Doctor Gast

I wrote my text hit & miss so I forgot to write about pitchers. Pitchers, OPS is absolutely not important, So to complete my thought. (DH), OPS is 100% important, defense 0%- (Pitching), OPS is 0% important, pitching is 100%, (1B) OPS is very important, defense not so much (catcher) fielding very important, OPS not so much & down the line. I stated that Vazquez is no Molina but they are of the same mold. I also stated that Vazquez while settled in BOS especially towards the end had very good OPS probably better than Molina's towards the end of his stay at STL. Here is my point again, catchers like Molina & Vazquez do better when settled in one place, where they don't have to study a whole new pitching staff & system, they can focus on their hitting. As always you miss my point, you zoom on some insignificant detail & twist it. My standard mainly serves as a guideline to prove a point of importance OPS & defense on each position. My text was not meant for members like you who are dead set on OPS as the most important standard to gauge everyone no matter what. My text is focused on members with an open mind that maybe OPS isn't all end-to-end all. That in many cases, pitching & defense is more important and that fundamentals like taking & stealing an extra base, bunting, not striking out, hit & run, & clutch hitting cannot be overlooked.

My thoughts. SD probably offered Cease to MN for Jeffers plus others. Falvey likes Jeffers too much so he countered with Vazquez & that was what was broadcasted. There is no way that SD would take that offer. they want to cut payroll. I can't see the Twins doing it either because they want cut payroll not increase it. If SD wants prospects then it'd be Vazquez + Emma or at the very least Vazquez + Festa + K Culpeper + Winokur. If SD doesn't want prospects, Vazquez + Wallner could make it happen. As I explained earlier with RiverBrian, With Vazquez as is, we have an outside chance to compete in the playoffs with a #18 catching corp. W/O Vazquez our catching corp will end up dead last, thus destroying any chance to compete in '25 even with Cease. Is it worth it? Paying dearly for a rental? Making us worse as a team in the future? I don't think so.

With this analytical mania, many have this philosophy, that a good MLB player has to have a .700 OPS. In reality, that's not true. Each position is very different, depending on its defensive premium. DH has to have a well-above- .700 OPS, IMO above .850 because that's their job to mash likewise the priority for 1B & RF is the bat, around .850 OPS. LF above .800 OPS the slight priority here is also the bat. 3B there's a balance between glove & bat, around a .800. Up the middle is where defense has to take priority & less focus OPS. SS & 2B have to have range to get to GBs & turn DPs. 2B's OPS is around .700, SS & CF around .650 OPS & catching around .600 OPS. If LF or 3B have an above-average glove then I'd adjust my OPS requirement lower. My standard is that all up-the-middle positions have to have an above-average glove. If they have a very good to elite glove. I'd discount OPS or a very good base-runner or clutch hitter, I'd discount more. Vazquez had great OPS when he was established at BOS, In His last years he caught at least 138 games (except '20, he had his best OPS .800) & still was very productive OFF/DEF. Only after leaving BOS did his OPS fall below .600 (discounting his early years) due to all of his focus was spent on knowing the pitchers & the team. I see his OPS will be closer to his career average of .673 this season. The problem with our offense isn't that Vazquez isn't doing his job, It's some of the others aren't doing theirs. Molina knew his pitchers, he studied the opponents' hitters, base-runners & game plan. He was elite defensively, he had a catcher's heart where he loved to be on every play, he worked with his INFers to make magnificent plays that normal catchers couldn't dream of. A leader, he added chemistry & unity on the field. Vazquez isn't a Molina but he has a catcher's heart & is a good friend of Molina where I could imagine them spending many hrs. talking catching. So I don't buy that over-simplistic universal .700 OPS standard. With Vazquez (WAR doesn't do justice), Jeffers performs well at the weaker-side tandem, we are 18th in catching. At the premium position, I'd like for us to be at least in the top 10 to be competitive. That means adding not subtracting. W/O Vazquez, that means Jeffers takes the primary duty of catching every day. History tells us that Jeffers can't handle primary catching duties for any extended amount of time. He will falter & land on the IL. In '22 we had Sanchez, he was bad but at least he had some viable MLB experience, Camargo, Cartaya & Gasper have realistically have none. All of them need to spend all their time in AAA in '25. So with Vazquez, we have a chance to make the playoffs as is. Jeffers's OPS during his primary catching duties in '22 was .648 & his defense metrics were pretty bad, he had a .9 fWAR plus the others would put together -WAR. Looking at other teams' projected WAR for '25 that'd put us in the bottom of the barrel, so yeah that would kill any postseason hopes.

