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Brewers Organization Catchers

The Baseball Prospectus top 2019 Free Agents list had four catchers in the top 50: Yasmani Grandal, Wilson Ramos, Kurt Suzuki and Jonathan Lucroy. Eliminating Lucroy, who was the second worst catcher who received regular playing time in 2018, the Brewers have three options if they wanted to dip into the free agent pool to try and upgrade the position.

Yasmani Grandal was ranked 9^th best free agent this offseason and projections put him at least a  three year commitment between $15-16M a year. At that salary, Grandal would rank second on the team in annual salary, only behind Ryan Braun. While Grandal is entering his age-30 season, he only trailed J.T. Realmuto in catcher Wins Above Replacement Player (BWARP) in 2018 and was close enough that one could consider him the best in baseball. Grandal may have been the most complete catcher as he ranked second in both Value Over Replacement Player (VORP) and FRAA amongst catchers, which respectively measure offensive and defensive value, showing that he’s strong at both ends of the game.

If there’s one area of concern, it’s that most of Grandal’s defensive value came from framing. He led MLB in framing runs in 2018 but provided only slightly positive value for blocking and throwing runs. If the Brewers were to commit the resources necessary to sign Grandal, then they would need to believe his bat will age gracefully as well as that  he can continue to provide defensive value through framing, which is not a given.

Wilson Ramos is a year older than Grandal and with his injury history projects for a three year contract at $36 million. He doesn’t provide much defensive value. In his last season before tearing his ACL, Ramos had a 10 FRAA. Since the tear, he’s -3.9. Amongst catchers who caught at least 2,000 pitches, Ramos ranked 35^th of 61 catchers in FRAA, which make sense given his numbers: he’s not bad in any one area, but he also doesn’t stand out defensively.

Ramos will provide offensive value. In 2018, his True Average (TAv) was right behind Grandal and ranked fourth amongst all catchers. If you were concerned that a rate stat props up his value, then don’t worry because he was tied for seventh in VORP.

A big worry with Ramos would be playing time management. Prior to his knee injury, he maxed out at 131 games and 523 plate appearances. Last year he appeared in 111 games and went to the plate 416 times between Tampa and Philadelphia. While the Brewers don’t have any problems with rotating players, Ramos has no positional flexibility and would need to be paired with a competent backup who can cover somewhere between twenty-five to thirty-three percent of the playing time. Unless the market on Ramos falls short of projections, it’s difficult to see the Brewers making a strong play for his services because they’d also need to commit to a strong backup, perhaps straining the payroll too much for one position.

The last catcher in the top fifty is one who may make the most sense as a Brewer if he’s willing to leave his current club. Kurt Suzuki has had a late career renaissance at the plate in Atlanta, posting his two best TAvs in 2017 and 2018. In those two seasons, Suzuki started swinging more. Whereas prior to 2017, he was swinging at less than forty-five percent of the pitches he saw, he’s above a fifty two percent swing rate now, while also maintaining a contact rate above eighty percent. Suzuki finished sixth in both TAv and VORP amongst catchers in 2018, providing near equal offensive value to Ramos.

Suzuki does not provide much value behind the plate. He had a -5.5 FRAA in 2018, which was fueled by his poor framing numbers. He finished 52^nd out of 61 catchers in framing runs and his modest blocking and throwing numbers couldn’t offset the framing numbers.

Suzuki’s numbers have increased as he’s played fewer games. He’s split time with Tyler Flowers in Atlanta, playing in 186 games over two seasons with less than 700 plate appearances. The good news is that his advanced age and limited playing time make him a potential cheap upgrade for Milwaukee. Projections have him at two years and $10 million, which is reasonable enough to make him a realistic alternative to Pina or Kratz.

If the team does decide to look to the free agent marker to upgrade the catcher position, it feels like Suzuki would be the target. He’s a low cost option who could provide outsized production when compared with his salary. For an organization that always looks for surplus value in their acquisitions, a player like Suzuki makes sense for the team. Grandal and Ramos are buzzier additions but the cost of those two veterans may not fit in the budget. The good news is that the team has options at different levels outside the organization, so they can negotiate from a position of strength.

Using Baseball Reference multiyear park factors, the Brewers offense finished nearly 30 runs better than their league environment, and Baseball Prospectus park factors have the club performing even better; by True Average, the Brewers are tied with Houston as the fourth best offense in the MLB. According to Baseball Prospectus Batting Park Factor, the actual mix of parks the Brewers batted in was fourth toughest in baseball, meaning that the Brewers were likely to play in environments suppressing runs by approximately five percent.

Like 2018, the Brewers head into next season with a seemingly clear set of positions to improve, and seemingly clear prospects or internal development options to accomplish that goal.

• Orlando Arcia features prominently in calls for offensive improvement, as the elite gloveman suffered serious setbacks at the plate prior to his Triple-A demotions. Arcia’s glove makes roster decisions truly difficult, as the shortstop has impacted the game on the defensive end from the time he reached the MLB. If he bats anywhere near his second half line of .290 average / .320 on-base percentage / .396 slugging, the glove will play (for reference, the eighth batting order spot hit .229 / .304 / .357, so second half Arcia would easily clear that hurdle).

• Second base is a roster challenge, as Noah Nofz highlighted earlier today. It’s easy to dream on the future in terms of Keston Hiura’s potential, but it’s also worth remembering that the Brewers needed to improve center field for 2018 and still traded away their best development options there (Lewis Brinson, Monte Harrison). A trade of Hiura is not out of the question should Slingin’ Stearns get requisite return. The trouble is how the Brewers juggle additional roster elements and free agents there, as opposed to the development pains (or pay offs) of sticking with Hiura.

• Catcher is probably the most popular fan option for improving the club, because it offers the flashiest trade opportunity (J.T. Realmuto) and a couple of the best free agents in the 2019 class (e.g., Yasmani Grandal). Yet, it is worth emphasizing the strength of the Brewers’ fielding behind the dish in 2018, in order to frame offensive performance. Neither Manny Pina nor Erik Kratz were that bad at the plate in 2018, and both were exceptional defenders. Using Adjusted Fielding Runs Above Average, which is a fielding statistic adjusted to assess the nuances of throwing, blocking, and framing for catchers, Kratz (11.1, eighth best) and Pina (6.3, nineteenth best) produced plenty of defensive value for the Brewers. Of course, Grandal is the rare free agent catcher that can produce both excellent offensive and defensive value….

• Right field is a difficult position to assess because it’s become quite barren behind Domingo Santana for multiple reasons. First, midseason trades included Brett Phillips, who would have been an excellent candidate for a glove-first, power-speed fourth outfielder to help boost that corner position. Next, Christian Yelich does not produce good defensive value off of left field, which raises questions about Ryan Braun’s future role (in left field) and the value of keeping Yelich’s bat in the order at any defensive cost (September-level production rendered that question moot for the time being). Furthermore, there are not necessarily advanced outfield prospects that would be considered strong enough to knock Santana off of right field. All this either makes right field the perfect position for an external acquisition, or for staying put with Santana.

The trouble, of course, is that should the Brewers simultaneously develop Arcia and Hiura at the MLB level, and keep Kratz and Pina, this entire series of completely justifiable roster moves could produce an offensive black hole in the 6th / 7th / 8th batting spots when things are going rough (or, in Hiura’s case, just getting started). This is where the Brewers’ most important wager occurs: they must weigh the long-term development plays (both Arcia and Hiura have clear “role ceilings” that are better than average at the MLB level) against the need to contend in 2019 (and produce runs to do so). All of this is potentially compounded when one reasonably figures that Lorenzo Cain and Christian Yelich cannot possibly be expected to be as good as they were last season; obviously this does not mean that they cannot maintain performance or even improve, it just should not be viewed as a certain outcome.

