Second in a series to gauge the competition that the Braves will face this up-coming season on a position-by-position basis. Today: Catchers.
The catching position is unique in that we’re generally not looking at just one player per team, but two instead. The Atlanta Braves developed a formidable combo last season with Tyler Flowers and Kurt Suzuki, and both are expected to be in harness again for the team in 2018.
Here is a look at the players currently set to handle those duties for our rivals in the NL East:
- Marlins: Tomas Telis, Chad Wallach
- Mets: Travis d’Arnaud, Kevin Plawecki
- Nationals: Matt Wieters, Pedro Severino
- Phillies: Jorge Alfaro, Cameron Rupp
- In a category by himself: J.T. Realmuto
I’ve set Realmuto off to the side because I don’t believe that he will be catching for the Marlins once the season starts. The big question will be ‘where does he go?’
It seems that the Nationals have been given a take-it-or-leave-it offer regarding Realmuto: Victor Robles or nothing.
The Braves seem to have gotten a similar response on Christian Yelich… but now Yelich is a Bewer and we’ve still got Ronald Acuna. I’m good with that. The Nationals will likewise probably be good seeing Realmuto end up with Texas or some place like that, too.
In any case, I’m not ready to include Realmuto as a member of the NL East for the purposes of these rankings.
But as for his (current) teammates… let’s start there:
Miami Marlins
This is truly kind of sad. It’s really not the players, but there are going to be a number of them thrust into a really bad situation this year. It’s going to be a club down in Miami that is going to be stretched at every level of the organization: “major leaguers” who belong in AAA, AAA players who belong in AA, and so forth.
Let’s take Tomas Telis (“Toe-moss Tay-lees”) for example: he has just over 1 year of major league service time spread among 4 seasons. By all rights, he’s a Quad-A or backup catcher at best. Yet he’s in line to be their starting backstop if/when Realmuto is dealt.
He’s had flashes of brilliance: .308 in 10 Marlin games of 2016, .291 in AAA for the Rangers in 2015 over 300 plate appearances. But a ML-lifetime .233 with a .573 OPS belies his offensive weaknesses.
Next up is Chad Wallach. His major league time consists of 6 games and 11 AB with Cincinnati in 2017. He hasn’t hit that well since high-A ball, though the 26-year-old has moved through two minor league systems (started as a Marlin, then a Red in 2015, now back with Miami) with relative quickness.
He’s on the club for depth and his glove – probably – though could be pressed into more regular service. Regardless, both he and Telis are symptomatic of the state of the Marlins today, which ranks this tandem…