Earlier this month, the Pirates decided to part ways with Elias Diaz. 12 months ago, he looked like the catcher of the future, but after a disastrous season at the plate and behind the dish, new GM Ben Cherington decided the team was better off without him.
In the following weeks, Cherington talked about how he was looking for a good-gloved catcher who could help manage the staff. Sure, getting someone who could help on offense too would be a plus, but as he put it, “We can’t always get everything we want.”
Cherington put "we can't always get everything we want" into action by signing catcher Luke Maile to a major league deal this week. Maile checks the boxes of being a good defensive catcher and Cherington is familiar with him since they were both Blue Jays the past few seasons. Maile had a fine season in 2018 where he looked like one of the game's best backup catchers, but like Diaz, he was non-tendered after a terrible 2019 campaign.
It's not guaranteed the Pirates will use Jacob Stallings and Maile as their top two catchers next season. There is still plenty of offseason to go, so they could either sign or trade for a backstop. Maile is one option year remaining, meaning the Pirates could stash him in Triple-A as depth. They could even use the new 26th roster spot for a third catcher. Signing Maile gives them some flexibility with the position.
But for now, Stallings and Maile are the only two catchers on the 40-man roster. Unless another acquisition is made, we have to assume they will be the Pirates' opening day battery. If they are the top two catchers in late March, two things will be certain: They will be one of the worst hitting catching units in baseball, and they will be one of the best fielding catching units in baseball.
Let's start with the offense. Maile hit .151 last year. Yikes. Batting average isn't exactly a great stat to measure a hitter's output, but good hitters don't bat a buck-fifty.
If you are a cup half full type of person, Mailee is a year removed from a season where he had a serviceable .700 OPS, and his expected stats in 2019 were much better than his actual results. If you see the cup as half empty, his expected stats from last year were still pretty bad, and he outpaced his xStats in 2018. Over the last two years, his expected and actual results even out:
Maile's walk rate dropped from 10.8% to 6.2% last year, which is the reason why his xwOBA fell in 2019. Besides that, his expected batting average and slugging percentage were the same the last two years. They are not great expected stats, but it is a noticeable improvement over what he did last season.
I think saying the two years averaged out is a bit of any over simplification, though. It's a subtle difference, but in the film I watched on him, Maile did a better job maintaining his spine angle during his swing in 2018 compared to last year. He was able to keep his composure.
Let's compare two of his swings. The first is from 2018 against a fastball on the inner-third of the plate:
This is a good piece of hitting. He stays in on the pitch, opens up his hips at the right time, gets his hands through the zone and drops it into center for a base knock. His back does not stay perfectly in line with the original hip hinge, but it is close enough that he can still use the energy his body created to drive it into center.
Now here he is in June of last year. It's another fastball on the inner-third, but this time, he grounds out to second:
He is still using the same fundamentals from 2018, but he was not getting any power from his body on that swing. Almost all of the force he applied to that ball came from his arms, and a bad back angle is partially to blame.
Please excuse the blurriness, but here is Maile at the point of contact for these two swings. The line is his back angle on the first swing:
He is definitely more bent in the second swing, but this looks like an easy enough fix for Rick Eckstein and the future assistant hitting coach. This won't turn him into Buster Posey overnight, but this is a small tweak that could help close the 60 point gap between his actual and expected batting average.
Ok, that's enough on just Maile's hitting. Last year, Stallings had 210 plate appearances and Maile had 129. Factoring in their plate appearances, they combined for a .260 wOBA and .292 xwOBA. Last year, Pirates catchers combined for a .267 wOBA and .289 xwOBA. There would be virtually no offensive drop-off going from Diaz and Stallings to Stallings and Maile.
Now this is largely due to Stallings being a much better hitter than Diaz last year and drastically increasing his role in the offense. While Stallings' batted ball profile supports that he improved as a hitter last year, it's fair to be skeptical of if he will be able to duplicate those results next season, especially if he is given a larger role.
And while there would be theoretically no offensive drop-off, that is still not good. Last year, Pirates catchers finished 28th in wOBA (.267), 28th in slugging (.310) and 21st in walks (40). Not getting worse should not be the goal. They need to improve.
But how important is catcher offense to a team's success? I took every team's catcher wRC+ from the last five years and graphed it against their winning percentage and found there was virtually no correlation:
In general, catchers do not provide that much offense. Over the last five years, they have a league wide wRC+ of 86, which is the lowest out of any position. Even with that modest total, some of the best teams in recent memory excelled without getting much help at the dish from their backstops. Teams can overcome one weak hitting position.
Now let's talk fielding. Baseball Prospectus has a metric called FRAA, or Fielding Runs Above Average. For catchers, this takes their pitch framing, blocking and ability to control the running game into account and measures how many runs they saved or cost their team. Right now, this is the best way to measure catcher defense.
Last year, Stallings was worth 13.6 FRAA. Maile was worth 7.2 FRAA. Combined, their 20.8 FRAA would have been the fifth best in baseball, but that does not take two factors into consideration. First: They only combined for 800 innings caught, while every team played 1,400-plus innings last year. More playing time means more opportunities to save runs. Second: Stallings really improved defensively last year once he stopped getting bounced around from Triple-A and the majors. He started a new program to help him frame pitches more effectively and really got better as the year progressed. He might be even better for 2020. If that's the case, it's very possible the Pirates would have the best defensive battery in baseball, and a lot of those runs saved will come from better pitch framing and blocking. Diaz was the worst pitch framer in baseball last year, so that would be a huge boost for Pirates pitchers.
But how important is catcher defense for a team's success? I charted out each team's catcher FRAA from the last five years and compared it to their winning percentage:
Again, this too weak to call a correlation, but it is definitely stronger than the previous graph. There are plenty of mediocre teams with .400-.500 winning percentages with 20-plus FRAA catcher runs, which is well above the trendline. That is probably the most likely outcome for the 2020 Pirates. But generally speaking, it does seem catcher defense is more important than catcher offense for successful teams.
While 2020 appears to be a year of rebuilding or retooling for the Pirates, there is still a glimmer of hope of the team being relevant. The only way that can happen is if their pitching drastically improves. Trevor Williams and Chris Archer will need to bounce back, and Joe Musgrove and Mitch Keller would need to take that next step. The only way that happens is with drastically improved catcher defense. Stallings has a great reputation with the staff and for helping to gameplan. Maile will have to do the same.
So in answer to the question the headline posed, "Is good defense enough for catchers?" Probably not. Is great or borderline elite defense enough? Maybe.
Expected stats, wOBA and video courtesy of Baseball Savant. wRC+ courtesy of FanGraphs. FRAA courtesy of Baseball Prospectus.
MORE MOUND VISIT
Dec. 3: Ten catchers to replace Diaz
Nov. 30: How Shelton can build culture
Nov. 27: What is Marte’s trade value?
Nov. 22: Cherington’s first foray
