The first edition of this series will focus on the Detroit Tigers' catchers, Victor Martinez and Alex Avila, as well as looking ahead to the future for the Tigers at the position.
Victor Martinez:
V-Mart was the crown jewel of this offseason for the Tigers, cementing the middle of their lineup (Magglio Ordonez-Miguel Cabrera-Victor Martinez) as one of the better 3-4-5 combinations in MLB today. The switch-hitting catcher adds versatility to the team's lineup on a daily basis. He can be played at catcher, first base to give Miguel Cabrera a day off, and obviously would be a fine DH.
Victor had a fantastic season in 2010 hitting .302/.351/.493 with 20 HRs and 79 RBI in merely 127 games. Over a full season, Victor would likely have surpassed 25 HRs and neared 100 RBI, monumental numbers for a catcher. V-Mart is already one of the elite hitting catchers in the league, often grouped with the elite at the position: Joe Mauer and Brian McCann. He seldom strikes out, only striking out 10.5% of the time in 2010, which is phenomenal. He's a great contact hitter that still has enough pop in his bat to hit 15-20 HRs.
Victor is now moving from a hitter friendly park to a pitcher's haven however. Below is a picture of Victor Martinez's hitting spray chart from all of his games at Fenway Park in 2010. It's overlaid on top of the outlined Comerica Park dimensions, to show how his power will dissipate in his new home (blue plotted points are hits, red plotted points are outs):
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| The overlaid pictures are courtesy of foxsports.com |
His home hitting numbers were far better than his road numbers, but a scarier split was when he hit left-handed vs. right-handed. As a switch hitter, he always bats left-handed against right-handed pitchers, and didn't do it very well last year:
2010 vs RHP: 371 PA, .257/.315/.379 (.694 OPS), 8 HR, 40 RBI, 84 RC+, 85 OPS+
2010 vs LHP: 167 PA, .400/.431/.742 (1.173 OPS), 12 HR, 39 RBI, 210 wRC+ and OPS+
The two hot/cold zone pictures below illustrate this even further:
This likely means Victor won't be seeing much action against right-handed pitchers, as he was a below average hitter against them by any metric last year. As we can see against left-handers he's an MVP-caliber hitter, which is evidenced by the almost unfathomable 210 wRC+ and OPS+ he posted last year against them. He hasn't been this bad over his career, but this will be very important to track over the season if Victor's developed a severe split. Victor may be a pull hitter, but he definitely struggles with pitches down and in, against any pitcher. If his split continues, we can expect his power numbers to fall off as a pull hitter thanks to Comerica Park's dimensions favoring lefty hitters more than righties. However, as we can see in the graphic of his batting overlaid on Comerica's dimensions, he hit a lot of balls to the gaps of Comerica Park, meaning his doubles should increase by a pretty solid amount. As the #5 hitter, extra base hits are crucial to drive in Magglio Ordonez and Miguel Cabrera, which the Tigers struggled with mightily last season.
As for Victor's much maligned fielding and throwing arm, those also come along with him whenever he's behind the plate. He'll be behind the plate 2-3 times a week according to Dave Dombrowski, but looking at the graphics I've made and found, I have a sneaking suspicion he'll start in a platoon at catcher with Alex Avila who is horrific against left-handed pitching, and by season's end eventually overtake Avila and catch more games than not. If that's the case, Tigers fans will have to deal with a lot of stolen bases by opposing teams.
Last year, Martinez caught 27 of the unreal 126 that attempted to steal a base against him, but is probably most remembered for the 9 stolen bases that he and Tim Wakefield combined to allow in one game ( http://www.usatoday.com/sports/baseball/2010-04-20-red-sox-rangers_N.htm ). Given that Tim Wakefield is a knuckleballer, it's not surprising that this wise strategy of the Rangers worked. However, some of the blame definitely goes to Victor Martinez, who even on clear pitchouts was failing to throw out runners. Removing those 9 from the stolen bases, Victor caught 27 of 117 which amounts to right around his career average of 23.6%. That's probably about the level we can expect Victor to catch stealing, however, opponents steal more frequently against him than most catchers, which led to Martinez allowing the second-most steals in MLB last season... in only 110 games behind the plate. His arm is definitely a burden, but his bat allows us to overlook that fact.
Overall, Victor is a very valuable asset, and playing him at DH will hide his biggest weakness, his arm behind the plate. Conversely, doing so reduces his value, as his bat at DH isn't nearly as valuable if he were playing at catcher. He'll likely provide 3 WAR if played primarily at DH, while he would provide at least a full extra win if used primarily behind the plate. It's a catch-22, but the Tigers have made up their mind and are sticking with him at DH. If his durability improves as he catches fewer games, the Tigers may just have made the right decision here:
Projection: 600 PA, .305/.360/.470 (.830 OPS), 72 R, 15 HR, 90 RBI, 40 2B, 20/90 runners caught stealing, approximately 3.0 WAR
Alex Avila:
Alex Avila has inspired enough faith in the Tigers' front office to be given the primary catching job for the 2011 season in front of Victor Martinez. In 2009, Avila impressed in his short time, displaying solid power and a patient eye at the plate in combination with his dynamic arm behind the plate. While Avila still possesses all of those plus skills, he unfortunately regressed quite a bit when installed as the full time starter over Gerald Laird. Last year as a whole, Avila batted .228/.316/.340 over his 374 PA, which actually made him almost 7 runs below a replacement player at the plate. Due to the fact that he plays catcher and that he amassed a healthy amount of at bats there however, he graded out at .9 WAR, which is still seen as a below average player over a season.
