The Nats catching situation is a matter of perspective. On one hand the Nats have a middling hitting catcher, with a unproven back-up, neither of which can field at all according to the limited stats. On the other hand they have one of the youngest starting catchers in the league, wrapped up for a reasonable value, who is a top half offensive player for the position backed up by a player that mashed lefties in 2023.
If you think the fielding is really that bad, and I mean you think it is easily worst in the majors bad, then the situation isn't great. The offense being merely ok can't overcome this deficiency and the Nats have a well below average position hurting them. If you think the fielding is not that bad and either this was just a fluke season, random variation, or bad stats, even if it is bottom 5, the offense balances it better and the Nats are left with a spot while not helping the squad doesn't hurt them. Considering how easy it is for the C position to hurt a team a fair amount that's a win.
But the Nats didn't want this to be a default win. They wanted catcher to be a plus. Does the lack of movement here change anything going forward?
Presumed Plan :
Ruiz with Adams as a back-up.
Reasoning behind Presumed Plan :
Ruiz has been signed to that long term contract (through 2030 at least) and the Nats appear committed to giving him a good long try at making it. Figure at the very least through 2025 as first choice starter, with another year of an aborted try even if things look grim.
Adams platoons well with Ruiz if he can mash lefties because Ruiz has a big power issue from the right side. While he did hit for a much higher average from the right side this year, that wasn't the case last year, unlike the power imbalance. You can count on him NOT hitting homers batting righty. You can't count on him hitting .290.
Since Riley doesn't hit RHP that great and neither fields well there isn't anything more to look at here at the top.
As for the minors there are some guys to look at, most notably Drew Millas. He hit very well in AA, ok in AAA, and pretty good in a brief stint in the majors. He's also more well thought of defensively.
My Take :
There really isn't a very good reason to abort this plan. Adams hit
lefties well but it was just one year, he hit rather poorly this year against righties, and he can't field the position
well either. He doesn't look like a replacement. You signed him to have him be a cornerstone of your team. Now you play him. I'd love it if the Nats showed they were going all out to help him and sign some very specific outside catcher help. maybe they have? Make a show of it though. You committed millions to the guy, committing a few tens of thousands more for one on one defensive training should be an obvious move.
What about Millas? Well Millas made himself a decent prospect and if he hits in AAA (where we presume he'll start to play everyday) that will cause a quandry. A good "too many startable young guys at catcher" quandry, but a quandry nonetheless. Since Millas can field (we assume) then if he can hit like Ruiz you'd want to play him. But Ruiz has the contract so Millas will be far easier to deal and bring more back. Also Ruiz doesn't hit that well to shift him. Niether does Millas really. There's a lot of ways this works out fine. Most likely Ruiz is about average and Millas is about average in AAA and you sort of work Millas up as the back-up, letting Adams either go or work himself into a DH/1B platoon if he's still mashing lefties. But if Millas hits good, not great but good, and Ruiz hits below average that sets up a "do you try to get better behind the plate with about the same offense you hope while kind of making a mess of that contract" situation.
I'll note here that Millas is 6 months OLDER than Ruiz so this isn't like Ruiz is blocking a phenom if Millas does well.
The Nats aren't in a bad situation here but they were really hoping it was going to be a good one. It still could be but in 2023 it wasn't. Here's to Ruiz making it work and Millas also hitting ok to become nice trade bait.
13 comments:
I wouldn't completely rule Pineda out. Catchers get hurt. Catchers get traded. But he is a fairly distant #4 catcher now.
I thought Millas was very impressive in September, he moves like he could be a plus defender at any position, maybe Daulton Varsho lite.
The reticence to try Adams at 1B is confounding. They could quasi-platoon him and Dom Smith in addition to splitting time at C to get him more ABs. We know Dom is not going to be great against lefties, at least maybe Ruiz improves.
Adams to a 1B platoon seems like a no brainer especially if Millas looks like a MLB level player
My guess is Dom is an above average fielding 1B so they like his there to cover for the young guys in the field that may not be the most accurate. But its a possibility once they feel more comfortable with the infield defense
Riley Adams, for his career, is a decent-to-good hitter for a catcher. He's not a good hitter for a first baseman. Yes, he put up good offensive results in 2023, but those results are based on an absolutely unsustainable BABIP of .368 (his career BABIP, even with 2023, is .309. Which is about what you would expect for a slow-footed catcher who makes decent contact).
Which is why projections like ZiPS project Dom Smith as a better hitter going forward. For example, in 2023 Adams's wOBA was .344, MUCH better than Dom Smith's .308. But Adams hit in a lot of good luck (BABIP!), and Smith hit into a fair amount of bad luck. Based on their quality of contact Adams's expected wOBA (xwOBA) in 2023 was .281 where Smith's xwOBA was .322. And that's before one factors in defense. Sure, having Adams occasionally play 1b against tough lefties would be fine IF Adams can play decent defense ("tell 'im, Wash").
To finish my previous comment, having Adams occasionally spell Smith (or whoever) against tough lefties would be fine if Adams can play decent defense. But simply putting Adams at first base and hoping that he can improve enough with the bat and glove to make it work is more faith based than a reasonable expectation/plan.
I think pitchers also like throwing to Adams. It seems like he calls a pretty good game, something Ruiz still needs to work on.
Hot take; Ruiz isn’t the answer at catcher. The team shouldn’t let sunk costs prevail. We saw last year that he was very challenged (last in MLB) at all the important defensive metrics which had ripples throughout the pitching staff (base runners ran wild, pitchers couldn’t throw in the dirt for fear of WP with runners on base, never getting 50/50 calls because of the poor framing, etc.). Sounds odd, but make him the primary DH and backup catcher to Adams. That combo was 9-3 last season. Adams is actually solid defensively (pop-time, blocking, pitch calling, etc.) and has a power bat which might be a nice addition if he could play more than once per week.
Honest question for those who say that Adams is a better pitch caller than Ruiz: what do you base that on? I'd be interested in seeing an analytic method (other than the extremely fallible Mark I eyeball-from-the-sofa method).
By Savant, Adams is an even worse framer than Ruiz. Ruiz was -13 runs over 3676 pitches. Adams was -5 over 1209.
But I've also just become super skeptical of framing stats with better public access to the data. By umpire scorecards, the Nats were 1.4 standard deviations below league average batting and 1.3 standard deviations below league average pitching.
You need some story to make the first number not noise if you want to lend any credence to the second. And what's more, when you compare the distributions of aggregate team batting and pitching, there's 85% as much variation in the batting numbers as the pitching ones. That pretty much caps the impact of framing-as-skill for me.
I'm willing to knock Ruiz for regressions in his blocking (where Adams is average) and pop time (where Adams is good), but I don't see how we can take framing seriously at this point.
I'm a little surprised Riley Adams Sept 2023 hamate fracture hasn't been factored at all into the Nats catcher picture for 2024.
That's an injury that generally saps power for quite some time. So if Adams' big advantage at catcher is power vs LHP...well, that's something to keep an eye on.
Injuries can always play a role, for sure. But, the hamate crack/break has a very high rate of successful recovery with a four to six week down time. With 5 or 6 months to recover and rehabilitate he will likely be fully prepared for spring training and ready to mash. But, we won’t know for sure until February.
No arguments here. The situation is "fine," and if it gets better than fine through player development, then great for us, and if not, it's something to address later.
I'd say my hope would be for Ruiz as starter and Milias as backup, with Adams hitting well enough to trade. But that's just hope. Honestly, if we get one adequate starter and a functional backup out of the three I'd call it a win, though obviously there's a little disappointment if we don't find the next Will Smith or J.T. Realmuto.
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