AJ

[msstate7]

It's a matter of historical record. Show me any example in Braves history that the rotation was exactly the same from the previous September to the following April. If every single one of those names is on the 25-man roster, come Opening Day 2016, you are invited to re-open this thread and call attention. Most will still be Braves, someone will get hurt, someone will get sent down and someone (maybe more than one) will be traded.

I actually did predict turnover in the rotation. Adding a FA, minor back (who really knows on him though), and only 1 of folty, wisler, Perez, banuelos, and Jenkins.

I just didn't think my assumption at a starting 5 was absurd.

 

[Deester11]

Well, you certainly do not help struggling young pitchers by giving them a catcher who stabs at the ball and doesn't set up well behind the plate. I have no issue with bringing Bethancourt up at this point, but I wouldn't let him catch Folty or Wisler the rest of the year.

Sorry, but AJ is not the epitome of a catching guru. These half azz reports about CB shouldn't be the end all. He may not be a Brave next year but he should be catching in Atlanta right now.

 

[Chico]

Sorry, but AJ is not the epitome of a catching guru. These half azz reports about CB shouldn't be the end all. He may not be a Brave next year but he should be catching in Atlanta right now.

The fact that he's probably not going to be a Brave next season is why they've been letting him increase his value in AAA. I'd even consider not starting him against tough pitchers in September. Play him against pitchers he can handle and talk him up a little.

 

[Deester11]

The fact that he's probably not going to be a Brave next season is why they've been letting him increase his value in AAA. I'd even consider not starting him against tough pitchers in September. Play him against pitchers he can handle and talk him up a little.

Probably.

 

[msstate7]

The fact that he's probably not going to be a Brave next season is why they've been letting him increase his value in AAA. I'd even consider not starting him against tough pitchers in September. Play him against pitchers he can handle and talk him up a little.

If we trade Bethancourt without picking up a young catcher, I think I'll be sick. AJ has been good this year, but counting on him doing it again next season would be foolish IMO

 

[Chico]

If we trade Bethancourt without picking up a young catcher, I think I'll be sick. AJ has been good this year, but counting on him doing it again next season would be foolish IMO

I don't think we'll trade him without having a plan in place. I also don't think it has anything to do with AJ, although I could see him back in an overpaid vet presence back up role though.

 

[Braves1976]

Actually, it doesn't make sense to trade AJ at this point. AJ's biggest value to this team is the mentorship he brings to the young pitchers on this roster. Atlanta will not get value in a trade to equal that value. Plus, by trading him, you put three struggling young pitchers right now (Wisler, Folty, and Perez) with a catcher who is struggling defensively with his ability to frame pitches, his footwork behind the plate, and his ability to call the game. You are also replacing a leader on the team with a player who has shown no desire to be a leader to this point.

The most important aspect of the rest of this season is the development of these young pitchers in this staff, and I think you could really impede their development by moving from AJ to Bethancourt at this point. This team needs Wisler and Folty in particular to work through their struggles and develop the mentality/pitchability they need to be successful.

Totally disagree, AJ isn't a good mentor all of a sudden because he's now a Brave (regardless what uncle John Hart asserts). He is still a terrible defensive catcher too. He hasn't been able to help Bethancourt at the Major league level and none of the young pitchers are having success with him. But I think that is more due to him being such a bad catcher in general. His only calling card is he can hit well, at least for a catcher. But even that will likely go soon given his age.

 

[Braves1976]

You must have AJ confused with another catcher named AJ that's actually good at setting up behind the plate and framing pitches. The one we have is one of the worst catchers in baseball at doing that, on top of being terrible at throwing out runners. If anything AJ would be a reason for our pitchers struggles.

Exactly. Well said as usual auyushu!

 

[GovClintonTyree]

Totally disagree, AJ isn't a good mentor all of a sudden because he's now a Brave (regardless what uncle John Hart asserts). He is still a terrible defensive catcher too. He hasn't been able to help Bethancourt at the Major league level and none of the young pitchers are having success with him. But I think that is more due to him being such a bad catcher in general. His only calling card is he can hit well, at least for a catcher. But even that will likely go soon given his age.

Well, wait a minute. In 2013 several methodologies gave him low marks for arm strength and arm accuracy, and he threw out 24 of 73% base stealers, 32%. This year everyone on this board nods their head in agreement that his defense is atrocious, but he's thrown out 25%, which I believe is pretty close to average, a little below.

I'm not saying he's Johnny Bench, but the narrative needs to be fact checked once in a while. "Not a plus defender" goes to "not a good defender" to "bad defender" to "terrible " in about four posts.

I've been watching, too - he stabs at balls, not the greatest framer - but when I heard he had a bad arm I'm thinking, "well, that's not true," and the data would seem to support that it isn't.

Plus, if you watched McCann for most of the last decade, you know that he stopped blocking and started stabbing balls every year in about mid-July, when his conditioning started to catch up with him.

