Tag: The Catcher

This will begin a series where I will look at each position on the Pirates, see where they rank currently at the moment, and who is responsible for the ranking good or bad. Then we will see what the Pirates need to do to improve the position or how to maintain a position that is good. I was going to mix it in with my summaries of the games but each position deserves a blog of their own. I know the season is not over but in order to get this done in a timely fashion and to ease the boredom of watching meaningless games I thought I would start now. What better place to start than the catcher the so-called quarterback of the team when it is on the field. Let’s get stated.

The Pirate catching position is currently ranked 19th in all of baseball. Henry Davis is the man most responsible for the ranking. He has had 291 plate appearances which is almost as many as everybody else combined that has played catcher. There are 270 players in baseball that have had 290 or more plate appearances as of September 20th. Henry Davis has an OPS of .585 which is up about 20 points higher since his little spurt over the last 3 or 4 games. There is one player in this group of 270 that has a worse OPS than Davis. There are two other players who are tied with him. This puts him tied for 267th out of 270 players who have had that many plate appearances. There are 457 players that have had 100 or more plate appearances. That is about 25 games which should be enough to establish some kind of pattern. Davis comes in at 417th in that group. If you haven’t figured it by now, he is one of the worse hitters in baseball. He is an outstanding defensive catcher in many ways, but this cannot offset such a dismal offensive performance, even at such a defensive position. Other teams may be able to afford such an anemic bat in the lineup, but the Pirates cannot. He leads all of baseball in throwing out runners trying to steal. He throws them out at a 46% rate. That is elite. He is not a good pitch framer which might explain why he is not good at the ABS system challenge, although he is getting better. There have been 29 catchers in baseball that have made 80 or more challenges. Davis has made 101. He has been right 55.4 % of the time. This places him 22nd out of the 29 catchers. At one time he was as low as 30th. He has a defensive runs saved score of +7. In the Saber Defensive Index, he is one of the top 25 best defenders in the National League and the 4th best catcher. Despite this solid fielding record, the catcher position of the Pirates is ranked 19th out of 30 teams. They need to do better than that.

If you believe that Davis can find a way to become a little below average hitter, then the Pirates should give him another shot next year. I do not believe that so in my view it is time to cut the ties with the former no. 1 pick in the entire draft. I think there are many good teams out there that can afford to take Davis because they do not need any offense from the catcher position. He could go to a team that has a good offensive catcher with Davis as the backup. Rafael Flores Jr. has shown enough to be part of the catching tandem next year. Endy Rodriguez should be given one final chance to see if he can get through a season without serious injury. The upside is just too great not to take the risk. He will be only 27 next season. His OPS this year was .840 which is almost 300 points higher than Henry Davis. The Pirates have catchers in their minor league system that could step in to back up Flores if Rodriguez cannot stay healthy. Other than trading Davis I do not think the Pirates need to look for a catcher in the free agent market or the trade market to improve the position. With a little luck Rodriguez should be a huge upgrade. If Flores can continue to improve this could be a position for the Pirates that could be in the top 10 next year.