Loading ...Baseball America has two interesting articles running that rank minor league catchers by caught stealing percentage and passed balls per 120 games. Here are how the Reds catching prospects fared.
Caught Stealing Percentage # CATCHER ORG LEVELS CS SB ATT PCT 18 Tatum, Craig CIN AA/AAA 35 58 93 37.6% 54 Mesoraco, Devin CIN LowA 19 90 109 17.4%
Mesoraco’s #54 rating is next to last. Here is the writeup on him, which is not what I was expecting from the Reds 2007 first round pick:
The Bad
Devin Mesoraco: Little went right for the Reds’ 2007 first-round pick. The low Class A Midwest League isn’t kind to hitters, but scouts who saw Mesoraco came away disappointed in his conditioning. Though he did show some power, his offensive performance with Dayton was fairly pedestrian. He wasn’t much better defensively, struggling to throw out runners and committing 15 passed balls in 72 games. Mesoraco also battled through injuries to both of his thumbs, so he’ll get a chance to regroup in 2009, but it was not an auspicious debut.
Later, in the article’s comment area, a reader pointed out that Dayton pitchers were poor at holding runners on base and easy to run on. To that, the author noted: “But the rest of the Dayton catchers (mostly Jason Bour and Frank Meade) threw out 25.4 percent of base stealers (27/106) this year. Not great, but better than Mesoraco (17.4 percent), and reports from scouts back up the numbers.”
Overall, not a good sign for Mesoraco. Let’s hope his injuries contributed to his bad performance and he bounces back next season at High-A Sarasota.
Tatum on the other hand rated pretty well. I wonder why Hanigan was not included, too old maybe to be considered a catching prospect any longer?
The second article rated the catching prospects by passed balls per 120 games.
PASSED BALLS PER 120 GAMES # CATCHER PCT G INN E PB PB/9 Level PB/120 G 4 Tatum, Craig 0.991 89 764.2 7 4 0.05 AA/AAA 6 44 Mesoraco, Devin 0.985 72 622.0 9 15 0.22 LoA 26
Mesoraco was once again rated very low, 44 out of 54. Note that for Low A ball for the last three years the average PB/120 G is 20. Craig Tatum, however, rated number 4. Note that for AA the average PB/120 G is 13. Tatum received the following glowing writeup:
The Good
Craig Tatum: Despite succumbing to Tommy John surgery three years ago, Tatum is now one of the best defensive catchers in the minor leagues. The Reds farmhand has good catching mechanics, records average pop times of 2.0 seconds and delivers throws to second base with a good throwing action, enabling him to nab 38 percent of base stealers in 2008. He controls the running game well, but he’s even better at keeping the ball in front of him, as he does a good job blocking and receiving and shows a knack for the finer points of catching like framing and calling pitches. One AL scout who saw Tatum this year projected him as a future regular, though he’ll have to improve his OBP after hitting .244/.297/.377 in Double-A this season. At 25, Tatum’s offensive projection is limited, but he has the defensive skills to at least get an opportunity as a backup.
The batting numbers above must include his 39 ABs in AAA also; I’m showing that he hit .253 .312 .403 715 at AA this season. His glove is definitely going to have to carry him to the majors, as his career minor league numbers — .254 .321 .391 712 — are close to what he hit at AA last year. Sounds as if he’d be a good candidate for a defensive-minded backup catcher a year or so down the road.
This article also notes that the Reds, using mostly Bako and Ross, tied for last in MLB last season with 13 PB. Ramon Hernandez averages 7.4 PB/120 G over his career, but over the last three season with Baltimore he averaged 10.5 PB/120 G. He’s going to have to pick it up to be much of an improvement in this area for the Reds this season.
I didn’t know about Hernandez’s high number of PBs… I do know however that he has been horrible at throwing runners out. I good defensive catcher is way underated.
