Central Showdown - Catcher

Over the next few weeks, I thought it might be fun to break down the AL Central position by position ranking from top to bottom the best and worst that the division has to offer. Obviously some of these position battles are going to be divisive but I will do my best to justify my rankings as I go. As with all predictions and blogging, I am always happy to be proven wrong. Today we will start at catcher; I will be ranking from best to worst 1-5 for each position.

1. Carlos Santana – Indians

I realize that this may immediately alienate Twins fans from continuing to want to read this list! But hear me out. The difficulty with this kind of ranking is so many players in the central (particularly with the Twins) have question marks concerning their health.

In his first full big league season Santana broke out the power bat in a big way, bashing 27 HR and managing a decent .359 OBP despite his miserable .239 BA (mainly thanks to walking in approximately 15% of his PA, wow!) Santana suffered from a miserable .263 BaBIP in 2011 so with work in improving plate discipline by cutting down on strikeouts and improving contact, his average should rise in 2012. Don’t be surprised if he comes close to 30/100 with an average closer to .275. Defensively Santana threw out right on the league average of 28% of potential base stealers and despite being a slightly below average fielder (Rfield -4 in 2011), his offensive skill set should lead him to become the best power hitting catcher in baseball in 2012.

2. Joe Mauer – Twins

The primary reason Mauer was not ranked number one on this particular list is the questions surrounding his health from 2011. While Mauer has reported to camp completely healthy, you can never be too careful. The acquisition of Ryan Doumit will be crucial for keeping Mauer’s bat in the lineup as much as possible.

Simply put, when Mauer is healthy, he has one of the sweetest swings in baseball. Despite a power outage since the Twins moved to Target field after his MVP season in 2010, Mauer is one of the league’s elite hitters. Through 9 major league seasons Mauer owns a slash line of .323/.401/.471, averages 96 runs scored, 15 HR and 90 RBI. Mauer own a career WAR of 40.3 and throws out an average of 35% of base runners. Mauer received a brutal backlash from Twins fans last season in the wake of being paid $23 million for the first of 8 seasons in his mega-pact with the Twins and only managing to take the field for 82 games. This simply speaks to how critical Mauer is to the Twins chances of success and how high a standard and expectation he has set for himself. If the Twins follow the Indians blueprint with Santana, moving him to DH and 1B to give his body the rest it needs, expect that monster average and OBP to return and a lot of runs to be scored, with or without the power stroke.

 3. Alex Avila – Tigers

Tiger’s fans might feel hard done by seeing Avila at number three on the list, especially after a season that had the Tigers catcher receiving some MVP recognition. The truth is, Avila was pretty lucky in 2011. Avila’s BaBIP jumped to a ridiculous .366 last season after having averaged .293 in the previous two. Avila’s average should come back down to earth this season to the tune of something around .270. Avila has a solid power stroke, with an ISO of .211 in 2011, walks a ton – (73 times last year), and strikes out a ton – 131 times last year. Avila threw out an excellent 32% of base stealers in 2011 and has improved his skills defensively behind the plate. Unfortunately for Avila, he plays at a position at which the AL Central is loaded. He will need a repeat performance of 2011 to be considered one of the games elite catchers.

4. Salvador Perez – Royals

Assuming that Salvador Perez picks up from where he left off in his excellent September call-up he could well be the Royals opening day catcher. In 148 big league ABs Perez managed a .331 average with 3 HR and a decent .361 OBP along the way. Similarly to Avila, Perez benefited from a bloated .362 BaBIP and 2011 was his first season playing above the A level minor league ball. Perez has suffered from a lack o plate discipline in his 5 minor league seasons (managing only 71 walks over that entire span) as well as striking out a little too much. This should lead Royals fans to temper their expectations of Perez going forward this season, particularly with regard to his batting average. If he can remain somewhat consistent he should get plenty of playing time to exhibit the decent pop in his stroke and with the sub-par Brayan Pena being his most significant challenger, he will have every opportunity to earn the Royals everyday job.

5. A. J. Pierzynski – White Sox

Most Twins fans can recall the aftermath of the 2003 season in which Pierzynski was traded away to the Giants in one of the most lopsided trades in MLB history, for a package that included Francisco Liriano, Joe Nathan and Boof Bonser (who, aside from Carl Pavano, had some of the most questionable and entertaining facial hair in recent Twins history).

Since moving onto the White Sox in 2005, Pierzynski has been nothing but consistent. He typically racks up a line of .285/.325/.425, with 15 HR and 70 RBI. Pierzynski is beginning to show signs of age and at 35 has seen his power output decrease steadily over the last three seasons. The Twins 3^rd round draft choice of 1994 draft has declined defensively, with a weak arm and a worsening ability in the field. Pierzynski is a fierce competitor and will continue to be a solid presence behind the plate, but his best days are far behind him.

What the Twins Really Lost to the DL in 2011

There has been much discourse on how the DL limited the 2011 Twins, the team having to use it 27 times, second most in the majors. Thus far, however, no one has really discussed exactly what the Twins lost in terms of pitching and offensive production and where that may have landed them at the end of the season if they had managed to stay healthy.

It became tiresome throughout the season to see the beleaguered and underwhelming Twins AAA team take to Target field and become the whipping boys of almost every team in the league. Even more tiresome was the morose despondency of Twins fans who blamed the teams first to last fall on everyone from the Twins brass, to Gardy, to the players and to the injury bug itself.

