Drafting Catchers

by R.J. Anderson on Jun 1, 2009 9:00 AM EDT Comment 10 comments

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We talked about some of the Rays drafts prospects before. The list was coated with high school catchers. My curious side got to working and wondered how catchers drafted in the first three rounds have fared in the majors, so let's take a look.

I used the draft classes from 1998 through 2003; the last year in which a HS catcher in the top three rounds has already reached the majors. I included everyone drafted as a catcher and used FanGraphs career WAR. The list has some guys like Justin Morneau, Daric Barton, and Joey Votto who quickly moved off the position, but remember, they were drafted as backstops. If you draft Tommy Joseph at 30 and in six years he's Justin Morneau, that's a pretty fair trade.

So let's slice these 55 backstops up and answer some questions, shall we?

Collegiate or prep?

23 of our catchers were from college. The best of the bunch is Brandon Inge with a 14.3 career WAR, the worst? Dane Sardinha with -0.7. 11 of these players never recorded a major league at-bat, and 15 finished with less than 100. The average WAR of this group is 1.57.

Our high schoolers are lead by two of the best catchers in the land; Joe Mauer (22.4 WAR) and Brian McCann (16.3). In fact, the high schoolers have the three best overall players by WAR when you include Morneau. The average WAR amongst these 33? 2.29, but when you ignore Mauer that number drops to 1.65, almost identical to the collegiate group.

First round or later?

Our talent pool ranges from the first overall pick to the 104^th. Let's chop these up by sets of 30 and see if there's something to the idea that first round catchers are always busts.

Top 30 picks: 7 qualified, average 3.4 WAR

31-60 picks: 19 qualified, average 1.98 WAR

61-90 picks: 20 qualified, average 2.03 WAR

91+ picks: 9 qualified, average 0.83 WAR

Top 30 catchers are awesome right? Well, until you take Mauer out, then they drop to 0.23 average WAR. Yeah, that certainly doesn't point towards success. The top 30 catchers of this class should send thank you cards to Eric Munson and Daric Barton for providing the only two top 30 receivers to make it to the majors as such. The Rays second round pick seems to be the proverbial hotbed for getting good catchers, but in reality Justin Morneau inflates that total by quite a bit. The same cannot be said for 61-90, which features a ton of pros like Inge, Laird, Votto, Saltalamacchia, Bowen, and Doumit.

Are teams getting better at evaluating catching talent?

Let's see how this works by year.

2003: 10 qualified, average 0.57 WAR

2002: 6 qualified, average 4.75 WAR

2001: 7 qualified, average 3.96 WAR

2000: 9 qualified, average -0.01 WAR

1999: 15 qualified, average 2.05 WAR

1998: 8 qualified, average 2.21 WAR

It's tough trying to read through the statistical noise, but it doesn't appear like that's the case, although the catching talent pool has seemingly gotten better top end returns with the additions of Mauer and McCann. You could argue that the fact that Morneau and McCann weren't top 10 picks indicates that teams clearly are still wondering how to decipher who's going to be a good catcher or not, much like every other position. Erik Manning used Rally's WAR numbers and found that first round catchers drafted from 1990-1999 averaged 0.8 WAR. That differs from FanGraphs a bit, but if the 30^th overall pick in a weak draft contributes 0.8 WAR in his major league career, it was probably an okay pick.

Conclusion

The most difficult aspect of summarizations like this is the selection bias involved. These players likely deserved to be drafted within the first three rounds as catchers. They were probably the best of the best of their draft class. This is supposedly a weak crop of talent, but it is loaded with prep catchers. Even if the Rays go another route at 30, don't be surprised if they go with a high school catcher in the second round. Let's just hope they hit on the next Chris Snyder or Brian McCann instead of Steven Lerud or Gabe Johnson.

Here's the complete table of catchers evaluated, listed alphabetically.

Player	Year	Pick	From	MLB AB	WAR
Adam Donachie	2002	47	HS	0	0
Alberto Concepcion	1999	79	HS	0	0
Beau Craig	1998	82	HS	0	0
Brandon Inge	1998	57	NCAA	3429	14.3
Brian McCann	2002	64	HS	1741	16.3
Chris Snyder	2002	68	NCAA	1363	7
Colt Morton	2003	71	NCAA	16	-0.2
Dane Sardinha	2000	46	NCAA	73	-0.7
Daric Barton	2003	28	HS	518	1.3
David Parrish	2000	28	NCAA	0	0
Drew McMillan	1999	90	HS	0	0
Eli Serrano	1998	68	NCAA	0	0
Eric Munson	1999	3	NCAA	1055	0.1
Gabe Johnson	1998	78	HS	0	0
Gerald Laird	1998	45	HS	1351	3.4
Jake Fox	2003	73	NCAA	18	-0.1
James Perez	1999	55	HS	0	0
Jared Abruzzo	2000	50	HS	0	0
Jarrod Saltalamacchia	2003	36	HS	639	1.7
Javier Herrera	2003	48	NCAA	0	0
Jeff Goldbach	1998	62	HS	0	0
Jeff Mathis	2001	33	HS	585	-0.1
Jeff Wincester	1998	40	HS	0	0
Jeffery Jennings	2003	55	NCAA	0	0
Jeremy Brown	2002	35	NCAA	10	0
Joe Mauer	2001	1	HS	2158	22.4
Joey Votto	2002	44	HS	736	5.2
Jon Kessick	1999	104	NCAA	0	0
Jon Zeringue	2001	103	HS	0	0
Jonathan Devries	2001	93	HS	0	0
Jorge Soto	1999	93	NCAA	0	0
Josh Bard	1999	100	NCAA	1353	7.5
Joshua Johnson	1999	61	NCAA	0	0
Justin Morneau	1999	89	HS	2873	14.6
Kelly Shoppach	2001	48	NCAA	724	5.4
Lazaro Abreu	2001	80	HS	0	0
Louis Palmisano	2003	69	NCAA	0	0
Michael Nixon	2002	91	HS	0	0
Mike Dean	1998	98	NCAA	0	0
Mike Tonis	2000	44	NCAA	6	-0.1
Mitch Maier	2003	30	NCAA	149	0
Nick Trzesniak	1999	51	HS	0	0
Omar Falcon	2000	79	HS	0	0
Rene Rivera	2001	49	HS	150	0
Rob Bowen	1999	56	HS	378	1.4
Russ Jacobson	1999	96	NCAA	0	0
Ryan Christianson	1999	11	HS	0	0
Ryan Doumit	1999	59	HS	1108	7.2
Ryan Garko	2003	78	NCAA	1279	3
Scott Heard	2000	25	HS	0	0
Scott Walker	2000	74	NCAA	0	0
Sean Swedlow	2000	96	HS	0	0
Steven Lerud	2003	75	HS	0	0
Tommy Arko	2000	86	HS	0	0
Will Hartley	1999	74	HS	0	0

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Comments

Well done peice.

by davelrogers on Jun 1, 2009 9:12 AM EDT reply actions 0 recs

You should cross-post this on minorleagueball

I’m rarely a fan of drafting high school catchers early, unless they have a sure thing bat. More often than not, they end up moving off the position or flame out completely. Even catchers who are good prospect flame out at a higher rate than other position players.

Vogt early, Vogt often.

by Brickhaus on Jun 1, 2009 9:15 AM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Jeremy Brown Blue-Plate Special!

by walkoffwalk on Jun 1, 2009 9:44 AM EDT reply actions 0 recs

I wonder what the rate of success is for catcher conversions...

I like the concept of drafting an agile high school player with a good bat, and converting him to catcher. Usually guys that are athletic have the ability to make the switch defensively. Kevin Cash(I know he isnt a force, but he is an example) went up to the Cape Cod League following his junior season at FSU. He was a 3rd baseman, and he moved behind the plate for the summer(clearly he had practiced before heading up there). He was signed as a FA out of the Cape because he was so athletic behind the plate.

I dont see why they dont try this more often with a kid that has a potent bat. Lets say there was a kid coming out of hs that was similar to Longoria. Great bat, soft hands, and athletic… wouldnt it be worthwhile to try that kid at Catcher?

by td32 on Jun 1, 2009 1:22 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Odds are, they would become butchers behind the plate, or they would lose some of their bat.

by R.J. Anderson on Jun 1, 2009 1:26 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

There's a lot more that goes into it.

The responsibility of handling your staff and game-planning/calling pitches as well. That comes from experience and is somewhat intuitive.

Sign lady must die.

by EminenceFront on Jun 1, 2009 3:13 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

30. RAYS. Tampa Bay’s most pressing need is catcher, and many of the top players remaining at this point will be backstops. The Rays may prefer Arizona high schooler Tommy Joseph to Stassi, Sanchez and Myers. They’re also known to have interest in Brothers and Trout if they’d still be available.

Projected Pick: TOMMY JOSEPH.

Tools Whore

by Tyler on Jun 1, 2009 6:25 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs