Yes, Grandal or Realmuto would represent significant upgrades. But in the meantime, David Stearns, Craig Counsell, and the rest of the Brewers staff have been able to squeeze great value out of the current crop of time-shares and journeymen. Looking beyond the major league roster, catcher is a position full of surprising contributors up and down the organizational ladder. What follows is an overview of some of those contributors, as well as some brief notes on their outlook for the 2019 season and beyond. Upgrading would be nice; staying the course is probably fine, as well.

Major League Options

Player Name: Plate Appearances, Batting Average / On Base Percentage / Slugging Percentage, Wins Above Replacement Player (WARP)

Manny Piña; 337 PA, .252/.307/.395, 1.7 WARP
For the second year in a row, Piña handled the lion’s share of catching duties for Milwaukee. He continued to be a steady performer, offering tolerable offense and sturdy defense. His offensive production fell off some, relative to his breakout 2017 campaign, thanks to a slow start and a dip in Batting Average on Balls in Play (BABIP). Piña turned it on in the second half, hitting .295/.328/.429 after the break even as he lost playing time to immortal folk hero Erik Kratz.

With just over three years of service time on his major league clock, Piña is controllable for three more seasons through the arbitration process. He’ll be 34 by then, so it’s likely that someone else will have wrested away the bulk of available playing time behind the dish. Still, he handles a pitching staff well, and figures to get plenty of turns through the order in 2019 barring a major roster shakeup.

Erik Kratz; 219 PA, .236/.280/.355, 1.4 WARP
Erik Kratz came to the Brewers via a surprise trade with the Yankees, and wasted little time in endearing himself to fans and teammates alike. Though he didn’t bring much of a big league résumé into Milwaukee, he performed quite well in limited time, making up for his anemic offensive output with superlative glove work (11.1 Adjusted Fielding Runs Above Average in fewer than 500 defensive innings!).

Kratz elected free agency when he was removed from the Yankees’ 40-man roster prior to the 2018 season. He re-signed with New York before his trade to Milwaukee, but finished the year with fewer than six years of big league service time to his name. He can be controlled via arbitration for the 2019 season, though at age 39, he may have retirement (or a late career surge as a knuckle-balling reliever) on his mind. I’m not betting on a return, much as my heart hopes otherwise.

Stephen Vogt; Did Not Play in Majors (Shoulder Surgery)
All-around good guy Stephen Vogt was limited to 9 plate appearances for the Biloxi Shuckers in May before undergoing season-ending shoulder surgery. It was the second major shoulder operation of Vogt’s career; his big league future is in jeopardy. I’m not aware of any public information on his rehab, but Vogt could be controlled via arbitration in 2019 if he’s able to work his way back to the ball field.

For his career, Vogt is a .251/.310/.416 hitter, good for a strong .267 True Average (TAv). He’s below-average with the glove, though, and struggled to throw out base runners even before re-injuring his throwing arm. He’s well-loved among his teammates, but Vogt’s path back to the majors may be as a reserve first baseman or a DH.

Jacob Nottingham; 196 PA, .281/.347/.528 in Triple-A
Public opinion of Nottingham was fairly sour heading in to the year, and it’s not too difficult to see why: A .209/.326/.369 slash line in your second year of AA isn’t going to win over many casual fans. Biloxi is a run-suppressing environment, though, in a tough league for hitters. So that same ugly triple-slash translated to a barely-above-average.264 TAv. This year, with much better baseball-card stats courtesy of Colorado Springs, Nottingham’s TAv in the minors was all the way up to .282.

Expecting that kind of production in the big leagues, at least at first, is probably foolish. In his (very) limited time in Milwaukee, Nottingham compiled just 24 plate appearances and looked a tad over-matched at times, striking out on eight occasions. He also drew four walks, to his credit, and the sample size is far too small to be seriously examined. Most excitingly, Nottingham can seriously hurt a baseball when he finds one in his sweet spot, to the tune of 450+ feet. He’s made tremendous strides with the glove over the last few years, transforming himself into something approaching an average defensive catcher. Couple that with league-average-or-better offense at the position, and he still has the ability to produce sneaky value for the Brewers over the next six seasons. (Catchers in 2018 batted .232/.304/.372, so Nottingham doesn’t have to turn into Pudge Rodriguez to give the Brewers a boost.) I’m hoping he piles up a couple hundred big league plate appearances next season.

Jett Bandy; 216 PA, .292/.353/.510 in Triple-A
Bandy broke camp with the Brewers, but failed to impress. He hit .188/.268/.266 with shaky defense in 24 games before being removed from the roster and passed over on waivers. The 28-year-old came alive in Triple-A, but he’s reaching do-or-die status as a major league contributor. He’ll have to contend with at least two of the above names on the depth chart, and will likely struggle to find big league playing time should he remain in the Brewers organization. Still, he’s youngish enough and talented enough that he has a chance to shed his current quad-A label and become a solid backup with some pop.

