Jon Morosi reports , as many have before him, that the Mariners believe that Miguel Olivo is their starting catcher. Montero will also get a look at catcher, but aren’t we forgetting someone? Yes, John Jaso. The 28 year old catcher has 203 MLB games under his belt, owning a 99 OPS + and .340 OBP. According to Runs Created, he is a slightly better than average offensive player, which is pretty impressive for a catcher.
Miguel Olivo on the other hand, is not a good offensive catcher, with 20 walks and 140 strikeouts in 2011. His Neutralized OBP (with BABIP set at .300) was just .280, and his OPS + was just 79 (83 in his career). Depending on whether you use Olivo’s career stats or his 2011 stats, Olivo is worth anywhere from 19 to 8 runs less a season (140 games) than Jaso. Put another way, Olivo has a career .384 Offensive Winning Percentage, while Jaso has a .462. Olivo defenders will point out that Olivo is the better catcher. Well, when you look at Olivo’s defense over the last 3 years, you see that Olivo has a -.8 D-WAR over 1350 Plate Appearances. Jaso has a -.8 D-WAR over his 687 career Plate Appearances. So yes Olivo is the better defensive catcher, but he has not good, and is only worth 4 more runs over 687 Plate Appearances, or 3 runs over 500 Plate Appearances, which is what you would expect from a season of play. This still means that Jaso is worth at the very least 5 more runs than Olivo over a season. There is a significant difference in runners caught stealing, as Jaso has caught just 19 percent of runners, while Olivo has caught 34% of runners. Even with this, it still seems that Jaso’s bat makes up for Olivo’s glove.
Other Mariners Notes: Morosi also reports that the team is also taking a look at Mike Carp at first base. If he can play the position, he may be a good alternative to Smoak as the season goes along (assuming no other 1B/DH type on the Spring Training Roster sticks).
Kevin Goldstein released his top 101 prospects in the middle of last night. Jesus Montero was 7th overall, Taijuan Walker was 14th, Danny Hultzen was 35th, and James Paxton was 59th. The Mariners had 4 on last year’s list, but they were 4 different players than this years’ (Ackley, Pineda, Franklin, and Pimentel). Goldstein did say that Nick Franklin would have made the list if it was 125 players long. He believes that Walker has #1 potential, but still has work to do.
Keith Law also released his top 20 prospects that will have an impact in 2012. Jesus Montero was on the list, but he said he doesn’t see Hultzen having enough innings pitched in 2012 to qualify (which makes sense since Hultzen has no professional innings pitched).
According to OPS +, the Mariners were the 4th best road offensive team, but the 27th best offensive home team. So it seems Safeco Field really hurt the Mariners’ offense (hat-tip to High Heat Stats).
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You do know Carp has been a first baseman for most of his career right?
P.S. “Payton” (poll)? Come on.
Thanks for catching the spelling error. That’s on me.
Liddi is getting work at 1B too.
Given that the team is likely to exercise their 2013 buyout of Olivo’s contract I don’t feel that this will be a long-term issue. The difference between the two is so small that I don’t think they’ll lose any sleep about which one is catching.
Plus, if Olivo performes decently he could be a candidate to be traded at the deadline. There’s always a team who will bite on a decent catcher.
Liddi is a third baseman, not a catcher. Him getting time at first is just a way at possibly having have more trade value. Or maybe making Smoak more expendable down the road.