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Atlanta Braves Free Agent Profile: Robinson Chirinos

By Benjamin Chase

ARLINGTON, TX - APRIL 26: Catcher Robinson Chirinos #61 of the Texas Rangers looks on during the third inning of a baseball game against the Minnesota Twins at Globe Life Park on Wednesday, April 26, 2017 in Arlington, Texas. Texas won 14-3. (Photo by Brandon Wade/Getty Images)*** Local Caption *** Robinson Chirinos
ARLINGTON, TX - APRIL 26: Catcher Robinson Chirinos #61 of the Texas Rangers looks on during the third inning of a baseball game against the Minnesota Twins at Globe Life Park on Wednesday, April 26, 2017 in Arlington, Texas. Texas won 14-3. (Photo by Brandon Wade/Getty Images)*** Local Caption *** Robinson Chirinos /
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Atlanta Braves
ARLINGTON, TX – MAY 24: Robinson Chirinos #61 of the Texas Rangers misses the tag at home in the second inning against the Kansas City Royalsat Globe Life Park in Arlington on May 24, 2018 in Arlington, Texas. (Photo by Rick Yeatts/Getty Images) /

Establishing himself

After an excellent season for the Texas AAA team in 2013, Chirinos worked up to the majors for 13 games. By the end of 2014, he had won the starting job, hitting .239/.290/.415 with 13 home runs.

Chirinos has developed his skills and been tremendous in a pairing behind the plate. From 2014-2017, Chirinos was primarily sharing time behind the plate. He posted a 106 OPS+ with a .239/.323/.456 line, averaging 79 games played and 12 home runs.

In 2018, Chirinos struggled when asked to handle the primary share of the catching load. He did hit 18 home runs, but he put up a .222/.338/.419 line with a strikeout rate of nearly 33%. This came after Chirinos had been a guy with a 20-25% strikeout rate over his career coming into 2018 with an improving OPS+ for four straight seasons coming into the year.

While many players see significant benefits from adjusting their angle in their swing, you can go too far, and it would appear that Chirinos did just that this year. His swing was noticeably more uppercut in 2018, and the stat lines bore out that it was not a good fit for him. Chirinos had been a consistent 40% groundball hitter, with around 45% of his balls going for fly balls, leaving around 15% line drives. Instead, in 2018, Chirinos had less than 30% groundballs, and saw his line drive rate up to 21% and fly ball rate up to 49%. The changes obviously didn’t work for him.

Defensively, Chirinos is a solid defender, though his time behind the plate in 2018 was his worst season by far, via Fangraphs metrics or Baseball Prospectus metrics. Previously, Chirinos had been a league average guy via Fangraphs, and in 2017, Chirinos was right in the middle of Baseball Prospectus’ metrics.

As far as previous contracts, Chirinos made his most money ever in 2018 when he made $2.25 million.

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