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Over the last few months, the Twins have quietly undertaken a unique experiment in catcher usage. In the last few weeks, it’s taken a truly historic turn. Christian Vázquez and Ryan Jeffers have exactly alternated starts behind the plate for the last 23 games (as of Sept. 19). One starts one game, and the other starts the next. It’s as rigid (yet creative) a division of the labor of the men behind the plate as any team has attempted in recent memory, but it invites the question: How will the catchers be deployed come the playoffs?
Of course, that window–”the playoffs”--could turn out to be a grandiose term for as little as two games of real baseball. We all hope, though, that this will be the year when the Twins have to manage something much more lasting and complicated than that. If it does, how will the team decide when to start which catcher? During the long grind of an MLB regular season, alternating backstops makes a world of sense. It keeps both men fresh, and that objective is at least as worthy as squeezing out a potential run prevented (or scored) here or there. In the postseason, that’s no longer a primary decision driver. Even small margins are worth fighting over in October, and everyone stays fresh enough, anyway, thanks to the off days baked into the postseason schedule.
Happily, the Twins don’t have to lurch around blindfolded here. Their two catchers are both good receivers and game-callers, but they do things slightly differently, and that can help inform the pairings the team should pursue when the stakes are high. After all, the catcher is only half the battery on a given night, and the way their skills as framers and game-callers align with those of the pitchers with whom they work is important information.
Vázquez is the superior pitch framer between these two, overall. He’s also slightly better at controlling the running game. The latter only becomes important if runners start populating the bases, though, and the nobler purpose of a good catcher is to prevent that from happening in the first place. Let’s start, then, by being more specific about what each man does well as a framer.
Thanks to the data collected via Statcast and released to the public via Baseball Savant, we can see that Vázquez isn’t fractionally better than Jeffers at framing all pitches. Instead, he’s considerably better when catching balls on the right side of home plate (from the catcher’s perspective; that makes it the backhand side for right-handed catchers, reaching across with their mitts) and along the bottom edge of the zone. Jeffers is better, however, to the left side of the plate, and especially along the top edge of the zone, as can be seen in the graphic below.
This article continues with a deeper dive into the nuances the Twins will consider for October starts, but it is exclusively for Twins Daily caretakers. To become a Caretaker and read the rest of the piece, you can subscribe here. You'll support the writers that provide you free Twins stories and analysis everyday, both in-season and offseason.
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