And yes, along with Markakis, he's probably the best pure hitter we have after Freddie. The elderly asshole can hit.

 

[auyushu]

Well, wait a minute. In 2013 several methodologies gave him low marks for arm strength and arm accuracy, and he threw out 24 of 73% base stealers, 32%. This year everyone on this board nods their head in agreement that his defense is atrocious, but he's thrown out 25%, which I believe is pretty close to average, a little below.

I'm not saying he's Johnny Bench, but the narrative needs to be fact checked once in a while. "Not a plus defender" goes to "not a good defender" to "bad defender" to "terrible " in about four posts.

I've been watching, too - he stabs at balls, not the greatest framer - but when I heard he had a bad arm I'm thinking, "well, that's not true," and the data would seem to support that it isn't.

Plus, if you watched McCann for most of the last decade, you know that he stopped blocking and started stabbing balls every year in about mid-July, when his conditioning started to catch up with him.

And yes, along with Markakis, he's probably the best pure hitter we have after Freddie. The elderly asshole can hit.

No, the data supports the fact that he's terrible defensively. The fact that you somehow think 25% is an average throw out rate doesn't change that.

AJ is currently 16th out 19 qualified catchers in throw out % at 24% (if you include non-qualified he drops to 52nd). Only 6 qualified catchers have throw out % below 30%. So no, AJ is not average with his arm, he's bad at throwing out runners.

But we aren't calling him a terrible defender because of his arm, that's pretty much the least important part of a catchers value defensively. We are calling him terrible because he's terrible at framing pitches and blocking the plate (stabbing, etc). AJ was a decent framer early in his career, but over the past 5-6 years he's been one of the worst in baseball:

http://www.statcorner.com/CatcherReport.php

That's the most important area, and it's where he sucks the most. And that's a terrible thing to have behind the plate when you have a bunch of young pitchers. And yes, Mac was bad at blocking the plate too and had an average arm, but he was an excellent framer as a Brave, among the best in baseball. And most considered Mac an average defensive catcher.

 

[Hawk]

Yikes ... I have major problems with a valuation of a catcher's defensive prowess simply on TO % and pitch framing.

 

[auyushu]

Yikes ... I have major problems with a valuation of a catcher's defensive prowess simply on TO % and pitch framing.

Outside of blocking the plate, framing, and throwing out runners, what other parts of a catcher's defense can you actually statistically quantify? There is calling a game and being able to settle down pitchers, but that's not something you can accurately judge.

 

[Hawk]

There is calling a game and being able to settle down pitchers, but that's not something you can accurately judge.

Well, you can, if you are prepared to invest the time in looking at game logs, pitcher progress, quotes etc.

Otherwise, given the dearth of useful statistics available to adequately gauge a catcher's defense, there's simply not enough hard data to safely make claims like 'Pierzynski is a terrible defender' without adding a significant asterisk denoting that you are only using two statistics (pitch framing, of which, is still incredibly far from being conclusive) to validate your opinion.

I agree, I see AJ as a weak defender, but that's primarily because of his age and decreased mobility behind the plate. Clearly, the team still sees some value in how he calls games and how he handles pitchers. At least you would hope, given the amount of exposure that he's had with our younger arms.

 

[auyushu]

Well, you can, if you are prepared to invest the time in looking at game logs, pitcher progress, quotes etc.

That wouldn't really help since you can't exactly compare catchers between teams that way. There is no way to quantify that sort of thing since catchers don't catch for the same pitchers in the same season, or at all for the most part. There would be no way to compare different catchers that way. It'd all be hearsay and you'd rarely get straight answers out of teammates anyway.

All things we can actually see and quantify say AJ is a bad defensive catcher. And yeah, much of that is due to his age, but it doesn't change the fact that he's bad defensively right now.

 

[GovClintonTyree]

That wouldn't really help since you can't exactly compare catchers between teams that way. There is no way to quantify that sort of thing since catchers don't catch for the same pitchers in the same season, or at all for the most part. There would be no way to compare different catchers that way. It'd all be hearsay and you'd rarely get straight answers out of teammates anyway.

All things we can actually see and quantify say AJ is a bad defensive catcher. And yeah, much of that is due to his age, but it doesn't change the fact that he's bad defensively right now.

Ok, he's gone from terrible/atrocious to "bad." I think that's more accurate, though I think he's more "below average." Hawk, I saw an analysis last year that said framing was far and away the most important measurable catching skill and had Lucroy as an 8 WAR player. And I love Lucroy, but...

My point? Guys, we all want to quantify some things that are very tough to quantify. In the absence of a good measurable, we're taking what's available as gospel.

And as Bill James said, most of the methodology and data collection on "objective" data on which the defensive metrics are based are either "not very good" or "crap."

