2009 Catching Position

We always hear from managers that baseball is a team game. I am not completely convinced, I would more likely describe it as a game of individual performances combined. Maybe it's the same, maybe not. I crunched some numbers recently on how the royals performed at each position in 2009 compared to the other teams in the AL. I imagine, or at least hope that Dayton and his people have done this kind of analysis already but I think it will provide us some interesting information. At the very least it should show us which positions the Royals struggled at and where they need to improve.

Most people who followed the Royals pretty close in 2009, probably have a good idea of where we rank at each position, but a few were a surprise to me. I hope you learn something from this information.

So let's start with the catching position. Since that has been a really big focus this offseason for Dayton and some moves have already been made, it should be interesting.

The Royals had 3 players catch for them last year.

Name	G	AVG	OBP	SLG	OPS	HR	R	RBI	BB	SO
Brayan Pena	30	0.330	0.360	0.532	0.892	4	11	11	5	6
John Buck	46	0.288	0.329	0.569	0.898	8	16	33	9	41
Miguel Olivo	103	0.244	0.286	0.466	0.753	19	43	55	16	121

Now, as a group, lets see how they compare to the rest of the AL. The below chart is sorted by sOPS+, which essentially is how they compared to the rest of the teams catching position. 100 = league average over 100 is better than league average. I also formatted the chart as a heat chart, which if you ever look at this blog, you know I love. Red = best, Green = worst.

Team	Split	BA	OBP	SLG	OPS	sOPS+	HR
Twins	as C	.340	.415	.516	.931	160	23
Royals	as C	.270	.310	.504	.814	124	31
Yankees	as C	.269	.330	.438	.767	113	22
Orioles	as C	.270	.343	.406	.750	109	14
Red Sox	as C	.239	.333	.417	.750	109	20
Athletics	as C	.267	.308	.435	.744	106	22
White Sox	as C	.284	.325	.417	.742	106	17
Angels	as C	.239	.317	.408	.725	102	22
Indians	as C	.225	.330	.365	.695	95	15
Rangers	as C	.234	.286	.379	.665	85	17
Mariners	as C	.224	.282	.354	.636	77	13
Blue Jays	as C	.230	.259	.374	.633	75	20
Rays	as C	.233	.276	.349	.624	74	13
Tigers	as C	.215	.295	.327	.622	74	9

This one shocked me. Utilizing the OPS+ statistic, the Royals had the second best catching core in the American League. As a group they had a relatively low OBP, which was anchored by Miguel Olivo walking only 16 times in 103 games. But the OPS is buoyed by the high SLG which came primarily from Buck and Pena. Olivo had the most homeruns in the group, but only because he played in more games. The Royals catchers also lead the AL in homeruns, I would have bet good money that we did not lead any position in homeruns.

Dayton Moore let Miguel Olivo walk in the offseason. Which according to the numbers was the right move.

The Royals just inked a deal with Jason Kendall, who did the following last year.

Name	G	AVG	OBP	SLG	OPS	HR	R	RBI	BB	SO
Jason Kendall	134	0.241	0.331	0.305	0.636	2	48	43	46	58

Now, so far I've been completely neglecting all other aspects of the catching position. That is primarily because personally, I have no idea how to possibly compare the three catchers in that respect. I could post pass ball numbers, but that is only skin deep. I don't know how well one would handle the pitchers over the other, which admittedly is a big part of the catching position however, I do think I can say one thing about this: neither does Dayton. Well at least in regards to signing a free agent.

I am sure that some catchers have a better ability to handle a pitching staff and a better ability to call a game from behind the plate, but I highly doubt that Dayton Moore or anyone outside of Kendalls own teamates and coaches know how well he can handle a pitching staff. It is also quite possible that he would be good with one staff and poor with another. I think it is the wildcard of all the attributes of a catcher and I won't put any emphasis on that at all in this post.

So going purely on the offensive output of the players in the last season, Kendall makes little sense. Buck outperformed Kendall in nearly every statistical category, plus he knows the pitching staff pretty well which I would imagine would give him a leg up.

I know what you are saying..."you cherry picked only one season of kendall and Buck". That is probably very true, you can look them both up on the internet if you like but let me just sum it up like this.

1. Kendalls 2009 was very similar to his 2008 and he is 35
2. Bucks 2009 was the best year of his career and he is 28

Frankly, I think we could sum up the choice of Buck vs Kendall with those two points alone. Again, this is entirely offensively focused. Kendall could be 10x the defensive catcher and 10x the game caller and it would change things somewhat. All we have is some anecdotal evidence to look at anyway. But regardless we are talking about the BACKUP catcher anyway.

Yep, backup. The Royals 2010 season isn't a contending year unless they get extremely lucky and everybody steps up big time (hint: it ain't happening), so it is (another) rebuilding year. Or at least a year to move forward. The Royals should be finding out what we have in our young players to see if they can be middle or long term answers at the position, and especially at the catching position.

Pena is no spring chicken being 27, but he has never had a chance to prove himself at the major league level. He got 64 games last year and frankly proved he can be a decent hitter.

We all know that the Royals had a woeful offense last year and the catching position was one of the few bright spots. Yet he is making nearly wholesale changes to it, and is spending loads of money on an aging veteran who likely won't improve at all. It reminds me exactly of what he did with the bullpen last year. He took one of the teams few strengths, let go of the contributors and signed overpriced old guys. It didn't work with the pen last year and I don't see it working with the catching this year. Fortunately, the offense expected out of the catching position is minor so this isn't quite as big a deal as the bullpen fiasco of last offseason.

This is supposed to be a position in review post, but with the Kendall signing I felt I had to make a comment on that.