Jay Jaffe Dissects Rutschman’s impact on the O’s

[Frobby]

Jay Jaffe has an excellent article up on Fangraphs discussing Adley Rutschman’s impact on the Orioles.  Here’s a bit from it:

“Consider that Robinson Chirinos and Anthony Bemboom combined to “hit” .125/.233/.211 for a 32 wRC+ through May 20; Rutschman has replaced that by hitting a robust .251/.358/.442 for a 131 wRC+. A quick back-of-the-envelope calculation suggests that the change in catchers alone (which includes Chirinos’ continued work as a backup) was worth about 0.44 runs per game on the offensive side: Chirinos and Bemboom combined to produce all of five Weighted Runs Created in 40 games (0.13 per game) where Rutschman and Chirinos have produced 51 in 90 games (0.57 per game). That’ll turn your season around.

“Rutschman has been a boon on the defensive side as well. The framing-inclusive version of Defensive Runs Saved, which Baseball Reference publishesbut does not use in its WAR calculations, credits the new guy with being 16 runs above average, second in the majors behind only Jose Trevino; Chirinos, at 10 runs below average, is third-worst (Bemboom is right at average). By Baseball Prospectus’ measure of catcher defense, Rutschman (7.3 runs) ranks 12th in the majors, and Chirinos (-15.0) is second-to-last, with Bemboom (0.1) right at average. FanGraphs’ measure of framing runs echos those two estimates: Rutschman fourth overall at 6.3 runs, Bemboom at 0.1, and Chirinos second-to-last at -12.8. Again using a back-of-the-envelope estimate, and assuming Chirinos has been uniformly subpar across the season (we don’t have defensive splits), the upgrade in catcher defense has been worth another 0.17 runs per game. That takes us to a swing of about a 0.61 runs per game by my admittedly rough estimate — and we haven’t even begun to discuss all of those Orioles pitchers outperforming their projections. That’s a story for another day.”

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There’s a lot more good stuff in the article.  
 

 

[Sports Guy]

Let me guess..this article is a really nerdy way of saying he’s really good?

[Moose Milligan]

Gotta wonder if him hitting from the right side will be a thing going forward or if they'll scrap it.  I'm assuming it's been a long time since he's seen a lefty from the left side but if the intangibles are there to be a good hitter from the left side exclusively I think he can probably do it.  

[Frobby]

8 minutes ago, Moose Milligan said:

Gotta wonder if him hitting from the right side will be a thing going forward or if they'll scrap it.  I'm assuming it's been a long time since he's seen a lefty from the left side but if the intangibles are there to be a good hitter from the left side exclusively I think he can probably do it.  

I wouldn’t worry at all about this for a couple of years.  Many switch hitters have one side much stronger than the other in a given year, but over time the “strong side” varies from year to year.   The RHB samples are small.   Rutschman hit .350/.439/.621 as a RHB in the minors last year.  When Wieters came up, he had a .671 OPS as a RHB his rookie year, then .574 the next, and people were having this same conversation about whether he should only bat left-handed. Then he has a 1.124 OPS as a RHB the next year, and that was the end of that discussion.  He ended up with better numbers as a RHB than as a LHB over his career.   So, for me I’d need to see three straight years of really weak performance as a RHB before this would even be worth discussing.  

[Tony-OH]

While we all know how good Rutschman is and that he's only scratching the surface, I think this also highlights just how bad Chirinos and Bemboom were this year. Elias has to take responsibility for not acquiring good backup catchers. 

Yes, we know that no one expected Rutschman to get hurt this spring, but Bemboom and Nottingham were terrible back up plans in that Bemboom can't hit, and Nottingham is one of the worse receivers and blockers you will see at the AAA level. 

Not to mention that Chirinos was not a good pick either since he hasn't even been good at pitch framing and his bat has been awful pretty much all year.

Gallagher has been in AAA pretty much all year so you have to wonder if he would not have been a better backup to Adley this year than Chirinos. Yes, Chirinos is a veteranosity kind of guy, but I don't get the feeling that Adley needs that vet that some young players do. 

