READ LAST WEEK’S ARTICLE BEFORE THIS IF YOU HAVEN’T:
Last week, I figured out how the value of catchers would change with the automatic strike zone. We were able to see what catchers benefitted and downgraded due to that new change, with Austin Hedges losing the most value and Elias Diaz, Omar Narvaez, and Pedro Severino losing the least. So with that being said, what catchers, in the majors and minors, could teams go after right now that they could buy low on? Today, I’ll present to you players that I think teams should trade or sign for with the automated strike zone seeming very likely to come in the near future.
First things first though, we need to figure out what stats relate to the new WAR the best from my calculation last week. For a reminder, here’s what I used to calculate it:
No Strike Zone Fielding Runs = rCERA + rSB + rGFP
rCERA = runs for catcher ERA
rSB = runs for throwing runners out on stolen base attempts
rGFP = runs for “weird’’ plays, plays not typically tracked
Positional Adjustment = -10 per 1,458 innings (estimate)
Runs per win in 2019 = 10.296
No SZ WAR = (Off + no SZ Fld + Pos Adj. + Lg. Adj. + Replacement) / (R/Win)
The two components that players can change through their performance in this equation is their offense and defense, the rest change based on how many games they play. So, to figure out what players teams should target, I had figure out if Off or No SZ Fld (Adjusted DRS) leads to a higher WAR. To do this, I used R^2 to figure out which stat is related to WAR more. Here are the results:
As you can see, the R^2 for Off is .736 showing that there is a pretty strong relationship between it and the new WAR, while for defense it’s .173, which is low. This means that a player who is good offensively will typically have more value than a player who is good at the aspects of defense that aren’t framing. So, teams could target players that are great offensively, but their value right now is brought down due to their bad defense and framing.
Now I have the information I need to find players that could be bought at a low price right now and gain value later on, which is primarily focused on offense. But before I do that, I also wanted to find what teams would benefit the most from doing this. To do this, I downloaded my catcher chart into R Studio and filtered out the catchers by team then made it into a data frame. I then created two graphs using the ggplot function, one for teams with their difference between their new and old WAR, and one chart for teams and the new WAR. There are two teams that are missing on the charts, the Angels and Royals, because catchers needed at least 500 innings caught to qualify, and Lucroy (Angels) and Maldonado (Royals) played on a different team eventually in the season, so they are listed on the “- - -” team. Here are charts:
Based on the first chart, it seemed as though that four of the six teams losing the most value, the Indians, Brewers, Red Sox, and Phillies, would be in trouble if this would happen and need to find a new catcher before this new rule comes into place. But that’s not the case, as all of them are above average in the new WAR chart, with Philadelphia going far and away from everybody else as the only team with at least a 3 WAR. The reason these teams lost more than others is because they had more to start with, so they had more to lose overall. The same thing goes the other way, the Pirates lost the most WAR but they also ended up with the worst at the end as well. So to figure out what teams would need a new catcher when this rule would come into place, we should look at the second chart with total WAR. The stats are based on where players played in 2019, so the charts would change if we had players change teams. So at this point in time, the teams that should be looking for new catchers based on the rule change are the Pirates, Rangers, Tigers, A’s, and Padres. Now on to the main point of this article: What players should those teams be going after?
There are two types of players that teams could look at; MLB catchers who hit well and aren't the best fielders or minor league guys who rake in AAA. I’ll talk about three of each of these guys and then also give some honorable mentions for others who would fit the criteria as well. I’ll start with MLB catchers.
Omar Narvaez
He’s not a guy that a team could get for absolutely nothing, but his worth would go up a ton if the automated strike zone were put into place. My old WAR for him was a 19th place 1.2 and he only dropped 0.2 due to his good offensive ability which would carry him up the leaderboard to 10th. He had a .345 wOBA and a 119 wRC+ in 2019 and that was along with playing 132 games. He did very close to the same thing the year before with the White Sox as he had a .348 wOBA and a 122 wRC+, so it’s not like he was a one year fluke. The reason he isn’t worth much more is because his fielding and framing are bad, he had a -8 rSZ and a -18 DRS last year. This past offseason, he was traded for the Brewers’ former #24 prospect in RHP Adam Hill (MLB Pipeline) and a competitive balance pick. That trade helps us here as we can see what teams actually value Narvaez and it isn’t a huge amount, so he’s a perfect player to get to step into a starting catcher role without worrying about framing.