 

[Hawk]

That wouldn't really help since you can't exactly compare catchers between teams that way. There is no way to quantify that sort of thing since catchers don't catch for the same pitchers in the same season, or at all for the most part. There would be no way to compare different catchers that way. It'd all be hearsay and you'd rarely get straight answers out of teammates anyway.

All things we can actually see and quantify say AJ is a bad defensive catcher. And yeah, much of that is due to his age, but it doesn't change the fact that he's bad defensively right now.

I pretty strongly disagree with that sentiment. I don't see much value, if any, in comparing catchers defensively beyond the cursory array of traditional statistics currently available. And there is a broad range of factors which dilute the value of those preexisting measurements anyways.

Charting a pitchers progress, on the other hand, is extremely quantifiable, and to that end you can comfortably make some fairly large inferences as to a catchers influence through said data. I'm talking about pitch percentages, situational numbers, etc. To insinuate that there isn't readable data there isn't true, we just haven't unearthed the 'easy stat' which tabulates the information in a universal form.

John Smoltz loved throwing to Brian McCann because he set up a nice target. Greg Maddux liked defensive specialists in the mold of Henry Blanco because they mitigated his inability to keep base runners in check. Along those same lines, as I mentioned before, it appears as though the Braves might value AJ's control of pitchers behind the plate. You might look at time between pitches, number of shakeoffs, etc. Sure, it's an inexact science, but to my original point, so also is using two statistics to formulate an opinion which doesn't even account for a majority of a catcher's contributions.

 

[auyushu]

Ok, he's gone from terrible/atrocious to "bad." I think that's more accurate, though I think he's more "below average." Hawk, I saw an analysis last year that said framing was far and away the most important measurable catching skill and had Lucroy as an 8 WAR player. And I love Lucroy, but...

My point? Guys, we all want to quantify some things that are very tough to quantify. In the absence of a good measurable, we're taking what's available as gospel.

And as Bill James said, most of the methodology and data collection on "objective" data on which the defensive metrics are based are either "not very good" or "crap."

I'm not taking anything as gospel, particularly when it comes to defensive stats. But defensive stats have come a long way since the early days, particularly when you are talking about stats like DRS. But when I watch AJ play catcher and think he's a crappy defensive catcher, then I look at a few stats that say he's a crappy catcher defensively, it pretty much says to me he's a bad defensive catcher. You can try and play semantics with wordplay all you want, but there is nothing observable or from a data perspective that says he's anything other than a very poor defensive catcher.

 

[auyushu]

Charting a pitchers progress, on the other hand, is extremely quantifiable, and to that end you can comfortably make some fairly large inferences as to a catchers influence through said data. I'm talking about pitch percentages, situational numbers, etc. To insinuate that there isn't readable data there isn't true, we just haven't unearthed the 'easy stat' which tabulates the information in a universal form.

The problem is you have zero way of knowing if that has to do with the catcher or not for sure. It could be just a natural progression of the pitchers skill. But I'll play along with the notion. So if it is the case, what does the fact that the young pitchers have gotten progressively worse as the year has gone on say about AJ's ability to call a game do you think? And why should we value his control of pitchers behind the plate if that is the case?

 

[GovClintonTyree]

I'm not taking anything as gospel, particularly when it comes to defensive stats. But defensive stats have come a long way since the early days, particularly when you are talking about stats like DRS. But when I watch AJ play catcher and think he's a crappy defensive catcher, then I look at a few stats that say he's a crappy catcher defensively, it pretty much says to me he's a bad defensive catcher. You can try and play semantics with wordplay all you want, but there is nothing observable or from a data perspective that says he's anything other than a very poor defensive catcher.

You're missing my point. My point is that there's a difference between below average, not good, bad, and terrible or atrocious. There aren't reliable metrics to really nail down the degree of baditude.

Nobody's saying he's good. But you've got two or three guys here saying they think he's below average or kind of bad, and you're insisting that he's terrible and very poor and that observation can only lead to that conclusion. That's not wordplay, that's degrees of competence. You've got him at the bottom of the league.

I have watched him and I don't think he's terrible. I think he's below average, looking at blocking, framing, throwing, receiving. I don't know how he is with handling pitchers, but the Braves probably have an opinion and 18 years in the Show tells me he's probably not bad.

I like as good an offensive team as I can put together with guys playing the toughest position they can handle competently.

AJ is competent and the Braves like him. I wouldn't be surprised to see him back with a two year deal with the exact same plan they used in 2015 - see if Bethancourt can handle the job, Pierzynski to handle what Beth can't. Maybe he gets 40 starts, maybe he gets 120.

But just because you think he's horrible does not mean everyone shares your opinion. I don't.

 

[Runnin]

All things we can actually see and quantify say AJ is a bad defensive catcher. And yeah, much of that is due to his age, but it doesn't change the fact that he's bad defensively right now.

All things that I can see is that AJ is not a great defensive catcher but he's the best we have right now.