Thread: The dreaded return of Butera

The downside is that Drew Butera doesn't belong in major league baseball. I cannot believe how anyone could possibly defend bringing him up.

A little back of the napkin figuring....
In 2010, when he was on the roster the whole year and Mauer's primary backup, Butera got 155 AB in 170 plate appearances. Let's assume he gets about 150 plate appearances, though that seems high. Furthermore, let's ONLY take a look at offensive impact, not counting any defensive value.

According to Baseball-reference.com, Butera has created 20 runs in 407 plate appearances or .048 runs per plate appearance.
Meanwhile, Hughes has created 31 runs in 335 plate appearances, or .092 per plate appearances.
The difference between those guys is .044 runs per plate appearance.
Over 150 plate appearance thats....6.6 runs difference. That's 2/3 of a win or less than 1% of the runs the Twins will produce this year.

It is also well within reach of what Butera could add just by gunning down a few baserunners.

I spent most of the offseason on the podcast asking that the Twins get some reasonable alternatives to Butera. But from a practical standpoint, they have. This kvetching seems like a knee-jerk reaction, a bad habit that we've developed, a Pavlovian defense mechanism.

Originally Posted by thrylos98

+1 (and not only the modern history, Ancient history as well)

and with Gardenhire's need to play him at least every 5 days when Pavano starts, you know that the team will have at least 200 futile PAs.

This doesn't make any sense. Let's assume that Pavano starts 32 more games the rest of the year. That would mean Butera would have to get to the plate more than 6 times every game. Assuming Butera bats 8th or 9th, that means at least 48-54 PA's for the team in each of those games. Even if each game went 11 innings, we'd be looking at 15 to 21 baserunners, which should be enough to get 5 to 6 runs across at least, which is perfectly acceptable offensive production. What's more, even if Butera plummets to a .100/.125 BA/OBP, he will still, in 200 AB's, produce 20 hits and 5 walks, which are far from futile PA's.

Nor is Gardenhire worrying about losing the DH if he has to move Mauer or Doumit from that role to catcher an unsubstantiated fear. Given that the situation described here is EXACTLY what would happen, this is a completely substantiated fear. Finally, as John himself said, who exactly do we think would be getting the random AB's when Gardy doesn't have either Mauer or Doumit starting at catcher?

Originally Posted by John Bonnes

A little back of the napkin figuring....
In 2010, when he was on the roster the whole year and Mauer's primary backup, Butera got 155 AB in 170 plate appearances. Let's assume he gets about 150 plate appearances, though that seems high. Furthermore, let's ONLY take a look at offensive impact, not counting any defensive value.

According to Baseball-reference.com, Butera has created 20 runs in 407 plate appearances or .048 runs per plate appearance.
Meanwhile, Hughes has created 31 runs in 335 plate appearances, or .092 per plate appearances.
The difference between those guys is .044 runs per plate appearance.
Over 150 plate appearance thats....6.6 runs difference. That's 2/3 of a win or less than 1% of the runs the Twins will produce this year.

It is also well within reach of what Butera could add just by gunning down a few baserunners.

I spent most of the offseason on the podcast asking that the Twins get some reasonable alternatives to Butera. But from a practical standpoint, they have. This kvetching seems like a knee-jerk reaction, a bad habit that we've developed, a Pavlovian defense mechanism.

Knee jerk? I've been kvetching about Butera as far as 2 years back, last year developing into full fledged querulous whining! I won't defend Hughes but your comparison is between a guy who was pretty useless and a guy who is even more useless.

There may be a 7-10 guys with more value for the roster than Butera in Rochester. I don't care that it may only be 2/3 of a win. It's still 2/3 of a win, A, and B, some of these guys could overperform (Carson, Hollimon, Bates, etc.), but we know Butera is going to bat .200 at most and maybe crack .550 OPS if extremely lucky. It seems that the Twins have plenty of guys who could top .650 OPS. Is it so much to ask for a bench that has adequate or better than adequate bats at least in some situations (LH/RH)? There is no situation where one would ever want Drew Butera to be at the plate than any of those players. Even though he has sucked at Rochester (who cares given he is splitting time with two duds), if Gardenhire is so hellbent on having three catchers, I would prefer to see what Towles can do when given the opportunity.