Baseball Prospectus True Average is an effective statistic because it weighs and combines a more complete picture of offensive production than other metrics, and presents the result in an intuitive number similar to batting average. A player with a .260 TAv is an average player. Aspects included in TAv that are not included in some other metrics are situational hitting and errors, plus alternative weights on strike outs and bunts, among other elements. So, let’s use TAv to assess the Brewers offense: with the descriptions above in mind, how do the elements of the club compare to the MLB positional landscape? What is the positional landscape?

Not unlike pitching staffs, positional ranks across the MLB are split among groups of players for each team. The ideal of plugging in a starting player at each position was always just an ideal, as injuries and platoon strategies have been widespread since the early 20th century ballgame; now, MLB front offices may simply be even more willing to try bizarre positional formats (such as the Brewers’ positional flexibility) and substitution patterns (think 2018 L.A. Dodgers, here). Thus, the split between players with 300 (or more) plate appearances and those working below that threshold is quite large.

It should be noted that outside of the corner infield positions, there are no other positions on the diamond where the median player and the regular player are better than average according to TAv. This should be intuitive in some sense, underscoring the importance of teams finding players that can work at least 300 plate appearances in a season. Of course, the median playing time at each position should demonstrate the difficulty of assembling even a group of players that can work 300 PA at a position; often teams will need to rely on a group of players that fall short of even that mediocre playing time threshold. This uneven playing time environment, set against a foundation that establishes the importance of finding a batting order full of regular players, should demonstrate why and how teams can make wagers or trade-offs with their players (for example, the club can weigh Arcia’s shortstop defense against the value of piecing together a couple of other options at the position; that’s just one example).

With this background in mind, let’s compare major 2018 Brewers batters to the median playing time and regular TAv for their respective positions (as grouped by Baseball Prospectus. Note: I have no idea where Eric Thames went in these CSV):

Milwaukee effectively gambled on both Cain and Yelich, who were team leaders in production and playing time beyond the league median. Yet this dynamic top of the order duo hardly exhausted the positions at which the Brewers effectively stacked regulars. Travis Shaw, Ryan Braun, and Jesus Aguilar were each fantastic compared to their respective positional leaguewide performances; Hernan Perez and Manny Pina were not necessarily as far from “average” batting production as most fans think. Outside of regular workloads, Domingo Santana and Mike Moustakas turned out to be crucial depth players, albeit for different reasons. Retaining contractual rights to Aguilar, Braun, Cain, Shaw, and Yelich should be viewed as extremely positive news for the 2019 club, even with all the caveats about regressing performances, etc.

On this model, the benefits of “standing pat” in free agency and trade markets should have some appeal, as one can see that weighing the defense at catcher and shortstop, or simply waiting for Keston Hiura and(or) Mauricio Dubon to arrive at second base need not be viewed as a drag on the offense. In fact, Hernan Perez can probably cover second base in an effective manner to open the season, allowing the Brewers to free up cash and prospect resources to double down on their pitching staff. Right field becomes an interesting question, as Santana’s closing month produced a final True Average that held up against regular MLB right fielders.

Of course, one can expect that David Stearns will not simply stand pat this offseason. The point, then, is to understand that there is no linear narrative about the Brewers bats improving in 2019. This group of players surged to close 2018, made some crucial developmental strides (in the case of Arcia) and mechanical tweaks (in the case of Braun) that could bode well for future performances. There is no clear path to improving the offense without spending significant cash or prospect resources.

The odds have always seemed stacked against Erik Kratz finding a career in baseball. Kratz was born on June 15th, 1980, to a devout Mennonite family in Telford, Pennsylvania, which also happens to be Jamie Moyer’s home town. The son of a butcher, Kratz didn’t make his high school varsity baseball team until his junior year. He had played third base until that point and was supposed to be a bench player for the varsity squad, but early on in the season the team’s starting catcher received a suspension from school after getting caught smoking a cigarette. Kratz’s coach asked him to don the tools of ignorance for first time, and after hitting a home run in his first at-bat as the starting catcher, he didn’t relinquish the job behind the plate  until after graduation.