Prospects and Depth

Christian Bethancourt; 418 PA, .297/.328/.506 in Triple-A
Brought in on a minor league pact, Bethancourt played very well in his return from the pitcher’s mound. He has soft hands behind the dish, and a good arm. He also hit a bit in Colorado Springs, with 20 home runs and a nifty .271 TAv. One knock on his offense: He gave away plenty of walks as a pitcher, but largely refuses them as a hitter.

Bethancourt was brought into the organization on a minor league pact. There will be plenty of plate appearances available for catchers in AAA next year, but it’s no guarantee that Bethancourt will be making the move to San Antonio along with the rest of the organization’s most advanced minor leaguers. Plenty of rebuilding clubs may take a roll of the dice on the former top prospect.

Dustin Houle and Max McDowell, Advanced A & Double-A
These two are the same age, and at about the same stage developmentally. Houle was drafted out of high school way back in 2011; McDowell followed from college in 2015.

Houle is a big-bodied catcher without a true carrying tool. He’s got a decent arm and is fairly strong, but the lack of a hit tool cramps his game power. He’s a nice organizational depth piece, but something very strange will have happened if he sees major league time in 2019.

McDowell has a bit more upside, with a strong throwing arm, decent athleticism, solid glove, and some untapped raw power. He flashed a nice bat in Wisconsin in 2016, but his hit tool hasn’t progressed much as he’s moved up the ladder. He’s got a chance to turn into a light-hitting backup at the highest level.

Mario Feliciano; 165 PA, .205/.282/.329 in Advanced A
2018 was basically a lost season for the 19-year-old, who battled back from an arm injury to play in 42 games for the Carolina Mudcats. He started slow in June, showed signs of life in July, then cratered in August. It was a disappointing year for a player who impressed in 2017 as one of the youngest prospects in the Midwest League. Ultimately, though, I see little reason to dampen long-term expectations. Catching at Class-Advanced A is an almost laughable challenge for a 19-year-old. He should return for another round in 2019, and I expect him to play pretty well. Keep in mind that the Carolina League is hard on hitters, so his stat line may not be all that impressive. The fact that he’ll be there at all, though, at 20 years old? Impressive. The defense could use some work, and he has plenty of time for that. Meanwhile, he could develop into a .270 hitter with a line-drive approach and average power.

Feliciano is currently playing in the Arizona Fall League to make up for some of his lost time this year. It’s not working, though: He’s only worked his way into two games, with one single in four at bats.

Payton Henry; 389 PA, .234/.327/.380 in Advanced A
Henry had a rough April and a tremendous May, followed by an acceptable June and July and a ghastly August and September. He’s a bat-first prospect with plus raw power, but he struck out in about 32 percent of his plate appearances. He needs to work on his receiving and his arm if he wants to stay behind the plate; he becomes a much less exciting prospect if he moves to first base or an outfield corner.

Worth Noting
Finally, backstops David Fry and Robie Rojas are due a mention here. Fry hit .315/.406/.563 while playing catcher, first base, and third base for the rookie league Helena Brewers. He drew 29 walks and struck out just 42 times in 261 plate appearances. Rojas, a 38th-round pick in 2017, spent plenty of time on the 7-day Disabled List and was relegated to the minor league taxi squad. He managed just 66 plate appearances on the year, including 13 at Triple-A, and hit surprisingly well in a (very small) 13-game sample in Carolina. All together, he had a line of .304/.409/.393.

Fry’s rookie league stats, while nice, are by and large worthless, and I have no idea what to make of Rojas at this point. But I’ll be curious to see what the organization does with both of these prospects in 2019.

Continuing age-based analysis of minor league statistics, the 2016 Midwest League could be the most interesting case yet. Unlike the Southern League or Pacific Coast League, the Midwest League featured a group of three different age levels with similar production, and two adjacent age groups that did not fall far. From age-21 to age-22 to age-23 players, Midwest League bats slashed .245 / .316 / .356, .249 / .318 / .352, and .247 / .317 / .353, respectively. On the outskirts, age-20 batted .249 / .307 / .367 while age-24 batted .252 / .315 / .333, giving the league an expansive middle ground of 345 players that can be judged by very similar production standards.

One might ask whether this reflects the nascent stages of minor league competition, perhaps where players may be closer to the same development curve, thereby exhibiting less stratification among minor league players. Perhaps Class-A is the first level at which “organizational lifers” emerge, or players hit their first professional ceiling and stick around for a year or two before heading to their next career. It would be worthwhile digging into a scouting explanation for this phenomenon, in order to see how the physical tools relate to the statistics; perhaps everyone (or almost everyone) at Class-A is still learning the strike zone, or pitch recognition, or some foundational trait that places the vast majority of players on the same level.

