Backup C Targets

[Aristotelian]

In the offseason strategy threads, I have seen a lot of generic "sign a backup C who is good defensively and hits lefties" but few names attached. I would also add to the list of criteria someone who is a good framer. Chirinos was literally bottom of the list with -14 framing runs, which is quite an achievement considering he was a backup (https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/catcher_framing). Who is this elusive backup C? It may be harder to find than we think. 

The most obvious guy is Contreras, but he profiles as a starter. He is not going to come cheap. I can't see the O's bidding on him unless they also want him to DH more or less full time when not catching. 

Another guy who has been mentioned is Zunino. He has always been a big HR/low avg guy and hit a career high 33 bombs for Tampa in '21, but developed Thoracic Outlet Syndrome ending his season after 36 games with an ugly .499 OPS/-0.4 WAR. He was really, really bad last year. I don't know much about TOS recovery. Our medical people would have to be supremely confident to make me gamble on him. On the plus side, he has always been good defensively and a defensive framer. Also the Wall could take away his big comparative advantage and personally I am just generally sick of watching low avg/high k homer-or-nothing guys.

One guy I really like is Omar Narvaez. #1 in framing in 2021, top 10 in '22. From framing alone, he would provide about 20+ run differential from Chirinos. Appears otherwise average defensively. He had a down year with the bat in '22 but has a career .728 OPS. At age 30, he should have a couple years in the tank if we were to offer more than a one year deal. Only downside, he is a lefty with typical splits. I personally would overlook this since Adley should be playing every day even with LHP. The only time this matters would be the small handful of games that Adley is on the bench and not DHing. How many games are we talking about?

Christian Vazquez appears to check all the boxes. He is RHB, hit .714 in '22, and is an average framer, put up 2.1 WAR and 1.3 dWAR. Slightly favorable splits vs LHP. Also HOU liked him enough to trade for him. I would guess Elias will be using a lot of the same metrics. 

Curt Casali appears to be one of the better defenders in the group (1.0 dWAR in '22). .649 OPS last year (.700 career), slightly below average framer. He is RH and has career favorable .770 vs LHP. Only downside is age 34.

Kevin Plawecki is kind of meh all around. Could be an option. 

I'm not really seeing anybody else. Vogt is 38. Castro is 36 and had knee surgery. 

Looks to me the leading contenders in terms of fit are Narvaez, Vazquez, and Casali. The question is whether we value framing over hitting lefties and/or overall defense. I personally am a big believer in framing and would love to see what Narvaez can do with our pitchers. Casali might be the easiest to get on a one year deal. 

 

 

[Too Tall]

Great analysis. Appreciate the time and effort. While I agree re framing, I have liked Vazquez for some time. Gotten to see a lot of him living in Sux Country. Probably too rich for our priority list, but I think would be a good add.

[OrangeTurtle]

Very unlikely to happen, but one name that would be awesome to target would be Daulton Varsho. Dbacks have an OF logjam and maybe, perhaps, you could get Varsho if you take back all of Bumgarner's contract if you include one of our IF prospects as well?

[Aristotelian]

21 minutes ago, OrangeTurtle said:

Very unlikely to happen, but one name that would be awesome to target would be Daulton Varsho. Dbacks have an OF logjam and maybe, perhaps, you could get Varsho if you take back all of Bumgarner's contract if you include one of our IF prospects as well?

Dbacks fans would riot if they moved Varsho in a salary dump! I can't imagine they do that unless the prospect is Holliday and even that might not be enough. 

[OrangeTurtle]

8 minutes ago, Aristotelian said:

Dbacks fans would riot if they moved Varsho in a salary dump! I can't imagine they do that unless the prospect is Holliday and even that might not be enough. 

Agreed - very unlikely. But they have Carroll/Thomas already locked in to OF slots and are desperate to unload Bumgarner. I think their GM was quoted wrt looking to offload some of their OF surplus (albeit, that may not mean Varsho). 

I don't know of you'd have to move Holliday in such a deal.. maybe a Westburg/Norby + Mayo + Kremer gets that done. Obv depends on how much you want to absorb of MadBum's contract. Not saying this is something the Orioles would even want to entertain either. 

 

[Tony-OH]

I had to chuckle a bit at this. Not at the poster who did some great analysis in the post, but the fact that the Orioles prioritized grabbing back p catcher options after the season including the silly one in Bemboom.

Clearly Cam Gallagher (who is a great receiver, framer an blocker) and Mark Kolozsvary (who is only 2 1/2 years older than Rutschman) have the early lead since they are still on the 40-man.

As for the OPs choices, I have to imagine that Christian Vazquez will be looking for a place where he will get more playing time than he will as backup catcher to Adley.

 

[Aristotelian]

5 minutes ago, Tony-OH said:

 

As for the OPs choices, I have to imagine that Christian Vazquez will be looking for a place where he will get more playing time than he will as backup catcher to Adley.

 

Good point about Vazquez. I bet he is also looking for multiple years. That may narrow it down to Casali and Narvaez. Unless we go for one of the internal options, of course.

I don't know how much to read into them being on the 40 man. They already took off Bemboom and the other one. Just seems like due diligence moves in case their FA targets don't sign. As you can see, it really is a pretty small universe. You could see a scenario where Narvaez and Vazquez want to start and Casali gets a higher bidder. If the O's are stuck with internal options it wouldn't really be due to some organizational dysfunction. 