Scholarship offers didn’t come for Kratz, and after receiving his high school diploma he enrolled at Division III Eastern Mennonite University in Harrisonburg, Virginia. He chose the school because of his faith and its educational qualities, and received a degree in Business Administration with a focus on marketing. But Kratz also suited up for the EMU Royals for four years while paying his own way through school and was the team’s starting backstop each season. He was named the Old Dominion Athletic Conference Player of the Year twice and hit .507 with 14 home runs during his senior season, which was enough to catch the attention of the Toronto Blue Jays. They made him their 29th-round pick in the 2002 MLB Draft. According to Baseball Reference, Kratz is the only player that has ever been drafted out of EMU, and the only other person from Eastern Mennonite who has played any level of professional baseball is Larry Sheets, who enjoyed an eight-year career with the Orioles, Tigers, and Mariners in the 80’s and early 90’s.

In 2007, Kratz was a 27 year old who was still bouncing between the AA and AAA levels. There was some pop in his bat, but he hadn’t been much of a hitter as a professional. But Kratz had already developed a reputation as a sound defensive backstop. From Dirk Scott, Toronto’s director of player development at that time: “He’ll do well as a serviceable backup. He won’t be there because of his bat, but because he can catch. He’s like Ken Huckaby and Sal Fasano in that regard. They are able to go up and fill a need, which is to catch. Kratz can catch and throw in a couple of hits and he might get himself a couple of years of pension up in the Majors.”

Kratz knew that it was a long shot for him to get to the majors even even at that time, but his work ethic, laid-back demeanor, and love for the game kept him going. In an MILB.com interview, Kratz said, “I really, really love to play. That’s something that sometimes is lost in baseball, in the pro game especially, is the love of the game. Guys make fun of me in the locker room for it but everyone knows that’s how I feel about the game. I always tell people that if I came to the ballpark and wished for a rainout I would quit…I love the competition, I love the competitive aspect of baseball and that I can come to the ballpark everyday and have the opportunity to play, to do something that I love and hopefully one day do it in the big leagues.”

After two more seasons of toiling in the minors for the Blue Jays, Kratz was allowed to depart as a minor league free agent following the end of the 2008 campaign. He signed a minor league deal with the Pirates before the start of the 2009 season and spent the entire year at AAA Indianapolis, where he put together an .807 OPS with 11 home runs in 93 games and made the International League All-Star Game. He re-upped with Pittsburgh on a minor league deal for 2010 and once again began the year in AAA. He got off to another hot start and for the second year in a row, made the IL All-Star Game. In the fourth inning of the game, IL manager Charlie Montoya came out and pulled Kratz. The veteran catcher was disappointed at getting taken out of his first All-Star game, until he learned the reason why – he was getting called up to The Show for the first time.

Kratz was once demoted on his birthday. He and his wife had intermittent troubles paying their rent. He had considered quitting the game on numerous occasions. But finally, at age 30 and in his ninth professional season, Erik Kratz made it to the big leagues. On July 17th, 2010, he started at catcher and batted seventh in his first MLB contest, coming against the Astros, and logged his first hit off of Bud Norris. Kratz went 2-for-5 with an RBI and caught all nine innings of Pittsburgh’s 12-6 victory. “To see that many fans erupt after a win, that’s awesome. That’s a sound that I remember as a kid going to games,” Kratz said in an interview afterwards.

The good times didn’t last for Kratz, as he would collect just two more hits in his next eight games before getting sent back to the minors in August. He didn’t receive a September call-up, and after the season Pittsburgh outrighted him and allowed him to become a free agent. This time, Kratz latched on with the Philadelphia Phillies, the team he grew up rooting for. He was a AAA All-Star again in 2011 and found himself back in the big leagues that September, recording two hits in six plate appearances. He began the year in AAA once again in 2012, that wound up finally being the year that Kratz got a lengthy audition at the big league level. As a 32 year old, he appeared in 50 MLB games and hit .248/.306/.504 across 157 plate appearances, knocking nine dingers over the fence. His .285 TAv, 45 percent caught stealing rate, and solid pitch framing numbers helped him accrue 2.0 WARP, making 2012 his most valuable season to date.