For the purposes of this entry, let us make a few assumptions. Assumption number 1: Twins starters that spent significant time on the DL would have played around 130 games for the big league club had they remained healthy. Assumption 2: If they had remained healthy the Twins big league starter’s numbers would have been roughly in line with their major league career averages. These are certainly large assumptions, as it was obvious that many Twins suffered from down years last year, but I think these assumptions will make for an interesting projection on where the Twins might have finished.

Offense

Let us start with some bottom line figures about the Twins offense in 2011: Cumulatively, over 5989 plate appearances the Twins managed a line of 247/306/360 in 2011, taking just 440 walks (compared to 559 in 2010 and their lowest total since 1994), striking out 1048 times, committing 119 errors (most since 1985), finishing with an OPS of .666 (lowest since 1981) and scoring a paltry 3.82 runs per game (also lowest since 1981). Wow, those are hard numbers to swallow, especially given the Twins reputation for getting on base, playing small ball and having stout defense.

Now let’s take a look at the key offensive contributors and the time they missed:

Joe Mauer played an injury plagued 93 games in 2011 and made only 254 plate appearances, Drew Butera took his place and although not for the whole season, Mauer’s other primary replacement, Rene Rivera, was equally pathetic – let us compare their offensive production, all stats being a 162 game average of their major league careers thus far:

	AVG	OBP	SLG	HR	RBI
Butera	.178	.220	.261	5	41
Mauer	.323	.403	.471	15	89

Nothing else needs to be said regarding this comparison, just seeing Butera’s line makes my skin crawl and makes the Wilson Ramos trade even more of a blow. Now the same process for Denard Span and his replacement Ben Revere instead substituting HR and RBI for runs scored and stolen bases:

	AVG	OBP	SLG	R	SB
Revere	.262	.305	.301	71	42
Span	.285	.361	.387	102	26

A more interesting comparison here, with Revere’s stolen base ability being intriguing the key difference really coming in OBP, a category Revere drastically needs to improve as I commented on in my last entry.

Making a comparison between Morneau and his platoon of replacements is difficult given the sheer amount of them. Through the 2011 season, first base was manned by a combination of Joe Mauer (18 games), Michael Cuddyer (46 games), Morneau himself (56 games) and Chris Parmelee (20 games). For this comparison the most representative statistics will be taken from converting these players’ contributions to a 162 game average, according to the proportion of games they played at 1B. Despite the fact that these numbers are slightly skewed from excellent 1B contributions from Mauer and Parmelee over a very limited time at the position this comparison fields the following results:

	AVG	OBP	SLG	HR	RBI
1B Platoon	.307	.362	.465	18	88
Morneau	.281	.353	.489	29	113

The most obvious drop off here despite a decent combined season from the Twins platoon at 1B is a power outage. If we put all of these statistics together to compare what the loss of a healthy Mauer, Morneau and Span cost the Twins compared to their replacement players we see the true magnitude of their constant injuries. From these injuries the Twins lost;


21 HR
73 RBI
31 Runs

We also see the contrast in batting lines between these 3 starters and their replacements:

	AVG	OBP	SLG
Replacements	.249	.296	.342
Mauer, Morneau and Span	.296	.372	.449

The DL was all too familiar to Twins fans throughout the 2011 season. While my guess would be that a similar comparison between Twins pitching staff would show us what Twins fans have known all along (that the majority of our starters are simply not good enough to mount a serious challenge in the playoffs), this simple comparison highlights the importance of a healthy Mauer, Morneau and Span to the success of the Twins as well as their alarming lack of depth behind them. Needless to say, the success of the 2012 Twins will rest upon the good health of this impressive nucleus. If the Twins are to rebound from the humiliation of last season, these three are the key.

Catcher – Mauer, Doumit and Butera

Much will depend on the consistent health of team talisman Mauer, who was limited to a mere 82 appearances in 2011, the second lowest total of his big-league career. His batting average and OBP fell 40 points each in his injury plagued campaign, and he posted his worst home run and RBI totals since his rookie season in 2004. This was hardly the return the team was looking for on the $23 million investment the Twins committed to the face of their franchise. While Mauer’s transition to playing games at first base will no doubt ease fans fears regarding his long-term durability, the variety and extent of his health issues leaves Twins fans apprehensive for the man the franchise has locked up to be its primary backstop through 2018. If the Twins are to offer any resistance in an improving AL Central in 2012, Mauer’s health will be critical to their chances of success.

Early in his second term as Twins GM Terry Ryan made a move that will endear him to Twins fans all over again, the acquisition of Ryan Doumit; whom he locked up to a 1 year $3 million deal. With Mauer’s health still uncertain his new backup will have Twins fans breathing a heavy sigh of relief, if only because it will save them having to watch Drew Butera’s horrendous struggles at the plate. While posting a line of 167/210/239 last year Butera was a constant source of frustration and a rightful scapegoat for a team that lacked depth across the roster.

While not possessing a strong defensive game and often succumbing to niggling injuries himself, Doumit’s 303/353/477 2011 line is a gargantuan improvement from the anemic Butera, while also allowing Ron Gardenhire a little more flexibility due to his versatility, having the ability to log time at catcher, in the outfield and at the corner infield positions.

If Mauer can stay healthy (a huge ‘if’ and ‘healthy’ meaning playing 130 games in 2012), catcher should be one of the Twins primary areas of strength. Twins fans everywhere will be hoping Mauer can return to his erstwhile status as one of the elite offensive catchers in the game and his perennial role as an on-base machine.