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I'm such a wet blanket, ask anyone. Fun anyway, I'd retort, but still a wet blanket. Often think about worst-case scenarios.
Most Met fans are getting excited about Travis d'Arnaud and an elite catching prospect behind the dish in New York. We've seen Mike Piazza's name thrown around. The welcome mat is out. 2015 or bust!
And I'm over here wondering why d'Arnaud's stats aren't great, even with the assist of one of the offense-friendliest home parks in the minor leagues. I've already attempted to put the catcher in context by looking at the other hitters that went through Las Vegas and the research on 'superior' outcomes among catchers and tall catchers in particular. In that piece, I list other top-25 Baseball America catchers since 2000 (WAR courtesy www.fangraphs.com):
G | PA | HR | BB% | K% | AVG | OBP | SLG | wRC+ | WAR | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Joe Mauer | 1065 | 4552 | 94 | 12.2% | 10.4% | 0.323 | 0.405 | 0.468 | 133 | 40.1 |
Victor Martinez | 1149 | 4819 | 143 | 9.5% | 11.1% | 0.303 | 0.37 | 0.469 | 121 | 29 |
Buster Posey | 308 | 1255 | 46 | 9.3% | 14.7% | 0.314 | 0.38 | 0.503 | 142 | 13.7 |
Matt Wieters | 509 | 2031 | 65 | 9.0% | 18.5% | 0.26 | 0.328 | 0.421 | 100 | 12.9 |
Carlos Santana | 344 | 1459 | 51 | 15.4% | 18.0% | 0.247 | 0.363 | 0.443 | 124 | 8.9 |
Jarrod Saltalamacchia | 474 | 1733 | 64 | 8.1% | 29.4% | 0.239 | 0.302 | 0.418 | 88 | 3.9 |
Jesus Montero | 153 | 622 | 19 | 5.8% | 18.6% | 0.267 | 0.31 | 0.408 | 99 | 0.4 |
Devin Mesoraco | 72 | 237 | 7 | 8.4% | 18.1% | 0.205 | 0.274 | 0.353 | 63 | -0.1 |
J.R. House | 32 | 63 | 3 | 1.6% | 25.4% | 0.167 | 0.206 | 0.367 | 46 | -0.3 |
Jeff Mathis | 496 | 1587 | 34 | 6.6% | 27.0% | 0.198 | 0.256 | 0.314 | 51 | -0.5 |
So, obviously the consensus scouting book on Travis d'Arnaud is overwhelmingly positive, with Jonathan Mayo putting him at #11 in the game most recently. And Jeff Mathis really only got one (semi-)breathless scouting report -- TDA has more love from all over. Keith Law called him a good shot at top-four overall catcher production in a recent chat. TDA has had more seasons that were better than Jeff Mathis' best seasons.
But Travis d'Arnaud's hitting stats don't measure up to the guys at the top of those lists, either. His minor league walk (6.9%) and strikeout (17.8%) rates are actually a little too similar to those of Jeff Mathis (8.2% and 17.2% respectively) to get real comfortable. And d'Arnaud's plate discipline stats don't measure up to those players ahead of Jeff Mathis on that list either:
MiLB BB% | MiLB K% | MiLB ISO | |
---|---|---|---|
Joe Mauer | 11.00 | 8.70 | 0.097 |
Victor Martinez | 9.90 | 11.30 | 0.170 |
Buster Posey | 13.10 | 13.60 | 0.209 |
Matt Wieters | 14.70 | 15.30 | 0.233 |
Carlos Santana | 15.30 | 14.80 | 0.21 |
Jarrod Saltalamacchia | 11.70 | 20.30 | 0.187 |
Jesus Montero | 7.80 | 16.50 | 0.193 |
Devin Mesoraco | 9.10 | 18.20 | 0.184 |
J.R. House | 8.30 | 14.00 | 0.17 |
Jeff Mathis | 8.20 | 17.20 | 0.168 |
Travis d'Arnaud | 6.90 | 17.80 | 0.188 |
Those combined numbers are bottom-two on this list. Check out his Major League Equivalencies and projections from Brian Cartwright's OLIVER system:
@qbuickgmc @enosarris my MLE for d'Arnaud past 2y 282/331/496 & 272/313/468, but projections last 5y consistent around 255/310/430
— Brian Cartwright (@blcartwright) December 19, 2012
@qbuickgmc @enosarris d'Arnaud had a bad 2010, better in 11 & 12, but 2009 proj (age 19) was 257/313/432, 2013 (age 23) 250/304/420
— Brian Cartwright (@blcartwright) December 19, 2012
Those projections would be worth an approximated .313 wOBA, or almost league average offense. Remember how Wieters' numbers projected. This is different.
What's stranger is that one of the few defensive stats we have on catchers, percentage of runners thrown out, is also not kind to d'Arnaud:
@enosarris in '12 d'Arnaud caught 11 of 32 stealing, 17 of 78 in '11. Career 23% MiLB
— Brian Cartwright (@blcartwright) December 19, 2012
I'm not a rabid anti-scouter. So I've trusted the scouts so far -- who, for the most part, think d'Arnaud can at least be league-average with the gove -- and personally put him somewhere short of Matt Wieters' status as a prospect, which was pretty intense. That might be pessimistic compared to some right now, but maybe it's useful for sober projecting.
Tim Marchman had an excellent Wall Street Journal piece about the relative value of a decent, cost-controlled young catcher, and after reading that you might feel like even a catcher like Jarrod Saltalamacchia would make the trade valuable. If that version of TDA pissed some people off because he wasn't Mike Piazza, I'd be the one saying, no he's still useful, the wet blanket in the room again.
But a conversation with Marchman on twitter also jarred something loose about what this move meant about the front office and their predilections:
@enosarris It's funny given the front office's rep, but it's almost a pure scouting call. I don't think they're dumb, so we'll see.
— Tim Marchman (@timmarchman) December 19, 2012
Yeah. The Moneyball Mets look like they are taking a bit of a leap based on scouting. The numbers of the prospect in question aren't great. There must be scouts that have him ahead of others. The Mets' scouts obviously like him.
Maybe I should just stop being a wet blanket and trust them.