#8 – Backup Catcher

November 2, 2005

Since reading Bill Ladson’s Mailbag yesterday where he answers the following question regarding Gary Bennett (the question I’ve been wanting to ask, of course!), I decided to prepare myself for any impending replacement:

Are the Nationals expecting to keep Gary Bennett or are they going to be looking for a backup catcher in the offseason?—Thomas M., Charleston, S.C.

I don’t think the Nationals will re-sign Bennett. While I thought Bennett was miles ahead of Einar Diaz, who was the Expos’ backup catcher in 2004, there are some in the organization who were disappointed in Bennett’s production, especially behind the plate. One team source complained that something negative happened whenever Bennett was behind the plate. Bennett often let balls go between his legs and his pitch selection was questioned.

In my further spin into the land of baseball geekdom, I attempted my first ever stat compiling and crunching to see what free agent (FA) catchers available may possibly be brought on to replace Bennett. I took a list of free agents from another blog and then only checked the catchers from the list. Therefore, this may not be perfect as I did find one mistake along the way. I first removed salaries over $800,000 or players with comments that they were definitely going to be re-signed to the team they were with in 2005. In my opinion, this data shows that Todd Pratt would be the only signing that could guarantee an improvement on Gary’s playing, but his age is a bit up there (not that there’s anything wrong with it!). The other option mentioned as possible was Stinnett – who would bring a much better batting average, but about the same fielding. This would help our pinch hitting. I also looked at Paul Bako and Eddie Perez, but they were both plagued with injuries last season and I don’t think would make smart investments even for one season.

The top section is sorted by batting average with the position average shown. The bottom section is sorted by fielding rate. And as I’m a newbie to this stuff, forgive me if I misunderstood numbers and meanings, but I pored over the glossaries pretty well and left out stats I didn’t think were important to this study. Click the image for the full view.

Catcher Analysis Excel File

Scott on Yuda Gameday says he read a recent article which said the Nats are pursuing Pratt, so I guess I’m late to the party.

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For your Nationals Ownership News, Chris at Capitol Punishment has your scoop for today here and here .

Posted in Players, Positions, Washington Nationals