Stephen Vogt
Vogt has been around the block as he’s going to be joining his 5th team in 2020 with the Diamondbacks. He’s been about an average hitter throughout his career with a 99 wRC+, and last year was a little bit above average with a 107 and a .331 wOBA. The same as Narvaez, Vogt’s defense is not very good as he had a -4 DRS and a -1 rSZ. If a team would want to get the most out of him, they could decide to platoon him, in 2019, he had a wOBA of .344 and a wRC+ of 115 against lefties, so pairing him with a solid right hander who can hit lefties well could give a team a ton of value from the catcher spot. Right now, he’s the back up catcher to the young Carson Kelly and could be a decent option to grab for teams before this rule change happens.
Victor Caratini
Finally, we have a young catcher who hasn’t gotten consistent playing time behind the plate in the big leagues quite yet. Last year, Victor Caratini started 48 games at catcher for the Cubs and even though there are some concerns with Contreras’s defensive ability, that gets thrown out the window with this new rule since he’s a great hitter. This gives Caratini an even smaller chance to get time in the field as the only other positon he started at in 2019 was first base, but that’s filled by Anthony Rizzo. He’s a solid hitter too, as he should be, he is on this list after all. His wOBA was .338 and his wRC+ was 108 in 2019. The Cubs would be wasting his talent on the bench and a trade could get them something they need back. This gives other teams a chance to acquire him at a possible lower cost as well and could give them a solid switch hitting catcher.
Honorable mention: Kurt Suzuki
With the MiLB catchers, there isn’t much available in terms of advanced defensive statistics, so I strictly looked at their offensive number as it really shouldn’t affect too much since offense is th most important thing with the new WAR.
David Freitas
If the Brewers wouldn’t be willing to move Narvaez, go and get their AAA catcher David Freitas! He hasn’t performed yet in the big leagues when he’s gotten there, but he’s only played 59 games. His minor league track record shows that he can rake, as he’s been the top offensive catcher in the PCL the last two years combined, with a .432 wOBA and a 154 wRC+. If a team could figure out how to get him to produce offensively in the majors, he could be one of the most valuable players in all of baseball, and he comes extremely cheap right now, as he is a 31 year old AAA player.
Yermin Mercedes or Zack Collins
Yes, I know I said that there would only be six players that are mentioned on this list, and yes, I know that these two guys are good prospects in the White Sox system, but it just seems like a great option to try to make a trade for one of them. According to FanGraphs, Collins is the Sox #7 prospect and Mercedes follows behind at #8, I think that this would be a solid option to try to make a trade at a lower value because whoever gets to the majors first and succeeds is definitely going to gain trade value and the other that becomes the back up or doesn’t make it to the majors first is going to possibly drop and a team could find a solid player there. They’re both great minor league hitters, Collins had a 140 wRC+ and Mercedes had a 150. They seem like they’re almost the same players and they’re both good, so whichever team grabs one of them should get a good hitter, as that’s the most important thing with their new values.
Deivy Grullon
Finally, another young player, Deivy Grullon is a catcher in the Phillies organization who isn’t an amazing prospect, but he has hit well in the minor leagues. Last year in AAA, he had a .364 wOBA and a 115 wRC+, and the year before in AA, he had a wOBA of .359 and a wRC+ of 123. He already comes pretty cheap since he’s not a premier prospect, but the fact that J.T. Realmuto being in front of him doesn’t help his chances of ever starting and makes it even easier to acquire him for other teams since he’s not going to be the main guy in the near future.
Honorable mentions: Austin Allen, Tyler Heineman/Rob Brantly
There’s one more thing that I’d also like to mention, on Wednesday night, the Yankees used their 28th overall selection to draft Austin Wells, a catcher from the University of Arizona. The reason I am talking about him is because he has had questions about his defense, but is a good hitter. Similar to what I’ve been doing with these past couple articles! So I’m wondering if Yankees possibly had this in mind when making the pick. There’s always players with defensive questions getting drafted, but seeing that the other night caught my attention and I think it is very interesting.
With the automated strike zone coming in the foreseeable future, this could potentially be a strategy that is implemented with major league teams when trying to reconstruct their catching core. As mentioned in the last article, defensive catchers are going to lose jobs because of this and also, the role of the catching coach is going to go down too and they’ll start to focus even more on the thing that numbers haven’t been able to exactly quantify yet: pitch calling. Whether or not this is the strategy that teams take, this seems like, at least to me, a good approach that teams could take to this situation.
ALL STATS ARE FROM FANGRAPHS
COVERPHOTO FROM THE SPOKESMAN-REVIEW: SEATTLE MARINERS
ARTICLE IDEA FROM ETHAN MOORE
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