There are a number of notable bats that defined the Timber Rattlers in 2016. Isan Diaz produced one of the best seasons at the Class-A level, and although he did not win MVP, he certainly has the performance level worthy of consideration. Lucas Erceg also stormed the league out of the 2016 draft, demonstrating a completely different developmental stage (relatively polished college draftee) than Diaz. Along with Diaz and Erceg, several depth players produced interesting or good seasons, giving fans and writers more players to think about and watch during the 2017 campaign. Perhaps no one will be more interesting to follow than Monte Harrison, whose statistical line was damaged by a rough April and early-May, and whose hot streak was cut short by injury. Harrison has shown flashes of “putting it together,” so it will be crucial to see how he returns from injury.

Down in Florida, the Brevard County club had a rough season, mostly due to the bats. This level lagged behind in the system during 2016, and unfortunately, even age-based statistics do not allow one to reconsider many gems.

It is worth noting that Corey Ray produced a fine campaign, based on his age level and the fact that he was making his professional debut in an aggressive assignment. While Ray’s surface stats of .247 / .307 / .385 does not look very good, age-21 players in the Florida State League were notably worse than that production level, allowing one to see that Ray showed solid hitting, discipline, and (especially) strong isolated slugging. Even if one follows scouting reports to raise some questions about the hit tool, there is a sense that Ray’s tools are already showing up in his stat line, even if that line is depressed by his environment.

2016 Southern League
I am opening this ongoing series by discussing the Southern League, since the Brewers have a number of top trade acquisitions assigned at their Class-AA Biloxi affiliate. Furthermore, general fan and press sentiment suggests that many of these players had disappointing seasons. This tough, dismissive judgment seems suspicious when one considers important details like Jacob Nottingham gaining the ability to work behind the dish and stick at catcher (thereby strengthening his overall value and development); personally, I would peg Nottingham as a clear Top Five prospect candidate in the system, given the overall projection of his power and the increasing understanding that the youngster has the ability to play catcher.

This is not something that someone would immediately conclude from Nottingham’s .234 / .295 / .347 AVG / OBP / SLG batting line. Yet, compared solely to age-21 prospects in the Southern League, Nottingham carried one of the heaviest workloads, produced a batting line that was near-average for age-21 players, and demonstrated better than average isolated power. A skeptic might accuse me of using statistics to put lipstick on a pig, but in fact digging into the context of Nottingham’s season shows much more value in his batting line than one might initially expect; coupled within his defensive progress, that’s a fine season for a player that is three years younger than his league’s median age.

What is quite interesting in the Southern League this year is that batting performance fluctuates quite wildly by age, as pitchers taking the plate and late season call-ups, part time players, or MLB players rehabbing injuries impact the proceedings. Simply looking at the list of players working in AA at any given time shows the hodge-podge composition of that level, and the Southern League is no different; there are 19-year old standouts like Ozhaino Albies, second chance 22-year olds like Tyrone Taylor, somewhat stalling (on the surface) names like Billy McKinney, and lots of AA veterans and organizational depth (like Nick Ramirez or Dustin DeMuth, for instance).

For this exercise, I isolated players with more than five PA. This may sound arbitrary, and in some cases it is, but an empirical glance at the list suggested that this was a reasonable cut-off to include rehabs, short call-ups, and other oddities (as well as pitchers batting), while also isolating performances like would skew data too far in the other direction (such as 0 or 1 PA performances).

Against their age group, one can now more fully judge the Brewers Class-AA 2016 campaigns. First, let’s look at the young guys:

Placing these seasons in context should illuminate a few points:

• Brett Phillips had quite a good season, even considering his slump and other issues at the plate.
• Good grief, Domingo Santana is young. Sometimes it’s easy to forget how young these guys are once they make the MLB; Santana is young even for the Southern League, let alone MLB!
• Note that someone like Tyrone Taylor, who is basically forgotten among the luxurious OF prospects returned via trade, actually had quite a solid season for his age.
• These statistics only cover the surface of judging these players’ contextual seasons, but this should be a start to offset some of the more dismissive press these players are receiving from other sources.

Here are some of the older depth players on the Shuckers:

Given the stacked young minors and top prospects that the Brewers need to fit onto their 40-man roster, it is difficult to judge whether these guys will make the MLB with Milwaukee. However, some of these players have traits that may catch with other organizations, should they find themselves out of Brewers navy come winter. A player like Kyle Wren is particularly interesting; many fans wanted to see Wren called up, but if Wren did not make the MLB in a depth OF capacity in 2015 or 2016, it’s difficult to see him protected now that the club has many other choices for the offseason.