Our Backup Catcher Is..... ???
by South Side Rob
According to the depth chart on ESPN, its Mike Rivera. I think all of us thought that the Brewers would make a one year offer to Damian Miller. I either heard or read that Miller is interested in coming back for another year rather than entering retirement. I don't think his skills have disappeared. He can still throw runners out trying to steal. I remember Miller's 7 RBI performance against Pittsburgh right before July 4th last season. Miller also had a walk-off 3-run homer that beat the Astros about a week before his 7-rbi performance. It now looks like Miller will be retiring.
They say Vinny Rottino can catch but I'm starting to think while he can catch, he must not be good enough at it to seriously consider Rottino as a viable option to become a backup or even a 3rd catcher on the active roster.
Which brings us back to Mike Rivera who appears to be very capable. The concern I have with Rivera is that he spent significant time with the parent club in 2006 and then in 2007, he could not beat out Miller for the backup role.
The Brewers have also signed career backup catcher Eric Munson from the Houston Astros.
I guess the Brewers will use Spring-Training as a open competition for the backup catchers position. With the lack of left-handed bats on the roster, I would not be surprised if Eric Munson, who bats left-handed beats out Mike Rivera...
This comment is not related to this post - it's about your analysis of Braun errors.
To actually grasp how bad Braun defense was last year, you have to look past errors and fielding percentage. There's sooooo much more to defense than errors. What about the balls that Braun didn't get to that went by for a hit but don't get counted for an error?
Now I know you might be thinkin, that there's no way to quantify this, but nowadays, there are ways. There are very advanced systems out there that do just that.
This is how it works. Every ball in play is analyzed by people watching the games. They determine how hard the ball was hit, what type of pitcher was pitching, how many baserunners on which bases, and most importantly where the ball was hit. The field is separated into dozens of vectors. Than, they see how many of each type of ball hit in that vector, which that speed, with that exact same situation was turned into outs. And errors count as a play not converted into an out.
Say, a hard hit ball hit in a vector between 3rd and short with a runner on second base and a lefty on the mound is converted into an out 40% of the time. Let's say Braun only made 30% of those plays, and he had ten balls hit there. That would mean he was 1 play less than average right there.
They do that for every single ball in play, and come up with a number of runs or plays above or below average. By every defensive play by play system, Braun was around 30 runs below average last year, and that with less innings. 10 runs has been proven to be worth roughly 1 win, so Braun cost us 3 wins last year.
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Regarding back up catchers, it doesn't make that much sense to dump Miller.
I wonder what effect changing catchers has on a pitching staff? How long does it take before a pitcher and catcher reach a comfortable level of communication? This is on eof those intangible factors sort of difficult to measure....unless someone was able to do pull up stats on first year catchers versus 3-4-5 consecutive year cathers and compare team pitching performance.
Theoretically, you'd think it was a significant factor....especially considering how long it sometimes takes to relate to people at work or family members or friends....
As attractive as some free agents are, I tends to prefer players who know a team's style of play....personalities of players, and all that...maybe I'm living in the 1970's...
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