Mesoraco was said to be advanced defensively out of HS. Then he showed up and wasn’t. The kid has the tools though, he just needs to work on his skills. He has a strong arm and he is athletic behind the plate, his pop time is slower than it could be though because he needs to work better with his footwork from the time he catches to the time he releases the ball. I think the passed balls can be summed up with the fact that he was catching real pitchers for the first time in his life and was a bit overwhelmed. Then there is also the fact that not only was he catching, he was also catching in the bullpen during games he was playing in.
Interesting post, Tom. I know it’s about defense, but I thought Tatum showed more power than that earlier in his career. Guess I’m going to have to go check the numbers.
i was unhappy when they drafted him in the first place
a catcher with tommy john surgery?
if im not mistaken he had 2?
idk
he just blows
Jose,
He has had 1 TJ surgery. Secondly, what does him having that surgery as a junior in HS have to do with anything going forward? As for your final comment…. well, its distasteful and poorly represented by anything you actually said in your comment.
After hitting reply I realized Jose may have been talking about Tatum. Either way, the comment was unwarranted.
I would add on Mesoraco’s behalf that I’ve been told that he improved “dramatically” as the season went on as Donnie Scott worked with him every day. This says something about his ability to improve and his work ethic, I would think.
He did get better as the season went on, I would like to see the passed ball and stolen base figures broken down, for the first half compared to second.
The biggest improvement I saw was in his hands. He seemed to have very stiff hands which at times acted more like a basketball backboard than a catching apparatus. On several occasions early, the ball would just pop out of his glove. This also didn’t help his pitchers any on close pitches or his ability to throw out a runner. This area improved greatly as the season wore on.
He was still a baby last season. To me some of the conditioning issue was still baby fat. Hopefully he he matures that will be less of a problem.
Don’t all minor league catchers catch in the bullpen on their off days? Wouldn’t that same caveat be true for all the catchers on the team?
Also, not that I’m an expert, but it would seem to be somewhat easier to catch good pitchers than pitchers who can’t find the plate, especially when it comes to passed balls.
One of the primary sabermetric draft rules…do not draft catchers in the first round of an amateur draft…
Steve,
In Dayton these guys were catching in the bullpen on days they were playing at times.
As for sabermetric draft rules…. Generally I am of the belief you shouldn’t draft a catcher within the first five rounds because the chances they are even league average in the majors is less than 5%. Basically, its like drafting a pitcher (college or HS, it doesn’t really matter much anymore) but worse.
Still, I always preach taking the best player available, regardless of their position because you should never lessen your chances of having a guy become a major leaguer simply because you may need something else or be stocked up on that guys position.
Do you think Mesoraco was the best player available or that he was drafted for position?
What happened to defensive statistics on thebaseballcube.com? I thought Votto was drafted as a catcher, but can’t find when he made that switch to first base in the minors.
There was a study in this year’s “Hardball Times” which states that performance levels for catchers’ hitting (fielding is not mentioned) is statistically insignificant with extra rest. That is, they don’t hit any better or worse with more time off.
No doubt everyone needs rest, and the study doesn’t really consider long term effects, other than to say catchers fall apart more quickly than other position players do, as we already know.
However, I do find it hard to believe that a younger player would need that much more rest…and I do think the other catchers were in the same boat…which brings conditioning back into question.
Anyway, if drafting a catcher early (can anyone say Dane Sardinha?…also considered “defense major league ready”) is usually a bad idea, I would tend to think it would be hard to ever consider him the best player available.
Oh…I remember Votto being drafted as a catcher…but, he was switched almost immediately. Baseball-reference.com has no record of him ever catching in the minors.
Excellent stuff all the way down.
http://www.thebaseballcube.com/players/V/Joey-Votto.shtml
The baseball cube lists him as playing 7 professional games at catcher without any detail. Just a month ago they had minor league defensive statistics for many players.
They don’t even have the MLB defensive statistics any more.
The baseball cube still has the fielding stats, you just have to click a fielding tab at the bottom of the player info now to get to them. Here is the link to Votto’s fielding stats. http://www.thebaseballcube.com/Fielding/V/Joey-Votto.shtml
Thanks Tom! I didn’t realize they changed their format & page layout.