Catching Grief

I'm becoming increasingly convinced that sinking big money into the catching position is a fool's errand.

Actually, I'm not sure that this is true.  First off, it seems the market already corrects for this a bit -- there haven't been a lot of big money FA catcher deals.  Secondly, the ones that have happened appear to be working out OK.  Russell Martin had a dreadful start to the season, but he is slowly climbing back -- .800 OPS since June 1st, he could easily finish about league average for the season.  McCann has been pretty solid in NY too.

Beyond that, there have been a few extensions.  Yadier Molina's bat has slipped but his defense has kept him valuable.  Miguel Montero's deal was probably a bit excessive, but Arizona was able to dump much of it on the Cubs.  Obviously Posey and Mauer were mega-extensions for franchise players, a little hard to compare with the rest of this group.

So basically, I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss the top catching option on the FA market as too expensive.

And is deemed so valuable that he still is a Mud Hen, despite a starting catcher on the major league squad OPSing under .600.

With positive defense!  After a respectable 88 OPS+ last year.

Also, while McCann is the nominal starter in Detroit, Salty has been seeing significant action and has a .716 OPS.

I think you can make a case that John Hicks' lack of MLB opportunity there so far is based on a defensible decision to stick with that pair, rather than try to break-in Hicks during a pennant race.  (Hicks doesn't even have the benefit of spring training working with the Detroit pitching staff, having been acquired in April.)

Not that Hicks has great value or anything, but I wouldn't read too much into him still being in AAA.  The fact that he's still on their 40-man roster, and 3rd on their depth chart (meaning they didn't try to acquire anyone else at the deadline), suggests they are still comfortable with him and giving him an opportunity if the need arises.

Dunno, I guess I see it differently. McCann has been pretty underwhelming for the Yankees, hovering around a 100 OPS+ with 2+ more years on his deal. He's been nothing more than adequate at $17m per season.

McCann has been worth 4.6 bWAR / 5.3 fWAR in his first two full years of that deal.  And that doesn't including framing (not sure where he ranks, though).  Less than $7 mil per win.  This year he's a little lower but he's getting dinged in fielding by -4, not sure if that's real or just a small sample issue.  And he's been pretty consistent/durable which has value to a contender -- the Yankees basically haven't had to worry about the catcher position, invest other resources into it, rush their catching prospects, etc. because of confidence in McCann's high floor, even if he hasn't much exceeded it so far.

I know McCann apparently cleared trade waivers this month, but I wouldn't read too much into that -- the Yankees weren't going to let him go for nothing so I think that influenced potential claims.

I'm not saying McCann has been worthless, he has been adequate.

 

At $17m per season, the Yankees can deal with "adequate". As we've seen with Mauer, the Twins can't easily absorb that kind of money for middling performance.

 

But McCann had a 120-ish OPS+ in the six years leading up to the NYY deal. The Yankees surely expected decline but I doubt they expected a 20% drop in performance on day one and through the front half of the contract.

The Twins most certainly could have dealt with "adequate" Mauer if he was still a full-time catcher.  Adequate catchers are very valuable.

I am sure the Yankees would have liked a higher level of offense from McCann, but I think a large part of what they were buying was his floor, not his ceiling.

The Twins should not do that. Look at Russell Martin this year, #2 of his 5 year deal. His OPS is .677. Maybe that's an aberration but since he's a 33 year old catcher, I doubt it. He's going to be a backup level catcher earning $16 mill/year for the next three years. You see similar things with every single free agent catcher signed to more than 3 years. It's just a bad market - age and wear and tear are an unbeatable force. And Ramos adds in the uncertainty of being injury prone and posting two subpar seasons before this year's good year.

Ramos will be 3 years younger than Martin when he signed that deal, and even with his great season, most experts cap the length of a Ramos deal at 4 years.  That would run through his age 32 season -- Martin last season, or Brian McCann this season. A team signing Ramos will not be stuck with his age 33-35 seasons.

Also, it seems you are being a little harsh/selective on Martin.  He's at an 84 OPS+ for the season right now, which isn't necessarily backup level for a catcher -- that, plus good defense/framing is often acceptable for a starting catcher, and it's pretty much what we were hoping Murphy would do to claim the starting job here.  And so far, Martin's 84 OPS+ for the season is largely affected by a disastrous April -- since May 1st, his OPS is .742, equal to Suzuki's 2016 season number.  Since June 1st, his OPS is .800.  Obviously the poor start still counts, I am not asking anyone to throw it out, but it doesn't quite fit the neat little narrative that he is collapsing at age 33 and bound to get worse.

I'm not necessarily on the Ramos bandwagon, but I wouldn't discount him yet.  The point of my posts above is to suggest that the market hasn't necessarily priced catchers unreasonably before.  If we preclude consideration of the top FA catchers because we don't want to pay for the extra catcher risks, we might essentially be double-counting those risks because they are already reflected in the market price.

If Ramos finishes strong and fetches 4/60, that's not necessarily bad.  A short-term veteran may require $5-10 mil himself, so really you are just paying an extra $50-55 mil for Ramos, on his age 29-32 seasons, with demonstrated 4+ WAR upside.  Also, he's often had a manageable K rate, and it's gotten even lower this year after LASIK surgery -- that low K rate could be something the Twins lineup sorely lacks.

If an internal option develops, I think Ramos at those terms would be movable during the contract under most outcomes, thanks to the perpetual weak catching market.  Even if Ramos bottoms out like 2015 again, his defense kept him worth 0.8 bWAR that season.  Arizona got out from under 3/40 of Miguel Montero who posted a 0.8 bWAR combined for his age 29-30 seasons.  It's a lot harder for a young catcher's market value to crater than, say, Ricky Nolasco's -- there just aren't a lot of alternatives.