Catcher Next

[Edgy MD]

So, if the Mets look to be without Thole for a day or two, they've got to look at their depth at catcher. Very interesting in that they built their catching depth this offseason around guys who can play other positions --- May, Johnson, and Rottino, knowing such guys can stick as third-stringers while they help out elsewhere. All three, I think, lasted until the later cuts at camp.

But if they've got to make a move, who will it be?

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

Dock Doyle or nothing.

[Edgy MD]

Isn't Doyle choking down a suspension or something?

[nymr83]

New this year is the SEVEN day DL on which clubs can place players with concusssion symptoms. May help the Mets decide to play it safe with Thole.

[Ceetar]

I think I favor May. He's been playing pretty well, has some power, and well, the calendar in his favor. And he doesn't walk less than Rob Johnson.

The plural of Lucas is Lucii right?

although I do kinda like Kai Gronauer. Bring on the German! (he's not hitting much last I looked)

[Guest LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr]

Nickeas is our legit defensive catcher, so might as well amp up the power if you'll 7-day Thole (probably the wisest course). Plus, in a season like this, I like weird, multi-position-eligible guys. Since we've already got Rottino, gimme ham-gloved Lucas May. Gimme all the Lucases you got.

[Edgy MD]

LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr wrote: Plus, in a season like this, I like weird, multi-position-eligible guys.

Exactly. It's fun when the manager has a wide assortment of options for defensive alignments, even if none of them are particularly good options.

[Vic Sage]

Lucas rhymes with mucus,
Rottino starts with "rot",
Johnson is a euphemism for "penis",
and ST:Generations sucked.

I'm not liking our options.

[Guest LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr]

Toby Hyde makes a passable-- if not terribly enthusiastic-- case for one of the options here:

The two catchers currently on the Buffalo Bisons roster are 27 year old Lucas May and 28 year old Rob Johnson. Johnson has a better arm, but is a poor receiver and May has a little more power at the plate. For his minor league career, Johnson has thrown out 36% of basestealers, while May has nabbed 27%. When he was in the big leagues, Johnson was just about the worst catcher defensively, costing his teams about 8 runs each defensively per 120 games through failing to block balls and his inability to frame pitches. In three seasons of AAA work, May has hit .265/.338/.474 while Johnson has hit .273/.327/.389 in his five seasons in AAA. Both have been dreadful offensively in the big leagues: May hit .189/.205/.216 in 39 PA for Kansas City in 2010, while Johnson has �hit� .197/.275/.297 in 733 PA between Seattle and San Diego between 2007 and 2011. May was drafted as a shortstop and did not start catching until age 22 in advanced-A. Lucas May is the choice here. Johnson is not a Major League caliber player offensively or defensively.

[Edgy MD]

And on cue:

Adam Rubin ? @AdamRubinESPN As expected, I'm hearing Rob Johnson has been dispatched from Bisons to Philly. #mets

D'oh!

[Guest LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr]

He's been the one starting at AAA, and has more-- albeit terrible-- major-league experience, so... yeah, it still doesn't really make sense, but it makes "baseball sense," in a way similar to the "closing experience" thing.

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

You wonder why Johnson has a reputation as a defensive catcher then?

edit: oh yes, experience.

[Ceetar]

I suspect Nickeas is going to get at least half those starts anyway.

At the very least he better get Dickey's starts.

[Guest LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr]

You wonder why Johnson has a reputation as a defensive catcher then? edit: oh yes, experience.

Since I saw the Hyde thing, I've been intermittently looking for anything online that contradicts that account of his defense... and coming up empty. Fangraphs UZR, B-R fielding numbers, traditional fielding stats, anecdotal evidence... it all paints a picture of a poor-to-very-poor receiver with half-decent throwing numbers.

I wonder if lazy FO folk-- ahem, from other teams, of course-- just looked at his MLB experience, his wretched batting stats, and figured he MUST be good defensively to get that much playing time.

[Ceetar]

yeah, I find it hard to understand what they saw in him to bring him in in the first place, and why he's the third string guy.