Kratz was a fixture for the Phillies once again in 2013, making the first Opening Day roster of his career and even receiving some everyday action while Carlos Ruiz served a 25 game suspension for a positive drug test. He also appeared in a line of commercials for Godshall’s Quality Meats.

But the bat didn’t hold up quite as well for Kratz as it did the previous season, and he also missed some time with a torn meniscus. He ended the year with a .223 TAv in a career-high 213 plate appearances and wound up getting traded back to Toronto that winter, where his career began more than a decade before. Kratz spent the first half of the season shuttling back and forth between Toronto and their AAA affiliate in Buffalo before he and his .572 MLB OPS were sent to Kansas City in July. He found action in nine games in August but only two in September and was left off the postseason roster as the Royals advanced all the way to the World Series. Kratz could manage only a .634 OPS in 115 plate appearances between the two stops, and 2014 is the last season to date that he’s taken more than 100 trips to the plates in the big leagues.

Kratz appeared in only four MLB games for the Royals in 2015, spending most of his time in AAA Omaha before getting designated for assignment in June. He was claimed off waivers by the Red Sox, but was released eight days later before ever suiting up for any of their affiliates. He latched on a minors deal with Seattle a few days after that, but was released once again less than two weeks later after hitting .205 in 10 games in AAA Tacoma. Then, in a couple more days, he signed back on with Philadelphia. A .347 TAv in 26 games with Lehigh Valley was enough to earn Kratz another September call-up, and he went 5-for-22 in the big leagues during the final month of 2015.

Kratz continued to navigate his way from team to team in 2016. He started the year with the Padres, but was dealt to the Astros at the end of Spring Training. He hit .069 in 14 games and made his first big league pitching appearance (giving up three hits, and two runs – one earned – in one complete inning) before getting released on May 22nd. He latched on with the Angels a week later, but didn’t log any big league time with them. In mid-June, he was acquired by the Pirates in a cash transaction and hit .107 in 18 games before getting released in July. He signed on with the Blue Jays and spent the rest of the year in AAA, hitting .155 in 19 games before once again hitting the free agent market.

2017 was quieter on the transaction front for Erik. He signed with Cleveland before the season and spent the majority of the year with their AAA affiliate. His bat bounced back to the tune of a .270/.359/.472 slash with 13 homers in 86 games, and the Yankees purchased his rights in August and made him a call-up in September. He batted 1.000 for the Bronx Bombers, recording two hits in two at-bats before the end of the season. He was once again granted free agency following the season and the Milwaukee Brewers showed interest in signing him to a minor league deal, but he saw greater opportunity in returning to the Yankees. He began 2018 back in AAA Scranton/Wilkes-Barre and posted an .894 OPS with four long balls in 17 games.

On May 25th, in desperate need of production from the backup catcher spot, David Stearns and the Milwaukee Brewers paid cash to the Yankees to acquire Erik Kratz and bring him to the big leagues. The front office praised their new player’s defensive prowess and acknowledged his improved AAA production on offense in recent seasons. Kratz debuted with the team the next day, the 11th franchise he’s been a part of and the seventh team he’s seen big league time for, and perhaps predictably hit a home run in his first game.

Against the odds, Erik Kratz has spent nearly two decades as a professional baseball player. He’s appeared in 231 MLB games, another 981 minor league games, has spent nearly five full seasons in the big leagues, and has earned more than $2 mil during his playing career. He owns a measly .219 career True Average and has accrued just 2.4 WARP in the big leagues, though he has thrown out 34% of potential base thieves. Through it all, Kratz has stayed grounded and realizes how lucky he is to have lived the life he was blessed with. He was once quoted as saying “There are a lot of players that are better than me that will never see a big-league field. There are so many things that are out of your control.” Soon to be 38 years old, the Brewers will be hoping that Kratz can be the wise old sage in their young locker room and that, at least in a part-time capacity, his rejuvenated bat and outstanding defense can help them get over the hump and into the postseason. For the fans, he ought to become one of the easiest players to root for.