SSS, I know, but here's flowers and recker's numbers...
Flowers -- .269/.363/.437 0.4 WAR in 59 games (1.1 WAR over 162 games)
Recker -- .299/..400/.466 0.3 WAR in 22 games (2.2 WAR over 162 games)
Is recker for real? Here's his minor league numbers over 2,880 ABs: .270/.351/.461
JohnAdcox (08-26-2016)
I'm curious as to what they'll do about the position over the winter. Flowers is signed, but everything else is up in the air. I think Recker has earned a spot on the 40-man at least, but I think they will look for someone else as well.Originally Posted by msstate7
jpx7 (08-26-2016)
Yah but he also has 513 MLB at-bats and has a line of: .197/.277/.349
Not to mention he's 32... wish he was lightning in a bottle, but I highly doubt it.
Recker has played very well. Since you always carry extra catchers in Spring Training I'd like to keep him on the 40 man roster and then flip him in the Spring. We need a bigger bat to team with Flowers.
The other side of that coin is you keep Recker as the backup and trade Flowers and his $4M contract.
I don't see a way we have them both though.
JohnAdcox (08-26-2016)
Recker is out of options. Ideally, we would sign him to a minor league contract this off-season and he could be our "third catcher" in AAA. Given the physical demands of the position, most teams need more than two catchers to get through a major league season. I don't think it makes sense to keep Recker on the 40-man roster this off-season given that he is out of options and we are likely to pick up someone to be our primary major league catcher.
Honestly, I would trade Flowers and keep Recker. From what I have seen he is great with the young guys and frames very well. His offense is a bonus. I say get a lefty platoon partner that can be used and then try to develop/trade/draft for a younger future catching star to take over in 2-3 years. I like Flowers, but he has been horrible at throwing base stealers out.
I would give a fair amount of weight to how Recker has hit in the majors prior to this year. This makes me reluctant to part with Flowers.
Certainly, its been less than 100 PAs.
"Yes, I did think Aldrich was good UNTIL I SAW HIM PLAY. "- thethe
He doesn't have any offense... he's a career .196 hitter in over 500 at bats in the majors...
although, I agree with a bigger sample size, I just think catching is one of the hardest positions to play. And if he was coming in every 5th day, I could see a very poor performance. I think the regular playing time has shown more of who he might be. his ~600 PA are split over 6 seasons
He does not frame well at all. Recker has had a nice offensive run in less than 100 PAs, but he is not a good framing catcher. He is currently at -3.6 FRAA in 22 games, which translates to an atrocious -26.5 per 162. He was similarly negative in all prior years as well.
For comparison from this year (which appear to be pretty consistent with prior years):
Castro: +13.3 in 91 games, +23.7 per 162
Flowers: +9.6 in 59 games, +26.4 per 162
Mac: +4.7 in 100 games, +7.6 per 162
AJP: -7.4 in 74 games, -16.2 per 162
Wieters: -8.7 in 95 games, -14.8 per 162
Ramos -5.3 in 107 games, -8 per 162
Guys like Castro and Flowers are elite, while Mac is a good pitch framer.
Guys like Recker, AJP, and Wieters are disasters behind the plate, while Ramos is merely a bad pitch framer.
I would like to keep the terrible pitch framers away from a young rotation. The offseason targets for catcher should be Mac and Castro. Recker should be stashed in AAA if possible.
Last edited by Enscheff; 08-26-2016 at 11:15 AM.
Thanks for looking that information up.
That's disappointing. To the naked eye it looked like Recker was doing a pretty good job, but appears not. I think his offense is legit, so I have no qualms with a Recker / Flowers splitting the duties next year until we have a better opportunity to get someone for 2018. But if Recker is legitimately that bad at framing then I think I would prefer a more stable option behind the plate.
I started developing a man crush on Recker and started wondering why he never stuck at the MLB level. He never got enough of a chance to hit at the MLB level (500 PAs spread over 5 seasons), but I guess his receiving skills were identified as lacking pretty quickly and he has been tabbed as a AAAA guy ever since.
Does pitch framing take into account how ****ty the umpire is behind the plate?
Forever Fredi
Or that some pitchers get calls others don't. Wonder what javy and Perez would grade out catching Maddux and glavine
It takes the actual pitch location, that pitch location's historic probability of being called a strike, and whether or not it was called a strike, and assigns credit to the catcher based on the calls he gets.
The historic probability of balls/strikes has umpire quality baked in. Umps making the incorrect call is the only reason pitch framing exists as a stat, so it's very existence relies on bad umpires. If MLB changed to robot umps there would be no need for a pitch framing stat.
Flowers and Recker and AJP have spent their time in Atlanta catching pretty much the same pitchers. The difference between Flowers and AJP has been dramatic. Catcher framing stats are almost exclusively based on catcher skills.
What's the big objection to just going into 2017 with Flowers penciled into the primary catcher's spot?
"For all his tattooings he was on the whole a clean, comely looking cannibal."
The Chosen One (08-26-2016)
Cool. I just didn't understand them
Bad umpiring is just noise over a large statistical sample size, unless you can prove bias. In theory, every catcher should deal with the same amount of bad umpiring.
The second part is a bit more challenging with framing. The pitcher does influence framing numbers and since each catcher catches different pitchers across the league it makes it difficult to compare players across the league.
But considering Flowers has historically posted excellent framing numbers and has continued to do so this year, then we can reasonably conclude that he's an excellent framer. I suspect that Recker is likely a below average to terrible framer, but the sample size (even for his career) is way to small to make any kind of determination.
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote
