I don't know if you've been paying attention or not, but if you have, you've noticed how terrible the two Cubs catchers are on defense. Dioner Navarro may be the worst defensive catcher I've ever seen. Welington Castillo isn't far behind.
I was curious how many times per game these guys have screwed up. Wild pitches, passed balls and errors seem to be the best way to look at the number of screw-ups. There are many other parts to catcher and most of them are difficult to calculate. Pitch framing is one of the catcher's jobs and I can't possibly comment on that.
I see the number of times they screw up and that's about it. If you're a fan who believes he has a magic eye and can spot pitch framing, good for you. I don't believe you, but good for you.
Here is a list of the catchers with at least 50 innings caught so far this year and the number of times per game they've screwed up.
| Name | Fuck-ups Per Game |
| Dioner Navarro | 1.59 |
| Carlos Santana | 1.02 |
| Henry Blanco | 0.90 |
| John Baker | 0.87 |
| Jarrod Saltalamacchia | 0.85 |
| Wilson Ramos | 0.80 |
| Wilin Rosario | 0.79 |
| Hector Gimenez | 0.75 |
| Welington Castillo | 0.74 |
| Gerald Laird | 0.69 |
| J.P. Arencibia | 0.69 |
| Chris Iannetta | 0.67 |
| Jesus Montero | 0.66 |
| Ryan Doumit | 0.65 |
| Yorvit Torrealba | 0.64 |
| Alex Avila | 0.64 |
| John Jaso | 0.63 |
| Jason Castro | 0.62 |
| A.J. Ellis | 0.61 |
| Michael McKenry | 0.61 |
| Chris Stewart | 0.60 |
| Salvador Perez | 0.58 |
| Kelly Shoppach | 0.55 |
| John Buck | 0.53 |
| Russell Martin | 0.51 |
| Tyler Flowers | 0.51 |
| Rob Brantly | 0.47 |
| Nick Hundley | 0.47 |
| Miguel Olivo | 0.47 |
| Martin Maldonado | 0.47 |
| Francisco Cervelli | 0.46 |
| Carlos Corporan | 0.45 |
| Jose Molina | 0.43 |
| Joe Mauer | 0.43 |
| Matt Wieters | 0.41 |
| Jonathan Lucroy | 0.39 |
| A.J. Pierzynski | 0.38 |
| Hank Conger | 0.36 |
| Miguel Montero | 0.36 |
| Derek Norris | 0.36 |
| David Ross | 0.34 |
| Ryan Hanigan | 0.34 |
| Yadier Molina | 0.33 |
| Evan Gattis | 0.33 |
| Brayan Pena | 0.32 |
| Buster Posey | 0.32 |
| Humberto Quintero | 0.32 |
| Jose Lobaton | 0.31 |
| Geovany Soto | 0.29 |
| Erik Kratz | 0.26 |
| Devin Mesoraco | 0.25 |
| Yan Gomes | 0.24 |
| Kurt Suzuki | 0.20 |
| Carlos Ruiz | 0.17 |
So yeah, these guys are screwing up a lot. Among catchers, the Cubs have more errors than any other team, more wild pitches and have allowed the 3rd most passed balls.
I asked this question at the time, but maybe someone can give me an answer. Why did the Cubs pay $1.75 million for a terrible back-up catcher?
Castillo has been better than average at throwing runners out, but they're running on him regularly. The Cubs as a team have had more stolen base attempts against them than any other team.
Comments
@ dmick89:
(RE: freeforall batting order)
I’d even prefer to do it where you only have to abide by that rule on a per inning basis. Send your best three hitters out every inning. Make the game more exciting. It would probably mean there would be a class of pure defense players like Barney that would be on every team.
joshQuote Reply
I don’t know what to tell you about the catchers. They both suck that aren’t worth much more than league minimum.
joshQuote Reply
@ josh:
I’d love to see that. You could go to Wrigley and know you’re going to watch Starlin Castro bat 8 or 9 times. That’s better than having to watch Dioner Navarro bat a few times. (dying laughing)
dmick89Quote Reply
@ josh:
That’s what gets me about signing Navarro to that contract. If there was another team that was going to sign him for a little less than that, let them take him and be happy you didn’t give a terrible back-up catcher that much money. We complained about Hendry paying Henry Blanco the kind of money he did yet there was little to no complaining about this. At least Blanco was a good defensive catcher. Navarro sucks at hitting, baserunning and defense.
dmick89Quote Reply
@ dmick89:
Yeah, pretty puzzling.
joshQuote Reply
Apparently IND and GB were likely to take Kyle Long had CHI not taken him. I thought he was a slight overdraft (yet a good prospect), but the early run on OL might have changed that.
