Atlanta Braves: Why the rush to add a catcher?
By Scott Ferris
The Atlanta Braves already have three catchers with big league experience and don’t expect to contend in 2017. Why the rush to find their backstop of the future?
The Atlanta Braves entered this off-season with three distinct areas of need – starting pitching, third base, and catcher.
They addressed pitching by adding three veteran hurlers and exploring trades for top-of-the-rotation arms. Meanwhile at third, it seems increasingly likely that they will roll the dice with Adonis Garcia as the everyday starter. For the most part, we’ve seen reports about those two areas fade away in recent weeks.
The catching rumors, though, will not go away.
Thus far this winter, Atlanta has had some sort of connection – be it prolonged or merely fleeting – to Jason Castro, Welington Castillo, Matt Wieters, Stephen Vogt, Nick Hundley, Derek Norris, and Wilson Ramos.
Over the summer they were reportedly interested in Jonathan Lucroy before Milwaukee sent him to the Texas Rangers. They’ve also made a couple of minor additions (David Freitas, Tuffy Gosewisch) who could conceivably see some time behind the plate.
Some of those names are no longer on the market but Wieters in particular has become a mainstay in the headlines.
Clearly, the team, the media, or both think that the club needs to bolster its catching situation. However, despite the omnipresent rumblings about adding a backstop I’m left wondering…why now?