House That Hank Built
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Just When You Thought Catching Might Be Settled

By Alan Carpenter

Sep 21, 2016; Baltimore, MD, USA; Baltimore Orioles catcher Matt Wieters (32) fields a ground ball in the sixth inning against the Boston Red Sox at Oriole Park at Camden Yards. Mandatory Credit: Evan Habeeb-USA TODAY Sports
Sep 21, 2016; Baltimore, MD, USA; Baltimore Orioles catcher Matt Wieters (32) fields a ground ball in the sixth inning against the Boston Red Sox at Oriole Park at Camden Yards. Mandatory Credit: Evan Habeeb-USA TODAY Sports /
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Oct 2, 2016; Bronx, NY, USA; Baltimore Orioles catcher Matt Wieters (32) bats in the ninth inning against the New York Yankees at Yankee Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Danny Wild-USA TODAY Sports
Oct 2, 2016; Bronx, NY, USA; Baltimore Orioles catcher Matt Wieters (32) bats in the ninth inning against the New York Yankees at Yankee Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Danny Wild-USA TODAY Sports /

Catbird’s Seat

The Atlanta Braves has a perfect situation in front of them.  They truly don’t need a catcher now. 

From Coppy’s comment and DOB’s guess, though, you’d have to believe there’s a threshold in which the Braves would entertain the idea of bringing Wieters in.

During the discussion of Brian McCann, speculation was that the Braves valued his production at roughly $11 million per year at this point in his career.  But that also came at a price which included tradable prospects of some ilk (obviously there was some significant dispute over the resume’s of the prospects required, in that particular case).

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Wieters is not better than Brian McCann.  There’s just no way to slice that in any other manner.  And if McCann is worth only $11m annually to Atlanta, then Wieters would have to be somewhere around $9-10 million… and that only because it’s a straight cash deal.

Boras will continue to point toward 2010-2013 to tout his player.  But teams will balk at that all day long and twice on Sunday.  This drama will last a while, for there are few clubs with definitive needs at the position that would want to fork over $12-14 million for 3-4 years, as Witers likely is looking for at this point.

In their predictions for this off-season, MLBTR did actually guess the Braves for Wieters – at three years and $39 million.  I see no scenario in which Atlanta pays that for Wieters unless Flowers breaks an ankle between now and March.  It just won’t happen like that otherwise.

If Boras and his client would accept a 3x$10 million deal, then that could get Coppy interested.  3x$9 million would probably get a contract ready to sign.

Heck, throw in a fourth option year that allows Boras to claim some victory while both sides know that it would never be executed.

But frankly, Boras should go for a shorter deal… maybe even a single-year pact if he and Wieters think that he’s still ‘got it’.  He could shoot for perhaps $12 million that way and teams might bite due to the shorter term.

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In the meantime, I would not recommend staking out the HoneyBaked Ham stores near Dunwoody or Vinings waiting for Brian Snitker to show up with news that he just can’t contain.

For even if this comes to pass, it’ll never be that soon.

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