[MarCakes21]

I guess I'm a little surprised by the attention here.  Not that I don't think backup catcher is important, but in reality, this player is starting ~40 games.  So your goals ought to be 1.  Good clubhouse presence and leader 2. Good defensively.  There's really no need to spend over league minimum for those traits, and I'd be happy bringing back Chirinos for another year to give Adley a breather.  Prioritize money elsewhere.

In reality, the Astros just won the world series starting Maldanado over Vasquez, and he was pretty much Chirinos with the bat.

[Tony-OH]

8 minutes ago, Aristotelian said:

Good point about Vazquez. I bet he is also looking for multiple years. That may narrow it down to Casali and Narvaez. Unless we go for one of the internal options, of course.

I don't know how much to read into them being on the 40 man. They already took off Bemboom and the other one. Just seems like due diligence moves in case their FA targets don't sign. As you can see, it really is a pretty small universe. You could see a scenario where Narvaez and Vazquez want to start and Casali gets a higher bidder. If the O's are stuck with internal options it wouldn't really be due to some organizational dysfunction. 

Gallagher has always been a decent back up option if they want to go defense as a priority. Don't really know much about Kolozsvary other than he's a little guy that hasn't hit since rookie ball, so I imagine he's a very good defensive catcher to have made it to the big leagues and now two 40-man rosters.

I'll be honest, Kolozsvary is a guy I'd be fine with putting through DFA and resigning him to a minor league contract with a split major league option like they gave Bemboom. Saying that, I want to see Maverick Handley being the priority play at Norfolk next year but we do know injuries happen.

[Aristotelian]

21 minutes ago, MarCakes21 said:

I guess I'm a little surprised by the attention here.  Not that I don't think backup catcher is important, but in reality, this player is starting ~40 games.  So your goals ought to be 1.  Good clubhouse presence and leader 2. Good defensively.  There's really no need to spend over league minimum for those traits, and I'd be happy bringing back Chirinos for another year to give Adley a breather.  Prioritize money elsewhere.

In reality, the Astros just won the world series starting Maldanado over Vasquez, and he was pretty much Chirinos with the bat.

That is fair but do you remember how much outrage was directed at Chirinos last year? 

My point in going through the options was most of the offseason threads say "just sign a backup C" but the market is actually pretty small, assuming you want someone better than replacement level. 

[Tony-OH]

21 minutes ago, MarCakes21 said:

I guess I'm a little surprised by the attention here.  Not that I don't think backup catcher is important, but in reality, this player is starting ~40 games.  So your goals ought to be 1.  Good clubhouse presence and leader 2. Good defensively.  There's really no need to spend over league minimum for those traits, and I'd be happy bringing back Chirinos for another year to give Adley a breather.  Prioritize money elsewhere.

In reality, the Astros just won the world series starting Maldanado over Vasquez, and he was pretty much Chirinos with the bat.

Chirinos is a not a major league player any more. I'd go with Cam Gallagher way before Chirinos. It's time for Chironos to retire. Adley is not the kind of catcher who needs a "veteran" presence. the Orioles just need a guy who can start 30-35 times a year and not kill the team when he's in there. 

[MarCakes21]

Just now, Aristotelian said:

That is fair but do you remember how much outrage was directed at Chirinos last year? 

My point in going through the options was most of the offseason threads say "just sign a backup C" but the market is actually pretty small, assuming you want someone better than replacement level. 

Yes, outrage because he was costing the team by not hitting.  But per bref, he had positive 0.4 dWar and 0.0 oWar.  I'm no expert on those either.

[kidrock]

15 minutes ago, MarCakes21 said:

I guess I'm a little surprised by the attention here.  Not that I don't think backup catcher is important, but in reality, this player is starting ~40 games.  So your goals ought to be 1.  Good clubhouse presence and leader 2. Good defensively.  There's really no need to spend over league minimum for those traits, and I'd be happy bringing back Chirinos for another year to give Adley a breather.  Prioritize money elsewhere.

In reality, the Astros just won the world series starting Maldanado over Vasquez, and he was pretty much Chirinos with the bat.

I guess I view it like this, perhaps ignorantly:

1. I don't want Adley run into the ground.  Having a decent backup should help keep him fresh for the next 5 years in which I am hoping the O's are regulars in the playoffs. 

2. The season is a marathon and every win counts.  I don't recall offhand, but I believe the team had an awful record when Adley wasn't starting.  If this player can just help tip the scales in a few of the games, it could make a serious impact.

3. This team has a bunch of average or around average regulars, with Adley and Gunnar being on the high side (128,  123 OPS+ respectively).  While I have absolutely no proof of this, I don't think the O's have enough plus offensive players to outweigh 1-2 black holes in the lineup.  Every time a non Adley players was catching, it forced an awful player into the game (Chirinos 58, Bemboom 20 OPS+).  Couple that with Mateo and Odor (which hopefully we never see that again), the offense would just stuck too easily.

Again, I'm not saying that I have proof, but moreso baseless theories.

[Aristotelian]

24 minutes ago, kidrock said:

I guess I view it like this, perhaps ignorantly:

1. I don't want Adley run into the ground.  Having a decent backup should help keep him fresh for the next 5 years in which I am hoping the O's are regulars in the playoffs. 

 

+1, for those saying the backup with only play 35-40 games, I think that is being optimistic. Chirinos played in 67. Caleb Joseph played 49 in 2016. With a decent backup, Adley could contribute even more as DH. The only reason to grind Adley would be if we sign a full time DH. 

[Sports Guy]

Vogt retired.