The Molina Gambit

And Barajas, Molina, and Torrealba this year and the way the market is looking. Abreu way overplayed his hand, and wound up going super cheap. If Molina winds up signing for one year and half his initial yearly asking price like Abreu did, he really could be kind of a steal.

But you really can’t count it against him as much as it seems, since replacement level catchers are not “average” baserunners. Offensively he projects better than any of the other free agents, and while his raw defense may not be great, he’s handled some excellent young pitching staffs well. Its obviously not possible to quantify that, but its the same type of thing you have to count against Thole and Santos. Even if you take the -3.4 defensive runs (Driveline Mechanics) and a few runs for baserunning (He’s about -5 compared to average, but probably more like -2 or -3 compared to average for catchers), he would have been >1 WAR in 2009 and by the CHONE projections figures to be roughly 1 WAR again in 2010.

Also, this is a situation where the shortcomings of “replacement level” evaluation comes into play. Its easy to talk about the frequency of available “replacement level” outfielders or corner infielders, but not so with catchers. In this case, I think its better to consider straight opportunity cost rather than replacement level. Is a 1-year $2 million deal that significant an opportunity cost for a 1-year $3.5 million deal for Molina? If that’s the choice, as much as it pains me, I do think I take Molina. In a vacuum Barajas does project better, but taking the gamble on Molina’s skillset, which while shallow is fairly dependable (contact and power), and adding to it his resume as a receiver, unquantifiable as it is, seems perfectly prudent to me if his cost comes down as much as it seems like its primed to.

CHONE projects him for a .298 wOBA, and after factoring baserunning, about 0.7 or 0.8 WAR. He was about 1.2 WAR after factoring the same in 2009, so that decline seems about right for a 35 year old catcher. But there’s more to consider here that is tangible. We’re not talking about a catcher showing signs of actual decline in skills or durability. He was 9th amongst catchers in games played. He doesn’t appear to be losing batspeed. His HR/FB was actually exactly the same as his career rate, 8.8%. Its hard to talk about his defense in this way, since there isn’t much usable data before 2009, but aside from years on earth, there isn’t much that stands out about his components and screams “decline,” he just wasn’t that skilled to begin with. He may actually be capable of greater offensive output than the CHONE projection gives him credit for.

In addition to that, even though the intangible aspects of receivership are completely unquantifiable, one thing that may be quantifiable is a durable catcher’s effect on a pitching staff. I haven’t done the research, but it would be theoretically possible to talk about pitcher performance relative to preseason projections for pitchers who generally threw to the same catcher or couple catchers, as opposed to pitchers, like those on the Mets, who have been throwing to a plethora of different catchers over the course of the season. More than poor production, this was my problem with the “Brian Schneider Era,” that it seemed like every three trips through the rotation, the staff would have to get used to a new receiver. Schneider, Castro, Cancel, Cassanova, Santos, that other unrelated Molina, etc. Bengie’s skills may be unimpressive, but his combination of durability and short term offensive projection, which may in fact sell him short, make him a better option than I think a lot of people realize, but only if the cost is as I’m speculating, something in the 1-year <$5 million range.

He’s trying to press Omar into focusing on Molina while the M’s pursue someone else.

as Special adviser to the ballpark food people

Its from the MLBtraderumors comments section, its just someone with the screen name “OmirSantos”

We traded him to save 2 million, and then spent more than that to replace him.

i agree with you, he does seem to do well settling pitchers down and calls a good game. If only he had other discernible talents…

1) Has a strong contact rate. Its not a skill typically associated with power, but his K% has been below 14% in each of his full seasons except for one.

2) He’s very durable. He’s played at least 130 games each of the last three years, and only once since 2002 has he played fewer than 119. No Mets catcher has caught that many games since Mike Piazza caught 121 games all the way back in 2002. This is something that gets overlooked a bit I think. We may not be able to say much about how he “handles a pitching staff” of much scientific value, but there is something to be said for a pitching staff being able to throw to the same guy in a large percentage of his starts. I’m not sure exactly what it is that can be said, but it would be an interesting study.

The 4.14 team FIP the Mets had in 2002 was the best mark they’ve put up in any year since, with the exception of 2005’s 3.98, when they had a rotation fronted by Pedro. Pedro’s 2005 was probably the best single season pitching performance the team has had all decade, and that staff was also much deeper than the Al Leiter fronted staff of 2002. This isn’t really conclusive, but it is interesting.