Twins #1 catcher?

[mikelink45]

24 minutes ago, Mike Sixel said:

Which would imply they have a number 2 catcher....which was denied in the first sentence. 

Okay - you win - when you combine the two of them!

[bean5302]

9 hours ago, Richie the Rally Goat said:

Sanchez’s wRC+ is 105. It’s weighted by field and position and half of his at bats have been as DH, but it doesn’t appear that his hitting has been significantly better than the average catcher.

Jeffers’ wRC+ is 88, so it’s safe to say he has been slightly to significantly below average with the bat.

I think it’s fair to say that Sanchez hits significantly better than Jeffers

wRC+ has no positional adjustment. It's adjusted for the park and other batters' performances. It's only value is to determine a batter's run production at the plate relative to all other batters.

[Richie the Rally Goat]

3 hours ago, mikelink45 said:

I guess fangraphs have not looked at the same stats that you have - they have us ranked 20th at catcher in positional rankings.

That article was published before the season started and was based on projections

[RpR]

The Twins may have gotten better use out of this pair if they still carried an emergency catcher on the roster, a role that Willians Astudillo, who is now with the Marlins, could adequately fill. I think if I ran the Twins, Sánchez would be the primary starter, but when we got a bit of a cushion, I’d be aggressive about inserting Jeffers, even in the early stages of the game. Playing the game state with catcher substitutions may be worth a few runs, but you would need some sort of third catcher in case of injury. Carrying José Godoy for this purpose is probably not the best use of roster resources.

[Richie the Rally Goat]

2 hours ago, bean5302 said:

wRC+ has no positional adjustment. It's adjusted for the park and other batters' performances. It's only value is to determine a batter's run production at the plate relative to all other batters.

Thanks for correcting my false assumption 

[mikelink45]

24 minutes ago, Richie the Rally Goat said:

That article was published before the season started and was based on projections

So?  I suspect the projections were right on and the ranking still holds for me.

Do you want the fantasy rankings?  Sanchez 16, Jeffers 35.  six days ago.   Choose the list, the URL.  we just are not as good as we would like  

[Richie the Rally Goat]

1 hour ago, mikelink45 said:

So?  I suspect the projections were right on and the ranking still holds for me.

Do you want the fantasy rankings?  Sanchez 16, Jeffers 35.  six days ago.   Choose the list, the URL.  we just are not as good as we would like  

Is fantasy baseball relevant to quality of actual baseball?

im not saying there isn’t room to improve. There is always room to improve. My argument is that Jeffers is better than Sanchez and Jeffers is underrated as a catcher by several posters in the thread.

On baseball savant, Jeffers is 5th in catcher framing runs. Sanchez is 29 (league average too), Garver is 33 (also league average)

on fangraphs wRC+ leaderboard filtered for catchers, standard 60 plate appearances, Jeffers is ranked 20. Sanchez is 23 (as a catcher). Garver is 14.

While that’s not “bad”, it certainly could be better. Trading away Garver wasn’t a huge drop off so far. There’s lots of season left.

Bullpen is a much higher priority for me and cheaper to get.

[bean5302]

I think other people's argument is Sanchez is better than Jeffers. Shrinking Sanchez's sample size at the plate down to only games he played at catcher this year for the comparison comes across as disingenuous to me. Sanchez has over 2000 plate appearances, almost exclusively at catcher and he's been a better than league average hitter across his career.

Ryan Jeffers has been decidedly much worse than average apart from a very small sample size of 62 plate appearances in his rookie campaign.

While Jeffers has been and is a better pitch framer, Jeffers has been well below average across his career when it comes to controlling the run game where Sanchez has been better than average in his career. Catcher framing techniques can be learned whereas arm accuracy, and throwing speed are often physically limited. Ultimately, Jeffers is not a great defensive catcher; he's just middle of the road behind the plate, and across his career experience, he can't hit.

Honestly, it feels like your position on Jeffers is a lopsided with wishful thinking than actual results. Unless Jeffers turns things around significantly at the plate, I wouldn't consider him to be acceptable as anything other than depth.

[bighat]

21 hours ago, Richie the Rally Goat said:

also, Catcher’s fielding matters more than any other position.

Eh, I'd disagree. Shortstop matters more, one could argue 3B and CF are also higher on the scale. Just my opinion, of course!

[mikelink45]

10 hours ago, Richie the Rally Goat said:

Is fantasy baseball relevant to quality of actual baseball?

im not saying there isn’t room to improve. There is always room to improve. My argument is that Jeffers is better than Sanchez and Jeffers is underrated as a catcher by several posters in the thread.

On baseball savant, Jeffers is 5th in catcher framing runs. Sanchez is 29 (league average too), Garver is 33 (also league average)

on fangraphs wRC+ leaderboard filtered for catchers, standard 60 plate appearances, Jeffers is ranked 20. Sanchez is 23 (as a catcher). Garver is 14.

While that’s not “bad”, it certainly could be better. Trading away Garver wasn’t a huge drop off so far. There’s lots of season left.

Bullpen is a much higher priority for me and cheaper to get.

20 puts us in the last third of the league.  That is my point - I have used fantasy, I have gone to the standard references and still cannot find one that puts us in the top third of even top half of the league.  So I conceded in one post that combined we have a number 2 catcher, but until Jeffers progresses we do not have a number one. 

