Atlanta Braves Morning Chop – Contenders Welcome this Matchup
Sep 9, 2015; Philadelphia, PA, USA; Atlanta Braves catcher Christian Bethancourt (27) in a game against the Philadelphia Phillies at Citizens Bank Park. The Braves won 8-1. Mandatory Credit: Bill Streicher-USA TODAY Sports
Beginning of the End for Bethancourt?
I hate to criticize players… truly I do. Baseball is a hard game to play and we’re talking about the top 1% (or less) who ever play the sport. But it is disappointing to watch a promising career melt in front of your eyes.
That was epitomized last night was a passed ball charged to Christian Bethancourt during the 8th inning. At the time, the game was still very close: 2-1. But with a runner (Eric Young, Jr.) on third base, Bethancourt flat missed catching a pitch that was a strike. Barely touched the leather.
Of course Young scored, and that started things unraveling for Arodys Vizcaino. While he got Kirk Nieuwenhuis to ground out, the 9th inning didn’t go as well: a walk and a long home run to Yoenis Cespedes … but then again, he’s done that a lot lately.
Let’s take a cursory look, then.
There are 61 major league catchers with at least 100 plate appearances this season. Within that list, Christian Bethancourt ranks:
- 60th in fWAR (-0.5)
- 52nd in batting average (.187, despite an excellent year in AAA)
- 59th in walk rate
- 61st in OBP
- 59th in wRC+
Not good. But how about the much-maligned defensive lapses?
With a minimum of 220 innings played, there’s 61 catchers in the fielding metrics as well. Here are Bethancourt’s ranks (with 315 innings):
- 7 passed balls: tied for 9th in the majors, by everyone above that has at least 569 innings played.
- 8 Wild Pitches allowed. Now this is actually okay: tied for 4th best. But this is harder to gauge since it’s also pitcher-dependent. The worst, by the way is Brian McCann (51). A.J. Pierzynski is 9th (37 in 809 innings).
- 14th in caught stealing percentage (38.8%). Pierzynski is 48th, McCann 12th. Good, but once again, the pitchers tend to assist in these numbers… one way or another, though Pierzynski’s number suggests that CBeth is much better than average.
- He’s been charged with 2 fielding and 2 throwing errors. That’s not horrible – most catchers are in the range of 2-5 errors, regardless of the innings’ played.
Helping the Pitcher
In reviewing catching stats from Baseball Prospectus, Bethancourt is doing his pitchers few favors, ranking 93rd of 102 catchers in terms of “adding strikes”. Keep in mind that this is a cumulative stat, and that his -16.7 strikes added figure would look a lot worse (probably 101st ranked) with added pitch counts.
Turns out that Pierzynski doesn’t help a lot either, but he’s better than twice as good at saving pitch calls for his pitcher than is Bethancourt.
Those same stats tends to suggest that a full season of Bethancourt would cost the Braves a lot in terms in added runs throughout a full season. It’s a difficult metric to fully quantify, but suffice it to say that he’s probably in the bottom 10 (at least) in terms of their composite data – adding strikes, preventing WP/PB, and such. Those kinds of things extend innings, add extra pitches, add extra batters, and ultimately lose games.
With glaring lapses such as this one last night, I don’t know if Bethancourt will be able to continue with the Braves after this season. If you’re looking for alternatives, here are a few random possibilities, but
- Tyler Flowers: terrible on offense, but great on defense.
- Hank Conger: pretty much the same
- Travis d’Arnaud: good framer, average otherwise.
- Ryan Lavarnway: did you forget about him? Could be similar to any of the above… and he’s already on the roster.
For those advocating Jonathan Lucroy, he ranked well on the BP chart, and is solid offensively – so that means he’ll be tough to pry away from Milwaukee. Matt Wieters seems to be close to Pierzynski in skills.
As I say, that’s a very quick overview… undoubtedly and unfortunately we’ll be seeing more in the near future on this topic.