 

 

[Can_of_corn]

How many games did Adley have in Norfolk after his rehab ended?

[Tony-OH]

1 minute ago, Can_of_corn said:

How many games did Adley have in Norfolk after his rehab ended?

20 games in a little over three weeks. About right if you consider it spring training after his rehab was complete.

[Jim'sKid26]

Tony, when you look at backup catchers across the league, who's the gold standard. Seems to me they are all pretty limited in one way or another. Have you got a favorite? Who would you target next year for the O's?

[Frobby]

15 minutes ago, Tony-OH said:

While we all know how good Rutschman is and that he's only scratching the surface, I think this also highlights just how bad Chirinos and Bemboom were this year. Elias has to take responsibility for not acquiring good backup catchers. 

Yes, we know that no one expected Rutschman to get hurt this spring, but Bemboom and Nottingham were terrible back up plans in that Bemboom can't hit, and Nottingham is one of the worse receivers and blockers you will see at the AAA level. 

Not to mention that Chirinos was not a good pick either since he hasn't even been good at pitch framing and his bat has been awful pretty much all year.

Gallagher has been in AAA pretty much all year so you have to wonder if he would not have been a better backup to Adley this year than Chirinos. Yes, Chirinos is a veteranosity kind of guy, but I don't get the feeling that Adley needs that vet that some young players do. 

 

 

I don’t know that Chirinos’ terrible season was that foreseeable.  He’s been a solid offensive catcher in his career and in 2021.   He’s never been a great framer but his numbers this year are way worse than his norm.  

Even with his shortcomings, Hyde pointed out numerous times that he and Benboom were big defensive upgrades over what we had last year.  He said that before Rutschman ever showed up.

And, I think he showed a take-charge demeanor with the pitchers that we never saw last year.   He’s also been a good clubhouse and dugout guy by all accounts.  

So I don’t blame Elias for bringing him in to be our starter until Adley arrived and then the backup.  It didn’t work out as well as we would have hoped, and we need to look for another solution for next year.  
 

[Sports Guy]

I’m old enough to remember people on this board saying Chirinos was a big reason the pitching was doing better early in the year and what an upgrade he was over Severino, etc…

That was always foolish imo.

[Can_of_corn]

2 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

I’m old enough to remember people on this board saying Chirinos was a big reason the pitching was doing better early in the year and what an upgrade he was over Severino, etc…

That was always foolish imo.

Folks wanted to bring him back next year.

[forphase1]

1 minute ago, Sports Guy said:

I’m old enough to remember people on this board saying Chirinos was a big reason the pitching was doing better early in the year and what an upgrade he was over Severino, etc…

That was always foolish imo.

He was/is an upgrade over Severino.  But that just goes to show how poor Severino was, not so much how good Chirinos is.  We certainly need to have a better backup for Adley next year.

[Sports Guy]

5 minutes ago, forphase1 said:

He was/is an upgrade over Severino.  But that just goes to show how poor Severino was, not so much how good Chirinos is.  We certainly need to have a better backup for Adley next year.

 Chirinos has a -1.3 fWAR this year.

Severino was -.1 last year.

[Frobby]

5 minutes ago, forphase1 said:

He was/is an upgrade over Severino.  But that just goes to show how poor Severino was, not so much how good Chirinos is.  We certainly need to have a better backup for Adley next year.

It’s pretty much the same thing as Odor. Last year was so awful at 2B, anything looks like an upgrade.   In both cases, next year the bar needs to be much higher.   But both guys served certain purposes.  Now it will be time to move on. 

[forphase1]

12 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

 Chirinos has a -1.3 fWAR this year.

Severino was -.1 last year.

Severino was a much better bat than Chirinos, no question.  But Chirinos is MUCH better behind the plate.  But again, that's more a testimony on what a poor catcher Severino is, and not how good Chrinos is.  After seeing Severino allow balls to go to the backstop every other pitch Chirinos is like a breath of fresh air.  That said his bat is so terrible the catching ability isn't good enough to offset that awful bat.  At the rate we are resting/DHing Adley we've got to have a much more serviceable backup, one who is hopefully serviceable with both the glove and the bat.