[wsnydes]

In general, I haven't been impressed by the defense of either Jeffers or Sanchez.  There are factors that are tough to evaluate, especially with as many games as I follow on the radio or Gamecast, so I can't opine so much on those.  Controlling a run game isn't the tool that it used to be, as much as I dislike that.  What I care about most are calling a good game (which is tough to evaluate from a fans perspective) and controlling balls in the dirt and or keeping balls in front of them.  I don't think either are particularly adept at that.  2 PB each, while a small number, is quite a bit for being not quite 1/3 of the way through the season.

And offensively, it's not really a contest.  Sanchez was the better bat even before his latest hot streak.    

I think there's plenty of room for improvement at the position, especially defensively.  It's not my highest priority, but there can be improvement there.

[MinnInPa]

On 5/29/2022 at 2:26 PM, tony&rodney said:

Trade for Rortvedt?

he was horrible..we dont need another .190 hitter in this lineup

[GeorgiaBaller]

I agree that catcher is much more about D than his bat.  it matters who handles the pitchers better and runs the field better.  Catcher has to run the ballgame---especially with young pitchers.  Who is your better manager and D behind the plate?  who are your pitchers comfortable with? Framing is still very important---more important that plate appearances.  It won't be for long---but we don't have Auto Ump's calling balls and strikes yet.

Nothing against Sanchez, but the BA #'s are not terribly different with about the same HR and RBI's.  

[tarheeltwinsfan]

On 5/29/2022 at 4:32 PM, Richie the Rally Goat said:

There were a total of 2,214 bases stolen in 2021 out of 2429 games played, or less than one stolen base per game.

on the other hand there are on average 140 pitches thrown per game.

a catcher with good arm who can throw base stealers out impacts approximately 1 to 3 outcomes per game, but a good pitch framer (or bad) impacts dozens of outcomes per game, potentially 3-4 outs per game, maybe more. Stolen bases per season are trending down, pitches per game are trending up.

a good pitch framer is way more valuable than a good arm.

as evidenced by the games caught, Jeffers is as the vastly superior framer has caught 28 games to Sanchez’s 19. Jeffers is a top 10 catcher by OAA vs Sanchez is in the 25-35 range (league average)

Jeffers is #1 and should be

Interesting points. I must agree, though I would rather have Sanchez batting right now. Maybe the Twins can have the hotter hitting of the 2 catchers batting more, as their hitting ebbs and flows during the season.

[GeorgiaBaller]

We may never see another Joe Mauer/Buster Posey---winning batting titles and playing a gold glove level behind the plate---they are generational unicorns.  Totally underappreciated.  But, Catcher has to be a priority for this team to figure out.  Catcher will set the tone fore the infield and the Pitcher if Correa does not stay.   Goodness knows the headcases in our bullpen could use someone to convey calm confidence---or tell the Mgr they need to be pulled!

 

 

[tarheeltwinsfan]

I hope the Twins draft either Kevin Prada or Kevin Susac. Both are consensus top 10 ranked prospects who are college catchers at Georgia Tech and Arizona, respectively. This will fill a current need for the Twins minor league system and 2-3 years down the road, one of them will be catching for the Twins.

[Richie the Rally Goat]

38 minutes ago, tarheeltwinsfan said:

Interesting points. I must agree, though I would rather have Sanchez batting right now. Maybe the Twins can have the hotter hitting of the 2 catchers batting more, as their hitting ebbs and flows during the season.

To that end, Sanchez has been hot lately and needs to be in the lineup. He should DH or catch most days.

Jeffers has been slumping, but his fielding is so good.

Thinking of scale of impact of catcher fielding: Jeffers has 286 put outs in 267 innings at catcher, 1.07 put outs per inning.

Carlos Correa has 36 put outs in 295 innings at SS. .122 put outs per inning.
 

It doesn’t weight the impact of put outs. There’s no leverage score. However if we think of how important up the middle fielding is by the number of times a fielder touches the ball, the only player that touches the ball more than the catcher, is the pitcher.

Sanchez has been ripping the cover off lately, he needs to be in the lineup, probably best to be DH frequently because of Jeffers’ value fielding.

[tony&rodney]

It is always interesting to compare how Twins fans feel about their players and the practices of various teams around baseball. Houston believes that Maldonado is worth it even if he hits around .100. Tampa Bay chooses to use Zunino behind the plate. New York was elated to steal Rortvedt and Kiner-Filafa as the price to pay for taking all of Donaldson's contract even as they shed Sanchez. Now I think Sanchez has been ok behind the plate, almost a surprise after generally being pilloried as the worst catcher in the American League. At least one person thought Rortvedt was terrible which would be a shock to NYY GM Cashman, but Ben has been sidelined with an injury. Finally, it is a curious take that so many TD fans laud the defense of the young Ryan Jeffers, a player expected to hit whose hitting skills are are little sideways right now. Jeffers gets the proverbial blessing by some for "framing" but can't throw and using the taught stance has difficulty with blocking at times. I do believe that Jeffers can become a solid catcher and I do like the seemingly improved Sanchez, but it is also noteworthy that many of the teams we expect to see in the playoffs would not view our guys with the same glasses, at all.