I always laugh when I hear something like "at least they know what to expect from" x player (often Nick Punto was that x) as a reason to sign or utilize that player. Well we know exactly what to expect from Butera (and Rivera) and that is badness.

Originally Posted by John Bonnes

I can understand being generally opposed to having a 3rd catcher... From a practical standpoint, what is the downside here?

I think the downside is we don't trust Gardy to use him like a third catcher. He'll use Doumit as the DH/RF/3rd catcher and get Butera another 200+ ABs because he likes his defense.

Originally Posted by gil4

I think the downside is we don't trust Gardy to use him like a third catcher. He'll use Doumit as the DH/RF/3rd catcher and get Butera another 200+ ABs because he likes his defense.

Good point. John . . . think if the Twins had some other closer and Matt Capps was still around as a setup man . . . I recall you saying on a G&G that you just wouldn't trust that Capps ends up closing for whatever Gardenhire-engineered reason. Same thing here.

Originally Posted by twinsnorth49

Knee jerk? I've been kvetching about Butera as far as 2 years back, last year developing into full fledged querulous whining! I won't defend Hughes but your comparison is between a guy who was pretty useless and a guy who is even more useless.

By "knee-jerk", I meant that it is a reflex, and in our case, it's a learned reflex. It might be fun to get mad about, but I think the criticism melts a bit when faced by any real analysis.
As for "useless" - that's my point. Yeah, Butera is relatively useless. So would be an extra middle infielder. Or a 5th outfielder. Or a 13th pitcher. To me, whatever move the Twins make is almost a freebie.

Let me say one thing, in defense of Butera ever being on the roster . . . if the Twins would (in May?) ever go with a 5 man bench and 11 pitchers (crazy idea, I know . . . hell 11 used to be high back when I was a kid). That last spot would literally be for a defensive replacement in close games only.

Originally Posted by gil4

I think the downside is we don't trust Gardy to use him like a third catcher. He'll use Doumit as the DH/RF/3rd catcher and get Butera another 200+ ABs because he likes his defense.

I'm still puzzled by this perception. I asked for evidence that Gardenhire is somehow partial to Butera in another thread and don't think I got a reply. Like I said, in 2010, when Mauer was the only catcher, Butera got 155 plate appearances. Last year, Butera got a ton of at-bats, but Mauer was hurt and there just weren't much in the way of other options. And this year, he was presumably involved in the decision to send Butera down before Towles and was the primary decisionmaker to carry Burroughs over a 3rd catcher. I'm honestly asking - why are we so convinced that Gardenhire has a mancrush on Butera?

I suppose the evidence could be Gardenhire quotes raving about Butera's defense, but what does that really prove? Only that Gardenhire feels the need to publicly reward a guy for playing defense (or publicly defend a guy he knows can't hit his way out of a paper bag.) If he didn't do that, wouldn't we criticize him for going after him like Valencia.

yeah, I don't get where people think that Gardy is a big Butera guy. They like his defense... they've been very upfront about the offense. I'm not in favor of a 3rd catcher, but I am in favor of Doumit in the lineup every day, and again, there aren't a lot of changes made in the game, so playing with a 3 man bench and a 3rd catcher, not a big deal.

And, if Butera was up the whole rest of the season, I can't imagine him getting more than an average of two plate appearances a week. That might be high. I think we're talking about late-inning defense and late game injury replacement. That puts him at like 60-70 plate appearances. Can't make much difference to a team's season in that few at bats.

Last year was a weird year that Twins fans need to get over. He got that number of plate appearances because Mauer was hurt and there wasn't a Doumit on the roster. That wouldn't happen again.

Originally Posted by John Bonnes

I'm still puzzled by this perception. I asked for evidence that Gardenhire is somehow partial to Butera in another thread and don't think I got a reply. .

Plenty of evidence:

Morales (and Ramos) was better than Butera in 2010, but Butera made the trip up North.
Rivera has been a better catcher in 2011 (if you look at AAA numbers as well; and Liriano has been more effective with Rivera catching him than with anybody else) but Butera is the one who stayed with the team when Mauer was deemed ready.

