Filling Atlanta Braves catching vacancy with a new face
By Fred Owens
The 2020 nontender class offers the Atlanta Braves two less expensive options, who might become the offseason’s bargain pickup.
Even though his offense plunged back in the journeyman catcher area with Seattle in 2018, the Rays traded for Mike Zunino because his defense is sterling, and his bat produced an .840 OPS and 25 homers in 2017.
His bat didn’t rebound, but his defense remained among the best. The 2019 Baseball Prospectus list had Zunino at 10th among all catchers, with 9.8 FRAA_ADJ, 1.5 blocking runs, 1.1 throwing runs, and seven framing runs.
The Rays gave him back-to-back one-year contracts with a $4.5M face value but non-tendered him after 2020 because his bat continued to be missing.
A team signing the 29-year-old catcher is hiring a well above average defensive catcher who is sturdy enough to play every day if needed and will hit double-digit home runs in 200 PA.
My pick of the free-agent class is Curt Casali.
Cheapskate no-tender
I wasn’t shocked that the Reds non-tendered Casali, but the move didn’t make much baseball sense. All Casali did over the last two full seasons was bat .268/.340/.427/.767 and hit 12 homers in 392 PA, which works out to roughly an 18 homer year over 600 PA.
Over the same period, his stablemate in Cincinnati, Tucker Barnhart, batted .241/.328/.375/.703 with 21 homers in 886 PA.
As the Reds continued to punt the 2021 season, it became clear that the reason for Casali’s non-tender was cash.
Barnhart is under contract for $4.18M in 2021 with a $500K buyout of a $7,5M 2022 option. The Reds need a catcher and didn’t want to flush $4.7M down the drain, so they designated Casali to save his estimated $2M arbitration cost.
In 2019, Casali batted .251/.331/ .411/.742 and hit eight homers in 236 PA over 84 games. Defensively He ranked 17th overall on the 2019 Baseball Prospectus list, with 4.5 framing runs 1.8 blocking runs, and six FRAA_ADJ.
Casali can start every day, is under team control through 2022, and would offer a bridge to the 2022 season when d’Arnaud departs.
Options just missing my list include Sandy León, Josh Phegley, and Alex Avila.
That’s a wrap
The Atlanta Braves are no doubt working on higher profile needs. However, high-quality catching is essential to solidifying the defense, and getting him on board now eliminates looking around to see what’s left later.
Next. Comeback Marcell!. dark
Interesting trade options exist as well; I’ll take a look at those in my next post.