Pickles

Fair enough. Moving on.

Ok, Callis is on record. With Sports Guy. AR is going to be the second best catcher in the history of the game. I'll take the under. The odds are heavily in my favor.

You're a giant ass. You really are. Your expectations are stupid and unreasonable. But of course, they are the product of a stupid and unreasonable mind. Trying to reason with a stupid and unreasonable person was my own fault. I should know better than to engage with you. You are not here to learn anything. You're not here to share anything. You're not here to contemplate anything. You're here to tell us your thoughts, and anyone who disagrees, gets insulted.

I caught for a few years when I was young. I usually played SS because I was the best athlete on the team, but when I was ten our catcher got hurt, and my dad was coach, so he made me catch. I liked it. I was good at it so I stayed there for a couple years until the fields got big and they put me back at SS. That was 25 years ago. I can't extend my left thumb fully to this day because I broke it so many times catching- specifically foul tips which go straight down, miss the gloves' webbing, and just push your thumb back. You're probably talking about 100 6 inning games over two seasons. In Little League. The abuse that full time big league catchers must suffer over the course of a season is unfathomable. NOBODY hits to their full potential if they're catching consistently. If AR was this 900+ OPS monster, then we should find him another position. If he is rather a good, but not great hitter, he should catch- while we should accept that he will never hit to his full potential doing so.

You might be right.

I'm making stuff up? The indisputable facts I stated? Wieters was a college closer. He went over 95 off the mound. He had a BETTER ARM than AR. And no scout would deny it. Ask Tony. I'm not talking about glove. I'm talking about arm.

Yes, the two guys I already mentioned as being the only outliers I can even remember in my lifetime. Did you ever play? Did you ever catch? Catching has a detrimental effect on a player's offensive abilities. That's not really even debatable among baseball people. It's why guys like Harper or Biggio don't even get the chance to catch much. They're too valuable to expose to those effects.

Wieters was a college closer. He went over 95+ off the mound. He had the better arm. Wieters was also bigger and stronger, and as you point out, a more productive power hitter in the MiLs. It's not controversial at all to state that Wieters was seen as having more power and a better arm as a prospect than AR.

If he catches 130 games and puts up an OPS+ of 130 for five years, he's about half way to the Hall of Fame. Might I suggest you will be disappointed. Much of what worked against Wieters every really reaching his offensive ceiling, will be working against Rutschman too. Namely, the burden of the tools of ignorance. I think AR is going to be a hell of a player. I just don't think he's hitting 3-4 on a playoff team.

A couple more years down there, he might just build himself up enough.

I don't think you need to codify that with an IMO, imo. Wieters had a demonstrably superior MiL career to AR. It's basically a fact.

An 850 OPS is roughly a 130 OPS+. That's higher than the career OPS+ of Johnny Bench. MIght I suggest you will be disappointed.

Says who? You? Sports Guy? Wieters had a better arm. Wieters had more power. Does AR have a better hit tool? That seems to be the hope. That he isn't going to come up and hit 250 like Wieters did. But what is that based on? Certainly not their amateur/MiL performances. Frobby said it and I'll repeat: NOTHING besides hindsight suggests that AR is a better prospect than Wieters was.

You think Wieters wasn't the clear consensus #1 prospect when he was in the MiLs? That's either revisionism, or the O's are doing a better job of reaching out to a new generation of children than I gave them credit for.

Just to put some things in perspective for people: Jason Kendall is 25th all time in catcher WAR. He finished his career with a 95 OPS+ and a career high of 14 hrs. If you are a true middle of the order bat, you won't catch for very long. And if you do catch for very long, it's almost impossible to be a "middle of the order bat."

Being significantly shorter should help him- in theory.

To be clear, I want to see AR catch 130 games in his prime. I understand that he probably shouldn't be doing that immediately.

Catching any amount of significant games is going to affect his bat. That's why a middle of the order catcher is so rare. I'd rather have a catcher with an 800 OPS than a 1B with a 850.

No. Wieters hit better. Was he a middle of the order bat? We had these same conversations then about him. How we were going to need to rest him at 1b and DH. And that never materialized. Hell, is Mountcastle? I wouldn't say that definitively going forward- although I like him. I see a world where AR hits 250/350/450. Is that a middle of the order bat? I don't really consider it one. End of the day, I want AR catching 130 games a year. If he starts putting up 900 OPS, and can justify DHing or 1B, I would be willing to modify that. But I need to see it first. I'm not just assuming I want his bat in the lineup over Mountcastles' for instance.

I beg to differ. It's subjective, so there's no need to go back and forth, but Wieters was a better prospect. Just go look at their MiL careers. Underperform or people have unrealistic expectations? You know how many middle of the order bats that caught and didn't have a needle hanging out of their arm have existed in my lifetime? One. Posey. Maybe two depending on how you feel about Mauer. It's a rare thing indeed. I hope AR is Wieters with better OBP. That's a hell of a player. It's also not something I would describe as a "middle of the order" bat.

Fair enough. But you have to pay for that.

Wieters was a better prospect. Would you describe him as a middle of the order bat?

With an average age of like 36. And they're all pretty much terrible.

Is he? That's a bold assumption.

It's a bit of a poor conversation, because there's no clear answer. I think the original list in the OP is pretty accurate. Those are the O's I would consider above average/average starters. Would they start on every playoff team? No.