If you get Casey Kotchman arm-swinging a declerated bat, and he can't run, you're looking at a lousy BABIP. That's axiomatic. And it's much worse in Safeco. Kotchman's career BABIP is only .280 -- and his year here, it was .229.
I don’t mind the arm-swing. It kills his HR potential to some extent, but Seager’s swing does the same to him. Kyle is faster than Jaso, so he’ll leg out more doubles, but I would be fine with having a Seager type behind the plate – and Jaso has a better eye than Seager. Doubles and walks out of a catcher would be huge for us. BABIP won't be stellar, but it shouldn't be as low as it was in 2011 either.
Jaso’s pretty consistent with his LD% as well. 18% and then 19% in his AA seasons, a spike to 25% in AAA, then back to 19% and 18% in his major-league seasons. Kotchman has years at 15%, 17% a couple of times... his high years of 19% or so match up with where Jaso’s always hanging out. I don’t view his swing as being as mushy as the one Kotchman employs. It’s not exactly Manny Ramirez's swing, but it ain’t Lamkin’s either.
Jaso hits a TON of groundballs. In the Safe, that can be better than fly balls (depending on whether they’re rockets or 4-hoppers to short, of course). It can also kill rallies with double-plays, so how those groundballs are hit is very important.
BTW, as far as minor league numbers go, Jaso destroys Zaun (.290/.380/.440 vs .260/.340/.370) across the same ages and basic # of plate appearances.
Zaun got everything out of his skillset that was possible. If Jaso does that he’ll be the superior player in every offensive way. It’s nice to have a player who’s MID is Zaun, not his HIGH.
But still, if he “only” becomes Greg Zaun, that’s a pretty good place to be and much better than our catching situation since Joh’s good years.
~G