Meoli on the 1st base situation

[Can_of_corn]

3 minutes ago, Morgan423 said:

I'm way late to this party, but thought you'd be curious.  I caught a YT video about two weeks or so before the end of this season that had the topic of pitch framing.  During it, the presenter laid out a graph with a wide range of catchers, from the absolute worst framers in the league to the absolute best.  And Adley?

Adley was a zero, on that stat scale, which was based on how many runs that each catcher had gained or lost his team via stealing or costing strikes through framing (because not only is there a neutral result where the ump didn't buy your ball to strike frame job, there's actually a negative result where the pitcher threw an actual strike and because of the way you received it, it got called a ball).

So no, he's definitely not helping us through pitch framing.   

He was an asset in the past, he wasn't this most recent season.

[Moose Milligan]

17 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

He was an asset in the past, he wasn't this most recent season.

No one wants to discuss that his overall production has declined for three years in a row. 

[Aristotelian]

7 minutes ago, Moose Milligan said:

No one wants to discuss that his overall production has declined for three years in a row. 

On an annual basis that is probably true because his second half was so bad. However he was on pace for a career year in the first half '24 before he hit an absolute wall. He was hitting .294/.821 through the end of June and deservedly started the ASG, leading AL catchers in both fWAR and bWAR at that time. The data could fit a gradual decline narrative or playing through an injury/slump narrative. As an optimist I lean to the latter but we probably want to start thinking about depth and alternatives. His second half was so bad and went on long enough that you have to take it seriously. https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/mlb/2024/06/30/mlb-all-star-roster-projections-positional-war-leaders/74261534007/

[Moose Milligan]

12 minutes ago, Aristotelian said:

On an annual basis that is probably true because his second half was so bad. However he was on pace for a career year in the first half '24 before he hit an absolute wall. He was hitting .294/.821 through the end of June and deservedly started the ASG, leading AL catchers in both fWAR and bWAR at that time. The data could fit a gradual decline narrative or playing through an injury/slump narrative. As an optimist I lean to the latter but we probably want to start thinking about depth and alternatives. His second half was so bad and went on long enough that you have to take it seriously. https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/mlb/2024/06/30/mlb-all-star-roster-projections-positional-war-leaders/74261534007/

I don’t care what he was on pace to do.  It’s not being intellectually honest and refuses to acknowledge the whole story.  I’m glad you’re an optimist and I’d like to join you there but I also can’t ignore the decline that I’m seeing.  I also can’t ignore that he plays the most physically demanding position on the field.  If he was hurt, he wasn’t hurt enough to go on the IL.  

He came up in 2022 and put up 5.4 WAR in 113 games/470 plate appearances. Over a full season, he’d probably have been in MVP WAR range. 

2023, 4.3 WAR but in significantly more games and significantly more plate appearances:  154/687

2024: 3.4 WAR in 148 games, 638 plate appearances. 

No matter how you cut it, no matter what excuses you want to make for him, his rookie year is by far and away the best season he’s had.  His OPS+ has declined each year. 

If he weren’t a catcher, maybe I wouldn’t be this bothered by it. But even if he had nagging injuries this year, IMO, that’s not a good harbinger of things to come. 

Like I said, I can’t ignore what I’ve seen.  His biggest WAR season came in his first year and in the lowest amount of games played.  I’d love to be wrong but I also wouldn’t be surprised if we’re witnessing a really slow decline.  

If you don’t believe that, you have to at least recognize that that possibility does exist and that it was always inevitable that he’d have to move off catcher anyway.