Don’t Ask “Can I”, Ask “I Can”

After hearing that Joe Mauer was going on the 15-day DL, I imagine that I had the same thought as many, perhaps even most, Twins fans: “Is there any way I can blame this on Nick Swisher?”. After meeting with many wise men (and women), religious leaders, and top psychologists, it appears that, no, no I cannot. So, rather than publishing another screed against a sworn blog-foe, it looks like I have to actually write some analysis about the subject. The good news is that it appears the injury is more a result of an infection, than an indication of serious leg/knee/back issues. Hopefully.

I’ll post my thoughts on the implications of this injury for the Twins later this weekend, leaving that issue aside for now in order to look at: the non-Mauer catching options this season, previous years’ replacements, and the bygones who could have replaced Mauer had they not last year been traded for relief pitchers. I’ll also take the time now to quickly mention that I love the Carl Pavano quote from the above article: “He needs to forget about that contract and be just himself. I love that guy to death, and I just want him to be able to play.” This is a pleasant contrast to years past, when I imagine that Face of the Franchise™ Torii Hunter would have called Mauer out in the media for being weak and then punched him in the head.

Let’s start with the Ghosts of Backup Catchers Past. Mauer has unfortunately been no stranger to injury, with the two most notable cases, in my mind, being 2009, when he missed the first month of the season, and 2004, where he missed almost the entire year. In these cases he was replaced by Mike Redmond and Henry Blanco, respectively. One potentially encouraging thing to remember is that in both years the Twins were still able to make the playoffs, which is hopefully some small consolation to those who may be contemplating pulling a John Berryman.

In 2009 Redmond was in his 5th and final season as a Twin, having his worst offensive season with the club (.237/.299/.289 line, his only season with the Twins when any of those numbers were below .300). While far from Mauer’s level offensively, Redmond was a pretty serviceable catcher – even though his career line of .287/.342/.358 may not jump off the page, he was only a below-replacement level hitter in 4 of his 13 seasons (based on Baseball-Refernce oWAR number <0), and 2 of those were in his final two seasons in the bigs. It did seem like all he ever did was hit line drives to right field and so he never provided much power, but with his decent defense and leadership abilities he was pretty solid as Mauer’s caddy. Something that reardon is going to get into early next week, when he returns from helping Edgar Allen Poe fight vampires, is that the Twins have historically been pretty spoiled in terms of catchers providing offense, which can sometimes cause us to forget how poor most catchers are as hitters (spoiler alert: not as poor as Drew Butera).

They’re also generally better than Henry Blanco. In researching this piece I was surprised to realize that Redmond had played 5 seasons with the Twins, and also was surprised that Blanco only played 1 – perhaps Redmond’s adequacy allowed me to take him for granted, while that season of watching Blanco “hit” felt like eternity. On his career Blanco hit .227/.291/.362, managing to put up positive oWAR numbers in only 3 (out of 13) seasons, and 2004 was not one of them. Hitting .206/.260/.368 and setting a career-high with 10 HR, he was about half a win worse than a replacement level catcher at the dish. Defense is one of the most difficult aspects of baseball to evaluate quantitatively, and catcher defense is more challenging than other positions, but Blanco did have a very good reputation behind the plate which is more-or-less born out by his numbers (B-Ref had him above replacement level defensively in 11 seasons). Add it all together, and Redmond and Blanco both were essentially replacement level (i.e., performed at the level to be expected of a player who could be picked up during the season via free agency, waiver wire, or low-cost trade) during these two seasons.

Moving on to the current Twins catchers, I am sure you will all be thrilled to learn that current starter Drew Butera is not even at Henry Blanco’s level at the plate. For his short career he’s hitting .191/.228/.280. “But that’s only in 171 PA”, I hear you say. Actually, it’s just 170. I don’t know why you got that wrong. Regardless, it’s not a terribly large sample size. However, we also can consider that in 1630 minor league plate appearances his line is just .214/.296/.317. For comparison, in the minors Blanco put up .247/.326/.376. From a more “old-school scouting” approach, it appears that Butera approaches his at-bats in much the same way that I did in little league, trying to get them over with as quickly as possible and not being all too terribly concerned about the result. I’m almost serious when I say that, were I Ron Gardenhire, I would consider letting the pitcher hit, and using the DH slot for Butera.

