Catcher Importance- Defense

[tjw4]

I have a team with an incredible starting pitching staff, 4 players with a minimum ratings somewhere between 12-20 in stuff, movement, control and all 4 of them have atleast two categories with 15+...all have good pitches, etc...I have a closer that has 3 pitches over 17, and is a 19/13/13, I can use him as a starter as well if I want...basically a truly great staff and a great defense behind them.

My offense struggles, and my only consistent all-star is a 33 year old catcher that I am going to let walk for the supplemental pick. Now in my minors I have the option to call up one of two guys.

Player A
Offense- 14-16-12-7-12
Defense, Catcher-1, Arm-5, Ability-5

Player B
Offense 12-10-8-13-19
Defense, 11-11-12

I feel I could bump Player A up in spring training, as I only recently began playing him at catcher after he bumped up his offensive ratings in the past season. Does catching ability really matter. I've had stud catchers vs avg catchers never really show much of a difference in defensive metrics for the team, Ive never tried to play a truly awful defensive catcher though. Both of these guys would be the main platoon vs RHP.

[JMDurron]

Given your roster construction, I'd take my chances with the offensive stud catcher. So long as you have an excellent defense behind your very good staff, I suspect that you can survive a questionable catcher. If you can't, catcher is a position with enough fatigue that you should see how your MLB backup catcher does by comparison, in terms of PB, CS%, and CERA by the All-Star Break.

I pay much more attention to catcher ability than catcher arm on my teams (I also pitchout a lot to make the most of an arm rating that invites risk-taking by the AI), when all else is equal. It appears that not all else is equal. Release The Piazza!

[tjw4]

If he was Piazza, this would make it a hell of a lot easier....Id suspect he will bat somewhere around .275/.320/460 with just shy of 20 HRs in a season of 450 ABs or so againt mostly RHP.

Player B is also younger and still developing so that is a slight factor as why not keep his cheap years for when he is in his prime if its possible.

I've never explored the pitch our option, but may have too. Thanks for the heads up. With my staff I generally let them focus on pitching and take my chances. No pitchouts and very limited I-Walks and slightly less limited pitch arounds.

[jpeters1734]

Player A will probably not improve much defensively if that is not his natural position. I would say start with player A and really watch his cera. If it's a full run worse, I'd keep him away from catching.

[tjw4]

Player also play all other IF positions with a rating of 9-11...so worst case I could make him the 3b, and backup catcher if needed I guess...

[goalieump413]

Bring your better defensive catcher up, and note his leadership, intelligence, and work ethic ratings.

[tjw4]

the offensive catcher has intangibles of Normal, Very high, Low

the defensive catcher- Very high, VH, VH

My current catcher who will platoon vs LHP has Low(orange), Low (yellow),Low(orange),

[tjw4]

I also have a 3rd option, but was planning on letting him grow one more year but now that I think about it, I am considering calling him up as he is 25 years old and if I don't call him up soon he might never finish developing, but he is pretty far off his potentials.

Contact 11/13
Gap 17/18
HR 5/6
Eye 8/15
K 9/13

Last season while 24 years old he increased everything by 2. Should I call him up...will this increase his development speed. I could easily withdraw the arbitration offer to my platoon vs LHP and let this guy carry that load..as really hes not too far beneath my current backup catcher which is basically a guy that hits 14 contact and 16 power vs lefties with everything else 11 or less..and vs RHP he is next to useless with 12 contact, 16 power, but less than 10 in everything else.

So I would call this guy up, and one of the other 2....and then cut my current backup catcher pre-arbitration. Which would save me about 2-300k and the production might not be all that different, its just a matter of how that affects this catchers development.

[Hajew86]

Originally Posted by tjw4

I have a team with an incredible starting pitching staff, 4 players with a minimum ratings somewhere between 12-20 in stuff, movement, control and all 4 of them have atleast two categories with 15+...all have good pitches, etc...I have a closer that has 3 pitches over 17, and is a 19/13/13, I can use him as a starter as well if I want...basically a truly great staff and a great defense behind them.

My offense struggles, and my only consistent all-star is a 33 year old catcher that I am going to let walk for the supplemental pick. Now in my minors I have the option to call up one of two guys.

Player A
Offense- 14-16-12-7-12
Defense, Catcher-1, Arm-5, Ability-5

Player B
Offense 12-10-8-13-19
Defense, 11-11-12

I feel I could bump Player A up in spring training, as I only recently began playing him at catcher after he bumped up his offensive ratings in the past season. Does catching ability really matter. I've had stud catchers vs avg catchers never really show much of a difference in defensive metrics for the team, Ive never tried to play a truly awful defensive catcher though. Both of these guys would be the main platoon vs RHP.

So there is no opportunity to bring up both guys and platoon them? It might be time to shop your older catcher to see what you might be able to receive instead of letting him walk for a sup pick.

[Ts-Rock]

I'm a little old school I guess, I want upper echelon defense at my C, SS and CF positions, It's easier to find offense for the other positions and if I can get some contributions from those 3 key def position then's that's great, but I wouldn't start an slightly above avg bat at C who's HORRIBLE at defensive over a far superior defensive rated C, especially since the above avg bat isn't guaranteed to put up big numbers.

[Honorable_Pawn]

Originally Posted by Ts-Rock

I'm a little old school I guess, I want upper echelon defense at my C, SS and CF positions, It's easier to find offense for the other positions and if I can get some contributions from those 3 key def position then's that's great, but I wouldn't start an slightly above avg bat at C who's HORRIBLE at defensive over a far superior defensive rated C, especially since the above avg bat isn't guaranteed to put up big numbers.

agree

[tjw4]

Originally Posted by Hajew86

So there is no opportunity to bring up both guys and platoon them? It might be time to shop your older catcher to see what you might be able to receive instead of letting him walk for a sup pick.

I shopped him all last season when I fell out of the race and he still had a player option remaining for this year and there was little interest. I almost had one deal that would have netted me a lot of quality in return but it never happened. I figured a supplemental pick would be the best I could do for this guy as people seem glued to their prospects in this world.