When a Steve Carlton (who could throw to me and get out MLB hitters) say's "I'm throwing to McCarver, got it Skip?" you know that pitcher comfort and confidence with his receiver is WAY important.
If Felix and Hultzen and Vargas LIKE throwing to the kid, he'll catch quite a bit. End of discussion, I think.
There is another question that comes to play here, however. That is, how much influence (negative) does catching have on the offensive performance of a hitter such as Montero?
It may be real hard to quantify in any single season, perhaps impossible. J. Bench in '70 or '72 probably wouldn't have hit any better at 1st base. Probably.
But, what might it cost a Bench or a Montero, in terms of offensive performance, to catch for a career? Bench was effectively done as a hitting force beyone the age of 31. And catching "likely" cost him more than 600 AB's (a full season's worth) during the seasons he was 28-31. He was an interesting case. One of the handful of best offensive player around until he was 27. How many more years of that level of performance could he have had as a 1B?
Beginning in '75, when Bench was 27, the Reds played Tony Perez fulltime at 1B for two seasons, then Dan Driessen for four. They OPS'ed between 102 and 124 in those seasons. For four of those years they were above 118. so the Reds got decent (or better) offensive performance from their 1B guys, but may have shortened Bench's career. Now Bench may be one of the handful of best defensive catchers in the history of the game, so he's probably near the top at saving runs.....but how many runs created did catching for a career cost him?
Who knows, I suppose. It is worth considering, however.
Carlton Fisk, on the other hand, saw no significant offensive decline and he caught fulltime until he was 42 and 43. He wasn't one of the est offesnive performs in the game, however.
IF Montero is a truly special offensive player, I don't catch him.
If he's just pretty good with the bat, give him the mask, I suppose. But even then, I reevaluate each and every year.
moe
Add new comment
1