[Edgy MD]

You wonder why Johnson has a reputation as a defensive catcher then? edit: oh yes, experience. Since I saw the Hyde thing, I've been intermittently looking for anything online that contradicts that account of his defense... and coming up empty. Fangraphs UZR, B-R fielding numbers, traditional fielding stats, anecdotal evidence... it all paints a picture of a poor-to-very-poor receiver with half-decent throwing numbers. I wonder if lazy FO folk-- ahem, from other teams, of course-- just looked at his MLB experience, his wretched batting stats, and figured he MUST be good defensively to get that much playing time.

I'm gonna guess they had their reasons for bringing his ass into camp.

In Rottino, May, and Johnson, they get three guys (1) who can catch, (2) but aren't necessarily catchers, (3) can play all around, (4) have hit, (5) but have not in the bigs, and (6) at least in two of these cases, are on the right side of 30.

I think they did their research and decided that this was a profitable archetype to invest in with their AAAA-designated dollars.

[Benjamin Grimm]

I think they should activate Ron Hodges.

[Guest vtmet]

Jean Luc Blacquiere

I didn't vote for him, but I thought that was a fictional Met catcher (doing a play on the Star Trek thing)...but apparently a real catcher in the Mets system...lol

[Guest vtmet]

You wonder why Johnson has a reputation as a defensive catcher then? edit: oh yes, experience.

apparently, Felix Hernandez pitched pretty well when Johnson was his catcher (then again, it's not like he was catching Oliver Perez)...

3 catchers have caught King Felix for the bulk of his career starts (Kenji Johjima, Rob Johnson and Miguel Olivo) & out of those 3, King Felix had his best ERA when Johnson was behind the plate:

Felix splits by top 3 catchers (in terms of games, not ERA):
Kenji: 4.21 ERA; .274 BAA; .334 OBP; .419 slugging %; .753 OPS; 72 games; 455 innings; 6.32 innings/start;
Johnson: 2.53 ERA; .228 BAA; .289 OBP; .318 Slg %; .607 OPS; 48 games; 341 innings; 7.10 innings/start;
Olivo: 3.32 ERA; .242 BAA; .300 OBP; .350 Slg %; .650 OPS; 31 games; 222 innings; 7.16 innings/start;

http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/split.cgi?id=hernafe02&year=Career&t=p#catch

Unfortunately, he's not gonna be catching King Felix in a Mets uniform however...

[Edgy MD]

That's a good stat, though.

[metsmarathon]

how does it compare with other of seattle's pitchers? do they all or mostly all do better with johnson, or is it just a king felix type of thing?

y'know, for however much cedence you lend cera.

[Guest vtmet]

metsmarathon wrote: how does it compare with other of seattle's pitchers? do they all or mostly all do better with johnson, or is it just a king felix type of thing? y'know, for however much cedence you lend cera.

King Felix was the only pitcher that immediately came to mind (I honestly know every little about the recent Mariners because they aren't very good...I know a little more about the Ancient Mariners)...but you can look up each individual Mariner pitcher's splits by catcher if you so choose ( http://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/SEA/ )...2007 through 2011 are the years in question by the way...

[Edgy MD]

I'll take Washburn...

2009:
Alex Avila: 3 G, 12.2 IP, 10.66 ERA, 1.071 OPS
Jamie Burke: 1 G, 5.1 IP, 10.12 ERA, 1.074 OPS
Kenji Johjima: 3 G, 15.0 IP, 6.00 ERA, .774 OPS
Rob Johnson: 16 G, 106.2 IP, 1.86 ERA, .552 OPS
Gerald Laird: 5 G, 30.1 IP, 5.93 ERA, .873 OPS
Guillermo Quiroz: 1 G, 6.0 IP, 1.50 ERA, .681 OPS

Nice.

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

Jason Vargas seemed largely unaffected in 2010 and pitched better with Johnson in 2009 than with Kenji Jojima.

[Ceetar]

It's worth pointing out that defensive metrics are already really sketchy and catching ones doubly so.