TyroneQuote Reply
Watching the 20K game. What a hilarious team. Who the fuck is Brant Brown? Kevin Orie, (dying laughing). Mickey Morandini, that’s pretty funny (though apparently he had a career year in 1998), Sandy Martinez. Take out Sosa and Grace, and I guess the pitchers, and you got yourself pretty shitty team.
joshQuote Reply
josh wrote:
Ah sweet, sweet youth. He was what passed as a prospect at the time (Orie too). He is most famous for dropping a ball in Milwaukee during the Wild Card chase that almost killed Ron Santo:
http://www.northtonorth.com/pages/soundclips/santoohno.mp3
He was also traded to Pittsburgh for Jon Lieber in one of Ed Lynch’s better moves.
Aisle424Quote Reply
@ Aisle424:
Aw, and it was Kevin Orie who cost him the no-hitter. Motherfucker.
joshQuote Reply
@ Aisle424:
That sounds familiar, although I wasn’t really listening to Cubs radio until more like 2003.
joshQuote Reply
I don’t remember Brown being much of a prospect. Looking over his stats, he was a 1st baseman when he was drafted and had next to no power. He played some corner outfield, but never hit well until he was 26 and had already made his big league debut. Kevin Orie was a bit time prospect at one point, but I don’t think Brown ever was. I always though Brown was more of a minor league player like Roosevelt Brown who was never a prospect either.
dmick89Quote Reply
Wow, Tango is enamored of a radical rule change idea! I’m shocked. Shocked!
Rizzo the RatQuote Reply
@ josh:
You might have heard it in various Santo montages played on WGN an the interwebs. It’s a famous clip I’ve heard a billion times, and I wasn’t listening in 1998 either.
It might even be in my dorky Ron Santo Public Enemy mashup
http://youtu.be/P8SC_uGSs_0
Suburban kidQuote Reply
Looks like MLBAM’s enlightenment re: Youtube means formerly banned clips are viewable again. So here’s my other one for old time’s sake
http://youtu.be/Kg3zJYny5vE
Suburban kidQuote Reply
@ dmick89:
I hate the idea. No, Castro wouldn’t bat 8 or 9 times; he’d be out of work fast. If you get to bat the same 3 or 4 players first every inning, every player will have to be either really great at hitting or really great at fielding. Generalist players like Castro (who can neither hit like Miguel Cabrera nor field like Darwin Barney) will be a thing of the past.
Rizzo the RatQuote Reply
@ Suburban kid:
(dying laughing)
WaLiQuote Reply
@ Rizzo the Rat:
Also, if the same players are hitting 8 or 9 times per game, they might lose some of their edge. Pitchers would get to know them better. And from a fan perspective, people are going to have unrealistic expectations. When Miguel Cabrera goes 0-10 two days in a row his star is going to lose a lot of its shine.
Suburban kidQuote Reply
@ Rizzo the Rat:
So you’re telling me that the Cubs have 3 better hitters than Starlin Castro. That’s neat.
When the Cubs actually add some bats, if they ever do, Castro likely wouldn’t be and that’s OK. I’d rather watch the best, 2nd best and 3rd best hitters as often as possible. More fun than watching the 4th and 7th best hitters. I like better players. I’m just weird, I guess.
dmick89Quote Reply
Suburban kid wrote:
They might, but my guess is that it would drastically change how starting pitchers were used. IMO, that’s where the argument against this should be. Everybody likes to watch the best hitters bat.
If the way starters were used didn’t change, I’d expect the batters to only get better and better, as they currently do when facing the same pitcher in a game.
