college catcher selected in the 2001 draft by the Red Sox. They used their first available selection on him in the second round. He appeared on Baseball America’s top 10 Red Sox prospect lists for a few seasons before being dealt away to Cleveland before 2006 in the Coco Crisp deal.

Shoppach spent time as Victor Martinez’s backup and when Martinez went down with injuries in 2008 Shoppach ran with the starting opportunity. He led all starting catchers in 2009 ISO (.256) in 353 at-bats. All in all he hit for a .370 wOBA but his .261/.348/.517 line was fueled by a .359 BABIP.

David G. successfully predicted a decline in Shoppach’s 2009 production. While Shoppach’s 2009 batting average plummeted to .214 he still reached base at an above average clip (.335) but his prestigious power that the hacktastic Shoppach previously featured vanished. In 89 games and 271 at-bats Shoppach slugged .399 with 12 home runs.

Shoppach was squeezed for playing time this season. Before some late season trades he was vying for playing time with Victor Martinez as the regular catcher and Ryan Garko at first base. Travis Hafner gobbled up DH time when his shoulder cooperated with him. Prior to the trades Shoppach would typically see playing time when Martinez played first base, Shoppach caught, and Garko hit the pine or saw time at designated hitter. Shoppach didn’t receive an ample opportunity to produce at the rate he did in 2008 until the trades of Garko and Martinez.

With the acquisition of Lou Marson (who also received a September call up and could start 2010 as the starting catcher) Shoppach doesn’t seem to fit in with the Indians. They already have another capable and cheaper back up in Wyatt Toregas. Marson and someone else (possibly Toregas) will likely keep the catching seat warm until Carlos Santana bursts onto the big league scene.

While Shoppach didn’t receive the best opportunity to replicate his 2008 showing he still presents value to other MLB clubs if the Indians do indeed decide to move on. Shoppach’s always been known as a strikeout prone (his strikeout rate is right up there with Jack Cust and Mark Reynolds at 36%) catcher with plus power and solid defense. Scouting reports usually treat Shoppach well in the defensive department. But for what its worth from a recent quantitative standpoint/analysis from new Fangraphs contributor Matt Klaassen AKA Devil_Fingers he was rated as a smidge below average in 2009 (#84 on the list and -1.5 totalruns).

While a throbbing .359 BABIP aided Shoppach’s stellar 2008 campaign a .286 BABIP cut into his 2009 slash stats. The average 2009 MLB hitters BABIP was .299 and that may lead you to believe that Shoppach’s 2009 BABIP normally regressed to the mean. But that is wrong. Shoppach’s consistently over performed the league average BABIP throughout his short career until 2009. Dating back to 2006 his BABIPS has been .286, .359, .357, and .387. It’s likely a fluke that this number remained so high in 2006 and 2007 despite just 110 and 161 at-bats.

This data tells us that Shoppach isn’t a .286 BABIP hitter and that number damaged his 2009 numbers heavily even though he walked and struck out at a similar rate to his 2008 season. The Hardball Times has the best BABIP estimator currently available and this trusty tool can paint a much better picture than raw BABIP. The new toy (and new Rotographs favorite) finds an estimated BABIP based upon his rate of HR’s, K’s, SB’s, line drives, fly balls, pop ups and groundballs. This tool gives us a .332 BABIP for Shoppach in 2009 and a .322 mark for him during his 2008 career year. This estimator suppresses his 2008 numbers but does not damage them as much as alternative methods suggest.

Over Shoppach’s career (right around 900 at-bats) The Hardball Times BABIP estimator has his estimated career BABIP at .327 so his 2009 expected BABIP of .332 doesn’t sound out of line at all. This represents a much more realistic BABIP skill for Shoppach. A .332 BABIP for Shoppach in 2009 would have given him a .260/.381/.445 line assuming that all of those extra hits were singles. It’s fair to assume that his power would have increased more than the normal player with a boosted BABIP due to his known knack to hit for power so this revised projection might be a little light on the power side. I’d personally suppress the batting average and OBP a bit while adding some to the slugging percentage. That gives you some nifty production from the catcher position that some team will have to find resourceful if Cleveland decides to cut ties with the arbitration eligible Shoppach.

It’s worth keeping a close eye on Shoppach’s situation this off season especially since he doesn’t appear to fit Cleveland’s plans very well. Wherever he lands the month of March will likely be key to his future. If Shoppach receives ample playing time he should be a cheap source of power from the catcher position and can be had extra late in your drafts or plucked off of the waiver wire due to his uninspiring, yet misleading, 2009 campaign.

When All-Star catcher Victor Martinez went down due to injury, the Cleveland Indians figured to suffer a significant loss of production behind the plate. Instead, a former trade throw-in stepped to the fore and bashed 21 home runs, third-most among all backstops. Kelly Shoppach, a long-time Red Sox prospect picked up in the Andy Marte/Coco Crisp deal in January of 2006, made the most of his first opportunity at substantial major league playing time. While Marte continued to play his way into oblivion (-1.81 WPA/LI), Shoppach emerged as an important cog in Cleveland’s offense.

The former Baylor star batted .261/.348/.517, good for a 1.24 WPA/LI that ranked 7th among catchers. Shoppach’s .256 Isolated Power (ISO) topped his position by a healthy margin, besting Colorado’s Chris Ianetta by 16 points, and ranked 14th among all hitters with at least 400 PA.

While Shoppach has clearly proven that he possesses as much power as any player behind the dish, there are several reasons to expect a downturn in his performance, should he again see significant playing time in Cleveland or elsewhere.

Shoppach whiffs. A lot. In fact, only Three True Outcomes hero Jack Cust went down via strike three more often than Shoppach, who tied D-Backs third baseman Mark Reynolds with an ignoble 37.8 K%. As one would expect from such a high strikeout rate, Shoppach has significant issues making contact. His 64% contact rate ranked ahead of only Reynolds among all batters with at least 400 PA. Shoppach made contact with just 73.4% of pitches swung at within the strike zone, 3rd-worst among hitters (you guessed it, Reynolds and Cust rank 1st and 2nd). It’s not as though he’s a hacking mess at the plate (Shoppach drew walks at a 9.3% clip in 2008 and his O-Swing% was an average 25.6%), but chances are, he’ll either hit the ball across state lines or miss it entirely.

With a player like Shoppach who strike out so frequently, the ball is being put in play less often than it would be for a hitter with a more average contact rate. As such, hitters with high K rates are more prone to fluctuation in their Batting Average on Balls in Play (BABIP). Fewer opportunities for the ball to be put in play means a higher degree of variability, due to the smaller sample size.

Given Shoppach’s 18.6 Line Drive rate (LD%), we would expect his BABIP to come in around .306 (expected BABIP is LD% + .120, so .186 + .120 = .306). Shoppach’s actual BABIP? .359. That number is likely to tumble considerably in 2009. Players who strike out nearly 40% of the time just don’t hit .261 for any sustained length of time.

There’s no doubt that Kelly Shoppach can mash with the best of them behind the plate. However, his colossal K rate makes him a target for plenty of regression this upcoming season. If we adjust for his line drive rate and subtract those extra 53 points of average (the difference between his .359 BABIP and his .306 expected BABIP), Shoppach’s batting line is pared down to .208/.295/.464. The 28 year-old is a valuable player when he hits .260, but that’s just not going to continue. Barring huge gains in the contact department, Shoppach could be appealing to Pedro Cerrano’s shrine on a regular basis, deploring the existence of those darned curveballs.