Now you are going to hear the excuse that Butera is a "great defensive catcher". Look at the numbers, especially PBs to see whether the excuse is substantiated by the numbers. Fact: Last season Butera had more PBs than Doumit/inning caught

So that's that... There is no smoking gun, but....

Originally Posted by John Bonnes

By "knee-jerk", I meant that it is a reflex, and in our case, it's a learned reflex. It might be fun to get mad about, but I think the criticism melts a bit when faced by any real analysis.
As for "useless" - that's my point. Yeah, Butera is relatively useless. So would be an extra middle infielder. Or a 5th outfielder. Or a 13th pitcher. To me, whatever move the Twins make is almost a freebie.

Criticism of.....Butera? Having a 3rd catcher? Analyzing one bad player with another?

The sad part is we're even discussing this, the reality is this is about what the best thing to settle for is. It would be nice if the Twins could use that freebie on someone who could actually help the team. That's my point.

Ramos was a fulltime guy, that's why he wasn't there. I'll take your word on Morales.
I personally might have given Rivera more time, but it's worth noting that he hit .144 in the majors. So there might be an edge there, but it's a small edge. Plus, it only shows that a) the organization didn't choose the right, nearly worthless catcher, but that hardly shows a Gardenhire bias. And
b) that Gardenhire is going to be anxious to give whoever comes up a lot of at-bats.
I'm not saying Gardy doesn't like Butera. I just don't see a lot of evidence that he's going to give him a dangerously large role.

Originally Posted by twinsnorth49

The sad part is we're even discussing this, the reality is this is about what the best thing to settle for is. It would be nice if the Twins could use that freebie on someone who could actually help the team. That's my point.

It's a fair point, and on the one hand, I'd love to have a real bench bat that I was confident in. That, to me, would be what this team could use right now. A veteran DHish guy.

But on the other hand, part of the issue is that the bench is already much better than it has been in the past. On most night, Gardy can turn to a decent choice or at least work things to have a matchup in his favor. Even now, I don't even mind the 13-man pitching staff. If anything, this team needs a lot more bullpen options than bench options. And that's because it doesn't look like a bad offensive team right now.

I would rather have the Twins carry a extra pitcher than a catcher. The downside is Mauer & Domit gets less at bats. Let's keep the bench fresh.

Originally Posted by gmarais66

P.S. While on 1500, Gardy said Willingham had agreed to be the emergency catcher, since he was once a catcher...

Gardy just solved the problem right there. In case of injury Willingham straps on the tools of ignorance, gets signs from the dugout, puts fingers down and catches for the one or two innings necessary. I know catcher is a unique position. It's not a long term solution, it's a finish the game solution and get to tomorrow. If you are worried about it. Prepare for it. Have the hammer catch some bullpens, take some time and work on his footwork. Coach him for the possibility. The best coaches in the world and A guy who has played baseball his whole life including some catcher. Jeez get him work in a ninth inning of a 10 0 blowout. It's preparation for something that might happen.

I agree with most of John's posts. The last bench player isn't worth all this fuss.

Originally Posted by Seth Stohs

yeah, I don't get where people think that Gardy is a big Butera guy. They like his defense... they've been very upfront about the offense. I'm not in favor of a 3rd catcher, but I am in favor of Doumit in the lineup every day, and again, there aren't a lot of changes made in the game, so playing with a 3 man bench and a 3rd catcher, not a big deal.

And, if Butera was up the whole rest of the season, I can't imagine him getting more than an average of two plate appearances a week. That might be high. I think we're talking about late-inning defense and late game injury replacement. That puts him at like 60-70 plate appearances. Can't make much difference to a team's season in that few at bats.

Last year was a weird year that Twins fans need to get over. He got that number of plate appearances because Mauer was hurt and there wasn't a Doumit on the roster. That wouldn't happen again.

Thank you Father Christmas. Me is glad you is not want Drew play lots. Me as Twins fan need to get over last years poopy. Me want see good things happen. If Drew come plate want pinch hitter no one left on bench maybe Marquis will hit and we throw bucket behind home plate to catch pitches. Bucket is good hit I hear!

Is the worry about losing the DH? How much better is Butera than a pitcher?

Is the desire to have a better defender at catcher on the bench? Maybe reasonable.

As long as Butera doesn't start, I would rather see him than Towles. If Mauer is out with injury, I'd rather see Towles.