What was the main culprit behind Avila's struggles? His horrific hitting against lefty pitchers certainly didnt help. He hit a pathetic .182 against them last year and hit .200 against them in the minor leagues, so this certainly doesn't look like an issue that Avila is going to be able to rectify as a left-handed hitter himself. Avila is simply a platoon player at catcher, that offers some upside against right-handed pitching. He has a solid power stroke and is one of the more disciplined hitters in baseball, although his 25.1 K% would tell you otherwise, meaning he strikes out one of every four at bats. Avila only swings at about 23% of pitches outside the strike zone and profiled very similarly to hitters like Lyle Overbay last year as far as plate discipline was concerned. His struggles seem to stem from the 70% of pitches he swings at in the strike zone, which is abnormally high. While it's great that he mainly swings at pitches in the strike zone, Avila clearly isn't being very disciplined once he's gathered that they are in fact within the strike zone. It's never hurt a hitter to take a pitch for a strike rather than swinging, and in fact helps them settle in often. He's one of the worse contact hitters in baseball, making contact only 77.8% of the time he swings, and only 53% outside of the strike zone. Avila definitely has some power in his bat, but as you'd expect, he struggles to lower his high strikeout rate.
He does however offer one of the better arms behind the plate in baseball, catching 20 of the 63 attempted base-stealers against him last season. As we can notice, Alex Avila only faced .643 steals per game, which is far fewer than the 1.145 steal attempts Victor Martinez faces each game on average. Over a full season, that would extrapolate to Victor facing 81 more steals per season, of which he'd probably allow about 60. While 60 steals may not seem like a lot, steals often lead to runs, and it's likely that a good portion of those 60 extra steals would result in runs, displaying the underrated weapon that is having a dynamic arm behind the plate. Avila's .317 caught stealing percentage (CS%) would have placed him 4th among qualified catchers last season had he played in enough games, showing that over a season, he's a valuable defensive asset.
Avila tends to pull the ball more often than not, and while his power potential as far as home runs are concerned hasn't been realized yet, he definitely seems to benefit from the spacious outfield at Comerica Park. His SLG% drops from .378 at home (which is still below average) to a Kendall-esque .308 when on the road, which is a killer for any lineup. Avila doesn't have the speed to leg out singles, so if his SLG% isn't high, he's likely not producing very much for the Tigers. In order to be a more valuable member of the team this year, Avila needs to hit for more power and try to be more disciplined with pitches inside the strike zone.
Is that likely though? Marginal improvement can be reasonably expected, Avila did only play in the minors for about one full season before making it to Detroit, and he's only 24 years old this season. He has experience handling the pitching staff, so that shouldn't be a huge question, and hopefully can look forward to improving from what I consider his rookie year as he only had 72 plate appearances in 2009. I expect marginal improvement, but his hitting at catcher is still likely to be a problem throughout the season, very possibly to the point that he's benched in favor of Victor Martinez.
Projection: 400 PA, .245/.325/.390 (.715 OPS), 13 HR, 45 RBI, 30/90 runners caught stealing (33.3 CS%), approximately 1.2 WAR.
Minor League Options:
The Tigers really don't have a very deep minor league system, and their third option at catcher is likely Max St. Pierre, the career AAA player who finally got his first MLB call-up last season... in his mid-30's. St. Pierre is an underwhelming hitter to say the least with a strong arm behind the plate, similarly to Alex Avila, except he doesn't possess the plate discipline or power potential that Avila has.
As far as future options at the position go, the closest to MLB is probably John Murrian (currently in AA with the Erie Seawolves), whose middling bat but plus fielding will get him to MLB within a couple years as a backup (or even a starter considering how pathetic Tigers' catchers bats are behind the plate).
The Tigers also drafted two catchers in the 2010 MLB Draft, Bryan Holaday of TCU (6th round), and Rob Brantly of UC-Riverside (3rd round). Brantly is an above-average athlete at catcher with a dynamite arm, but little pop in his bat right now. Given his projectable size (already 6'3" 205), he could develop into an average to above-average power hitter for a catcher. His struggles from most scouting reports seem to focus around his receiving behind the plate, which hopefully will be addressed by the time he reaches MLB or AAA. Bryan Holaday is one of the sleepers in our system, and of last year's draft. He won the Johnny Bench award for college's best catcher in 2010, and was named the best defensive catcher in the Tigers' system by Baseball America, throwing out 23 of 50 attempted basestealers. He carries quite a bit of hype along with him and could project to be a starting MLB catcher. Both are still in A or High-A ball, so it's difficult to project them still, but this year could be very telling for both catchers, more specifically Holaday, as he seems to have the tools to advance more quickly through the minor leagues.
Well, that's it for the segment on catchers, next up, the most solidified position on the Tigers, first base.
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