Backing up Butera (and hoping that phrase will not end up engraved on the tombstone of his professional career) is Steve Holm! (and you are out of your mind if you think we’re not using that reference at every possible opportunity). Steve Holm! is a bastard, sorry, is a 31-year-old organizational soldier from the Giants who signed as a minor league free agent this offseason. In 107 plate appearances in 2008-09, he hit .264/.364/.396 for a wOBA of .333, a pretty solid mark for a catcher. This probably oversells his offensive abilities a bit, as in a more robust 586 PA (over 4 years) in AAA he hit .248/.329/.378. Weirdly, these AAA stats are almost identical to Blanco’s minor league track record, so I’d say that something Blanco-esque is appropriate to use as a very rough prediction. I don’t know anything about his defensive abilities; I would infer that the Twins don’t like his defense as much as Butera’s, since if he was better he probably would’ve been on the major league roster from the start, but I would also guess that they at least think he should be passable, or else they wouldn’t have bothered to trade Jose Morales.

Speaking of Morales, it was not so long ago that the Twins’ purses overfloweth with catching depth. Entering last season the Twins had the reigning MVP Mauer starting, Butera and Morales fighting to be his backup position, and top prospect Wilson Ramos starting the season in AAA Rochester. One could think of Morales as a kind of bizarro world version of Butera, if one enjoyed mentally replacing comic strip superheroes with mediocre major league catchers, with all of his value tied to his offense, specifically his ability to get singles and walks (for his career, his OBP is higher than his SLG). He was actually a converted catcher, originally drafted as a SS (thanks to reardon for reminding/telling me this fact), and this is reflected in his defensive reputation. In their 2010 season preview Baseball Prospectus wrote that “Butera will compete with Morales for the privilege of backing up Mauer in 2010; Butera is twice the defender but half the hitter.” Offense is a lot easier to measure than defense (I may have mentioned this already), and an ability to hit .300 is still seen by many as an important benchmark for hitters, so I think that Morales was widely seen by the fanbase as being a superior option to Butera, but they probably were roughly equivalent. Being out of minor league options, Morales was traded to Colorado for minor league reliever Paul Bargas this offseason, where he’s serving as Chris Iannetta’s backup.

Finally, Wilson Ramos, the one that got away. Heading into 2010 he was seen as top prospect; that same BPro preview said that “depending on Mauer’s willingness to stick around, Ramos is either the Twins’ catcher of the future or one of the most obvious trade chips in the game.” The latter ended up being true, with Ramos dealt mid-season to Washington in exchange for Matt Capps. Ramos’ star diminished somewhat over the course of the season; ranked by FanGraphs as the #43 prospect in baseball in 2010 he failed to make the same list in 2011 (Baseball America had him at #58 and #96, respectively). His reputation as a plus defender remains intact, but a rough start to season in Rochester (OBP of .280 at the time of the trade) led to concerns that his offensive potential had been overstated, in turn lowering his projected ceiling from above average to serviceable (I’m assuming. I did not actually ask FanGraphs or Baseball America to justify their decisions). Early this season he’s doing his best to put those concerns to bed, hitting a scintillating .480/.567/.560 as the Nationals’ starting catcher. He will probably not continue to hit that well. Still, with Capps contributing to another bullpen collapse today while being the 6th highest paid Twin, and with Mauer’s injury/illness leading to another round of rampant speculation as to his future, Ramos is starting off the season providing plenty of ammunition to those who wish to second-guess (or, first-guessed it at the time) the Capps/Ramos deal.

Whew. That’s all for tonight – tomorrow I should have another post up that goes more into how I think Mauer’s injury (and other early season struggles) affects the Twins team itself – until then, your homework is to try to come up with the best Steve Holm! joke. Winner gets the satisfaction of a job well done.