[Edgy MD]

Consider us so advised.

[Guest vtmet]

I'll take Washburn... 2009: Alex Avila: 3 G, 12.2 IP, 10.66 ERA, 1.071 OPS Jamie Burke: 1 G, 5.1 IP, 10.12 ERA, 1.074 OPS Kenji Johjima: 3 G, 15.0 IP, 6.00 ERA, .774 OPS Rob Johnson: 16 G, 106.2 IP, 1.86 ERA, .552 OPS Gerald Laird: 5 G, 30.1 IP, 5.93 ERA, .873 OPS Guillermo Quiroz: 1 G, 6.0 IP, 1.50 ERA, .681 OPS Nice.

I don't remember much about Washburn, other than he was a hyped LHP that didn't really live up to expectations (not bad career numbers, but not Tom Glavine type of success either)...

Based on Johnson's success with Washburn, it might be interesting to see how Niese would do with a few starts with Johnson...Niese's numbers seem to vary quite a bit from catcher to catcher, and he doesn't have particularly good numbers with Thole (4.66 ERA in 32 games)...

http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/split.cgi?id=niesejo01&year=Career&t=p#catch

[Guest LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr]

Ceetar wrote: It's worth pointing out that defensive metrics are already really sketchy and catching ones doubly so.

It's worth emphasizing that catcher ERA is maybe the worst/stat-noisiest of these, as well.

But yeah, here are the numbers, for your perusal-- 50-plus inning catchers over his tenure there.

2008
Kenji Johjima 833 1/3 innings, 4.57 ERA, .276/.352/.426, 1.62 K/BB
Jeff Clement 292 innings, 5.05 ERA, .274/.347/.439, 1.61 K/BB
Jamie Burke 246 innings, 4.79 ERA, .276/.347/.432, 1.70 K/BB
Rob Johnson 64 innings, 5.06 ERA, .296/.384/.502, 1.48 K/BB

2009
Rob Johnson 684 1/3 innings, 3.22 ERA, .234/.299/.361, 2.23 K/BB
Kenji Johjima 580 innings, 4.84 ERA, .262/.336/.441, 1.71 K/BB
Jamie Burke 96 2/3 innings, 2.98 ERA, .239/.312/.338, 1.79 K/BB
Adam Moore 57 innings, 2.53 ERA, .230/.301/.347, 1.86 K/BB

2010
Adam Moore 514 2/3 innings, 3.62 ERA, .239/.305/.378, 2.08 K/BB
Rob Johnson 510 2/3 innings, 3.97 ERA, .260/.314/.400, 2.33 K/BB
Josh Bard 304 innings, 4.29 ERA, .265/.313/.426, 2.44 K/BB
Eliezer Alfonzo 91 innings, 4.65 ERA, .276/.350/.471, 1.41 K/BB

[Guest vtmet]

LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr wrote: Ceetar wrote: It's worth pointing out that defensive metrics are already really sketchy and catching ones doubly so. It's worth emphasizing that catcher ERA is maybe the worst/stat-noisiest of these, as well.

I kind of had to scoff at that article when the author decided to shoot down Catcher's ERA by comparing Micheal Barrett to Jason Varitek...one being a career National League catcher, with the other being a career AL East catcher playing 1/2 of his games in Fenway Park...of course the NL catcher is going to have a better CERA...And obviously, the pitchers are going to have a large affect on the CERA; but it is interesting to notice that at various times, it APPEARS that a particular pitcher's results might be influenced by his battery mate (the guy calling pitch selection and location)...

[Guest LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr]

But there's so much other noise/random variance, even if you're comparing performance with two catchers and the same pitcher. If all you have is the appearance of different performance, well... it's really tough to call it a trend, rather than a collision of random circumstances.

And that there may be a statistically-significant difference in how someone performs with two different catchers doesn't tell us ANYTHING about the why, and-- unlike with ERA (another problematic, noisy stat)-- it's damn near impossible to untangle the why, even with Pitch F/X. Without any hint of the "why," I'm not sure there's any predictive value to these numbers.