I would much rather have the 9 guys bat in any order like was proposed on Tango’s blog, but I certainly wouldn’t object to baseball creating rules that makes me watch the best hitters bat more frequently. You’ll never hear me complain that I get to watch less of Luis Valbuena. Never ever ever.
dmick89Quote Reply
More Rafael Dolis courtesy of the Chicago Cubs. That’s gotta excite people who enjoy watching the lesser players.
dmick89Quote Reply
@ dmick89:
Luis ValbuenaQuote Reply
dmick89 wrote:
Not now, but if they don’t adapt fast, they’d lose 120 games per season. Under this system, teams with multiple great hitters (e.g., Tigers, Angels) would absolutely dominate. And Castro won’t be much fun to watch when he’s below replacement level, anyway. I like good players, too, but I don’t want to see them all be either Miguel Cabrera or Ozzie Smith. Generalists are fun, and I like variety.
Rizzo the RatQuote Reply
@ dmick89:
Rafael DolisQuote Reply
Rizzo the Rat wrote:
I don’t get that excited to watch Castro bat as it is. I did back in 2010 because he was like a new toy, but it turned out a lot of my friends got better toys though mine was better than a lot of my other friends. After awhile no one asked to borrow my toy. (dying laughing)
dmick89Quote Reply
@ Rizzo the Rat:
I actually agree with you now that I’ve thought more about it, but you don’t like any rule change ideas. That’s fine. Maybe baseball doesn’t need any rule changes. I suppose it’s possible it’s the one thing that man didn’t completely fuck up, but I find that unlikely. I like the idea of baseball changing because I know it will never happen. The Westboro Baptist Church will welcome gay people with loving arms before baseball changes a damn rule.
dmick89Quote Reply
dmick89 wrote:
Amusing, but wrong.
WaLiQuote Reply
@ dmick89:
I’m an incremental when it comes to rule changes. Small changes to fix some problem are fine, but big radical changes often have unintended consequences.
Rizzo the RatQuote Reply
Rizzo the Rat wrote:
Yes, which is the point of discussing the ideas. What are those consequences? Are the consequences good for the game? Will the rule change attract more fans?
dmick89Quote Reply
@ WaLi:
Has baseball made any rule changes in the last 40 years that have altered the game? They’ve changed some of the rules for the umpires. In 1969 they lowered the mound (think it was ’69) and in 1973 they added the DH to the AL. Neither of those really altered the way the game was played. Both were done to increase scoring.
dmick89Quote Reply
@ dmick89:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DtMV44yoXZ0
Rizzo the RatQuote Reply
@ dmick89:
They’ll probably be adding DH to NL within the next 10 years. Like you say they added some video review (which erased some HUMAN ELEMENT). Changed draft rules. But yeah, change occurs in baseball slower than a snails pace.
WaLiQuote Reply
@ dmick89:
False. Baseball outlawed the fake to third throw to first pickoff attempt this year. Progress the RtR way. For the record I like being surprised. Like whenever Valby hits a homer.
SVBQuote Reply
Tootblan Save!! Thank you human element!
WaLiQuote Reply
@ SVB:
By the year 3377 we might see them actually change a rule that affects how the game is played. Can’t wait. In my life, that might be the only on-field rule change. That’s not incremental change. That’s no change whatsoever. That play had already become quite rare. It’s the same as baseball adding a rule that all players must now be taller than 2 feet tall.
Compare this to football. They change rules every single year. Whatever they think will make the game better, they try to do.
dmick89Quote Reply
New shit http://obstructedview.net/minor-leagues/jot-cubs-minor-league-recap-5-6-13.html
dmick89Quote Reply
Hockey has probably seen the most “on the field” changes than the other 3 major sports and is has been IMO for the better. I can’t think of many major football rule changes. The kickoff is a little different, maybe another couple penalty changes for safety reasons, but that’s it. It isn’t like they extended or condensed the field. I don’t watch basketball so not sure what major changes have occurred there since the 3 point line.
There just aren’t many changes you can make to baseball that don’t drastically change the game.
WaLiQuote Reply
As if a sign from the gods, Starlin Castro just walked.
Rice CubeQuote Reply