It seems the advanced metrics always favor SWR. I like SWR so whatever he's doing right, keep on doing it & I wish him well. He keeps on proving people wrong.

Makes absolutely no sense, so why am I scared? We don't need Cease, How does trading off $10M for $13.75M helps our budget? Padres could use Vazquez but they are in better shape than us in the catching department, W/O Vazquez our MLB catching depth is Jeffers + ZERO. That leaves Jeffers with catching 100%. How long will he last? But wait Falvey has snaggled Brandon Venezuela away from them. After Jeffers that leaves 0+0+0+0= that equals ZERO. If they trade Vazquez, the season is over. Why can't Falvey take catching seriously?

Isn't this the term "mirroring", keeping the same delivery & everything on every pitch? To disguise the pitches. Having pitches that appear similar in flight (before spin- and seam-induced movement take hold) increases the difficulty of judging where and when a pitch will cross home plate, increasing the challenge of making effective swing decisions.

I listened to that interview before, yes he was open but asked about Lewis he never said "Yes he's our 2Bman or no he isn't". He was not sure. My impression about Lewis is he likes to be the best he can be. If he's the 2Bman he wants some instruction & someone working with him besides taking some GBs on the left-side. Baldelli has even admitted that Lewis would like know as quick as possible. I don't get why he was so determined during the season & not be now when it's more beneficial to Lewis. Baldelli might have a good reason to be this way beyond what's on the surface. I just don't get it & why so many people are so bent out of shape because of my statement. Rethinking it. It's probably not his fault. FO has probably informed him not to fix anything because they might want to shake things up. Which I think isn't a good idea, just saying.

I like all the options except Julien who should not be an option. Baldelli was dead set to have Lewis at 2B when it wasn't a good idea. Now is the time to commit Lewis at 2B but now Baldelli is quiet & unsure. Baldelli make up your mind so Lewis can properly prepare. Either Lee or Lewis are fine fixes there. But supposedly, Lee has a chronic back problem where he has to play through the pain & is Lewis done with his soft-tissue issues following his ACLs? 2B could be a juggling act, where 2B is Martin's natural position but maybe Castro is substituting often for better match-ups.

The only real substantial need we have is a bonafide future catcher. MLB-ready with real potential, nothing we have right now will cut it. So we have someone to aid Jeffers when he starts to wane & to gain experience to take over for Vazquez & Jeffers when they're gone. I'd be open to trading Larnach for such a player, injunction & or a 3-way trade if necessary. I like Larnach but he's replaceable both Keirsey & Emma are LH, better fielders & potential to be as good or better hitters respectfully. I am willing to wait for the deadline if need be. Such a player is an absolute necessity still I'd prefer to trade Julien over Larnach.

I can see where you are coming from, Matthew. IMO a good-hitting LH Ofer is a premium but I don't see the rush to trade Larnach. If at the deadline a too-good-to-refuse deal came across our path then yeah. To trade just to trade isn't the answer we need to capitalize.

That'd be common sense but my observation is during these budget restrictions Falvey is fine trading away anybody just for a chance to pull up a chair at the Big Boys' FA table. He loves the praise from the TV & website sports commentators & hates to be criticized for doing nothing. A bad or insignificant deal is better than no deal. They can always spin it.

I reread my text, when I used gutter I meant the catching, not the team & I did over-dramatize it. Although fWAR is a good measure for hitting catchers but IMO it doesn't do defensive catchers justice.

Thank you for trying to agree with me. Back when pitchers had to bat & were a drag on the team's offense, were we concerned with their OPS+? No, we only look at how well they pitch. If we are talking about DH & 1Bmen then yeah they better have a darn good OPS+. That is their main job is to mash. Catching is vastly different in that the success of the team isn't on them mashing but how well they catch & all the nuances that go with it. Like many times I've stated before Jeffers is a great backup catcher but as a primary catcher he was completely out of his league, Catching was probably the main reason why we did so poorly as a team even with Correa & Gray in '22. I'm not making him out to be a MVP or GG (I said he was one of the reasons, not the main reason that we did well in '23). But his presence made Jeffers in tandem better, made the pitchers better, and made the team better. If we didn't have Vazquez or someone like him IMO we wouldn't have come close to compete in '23, that how important I think catching is.

People attempt to measure intangibles but according to Sabermetrician Bill James, you can't. & I appreciate his honesty. People can make stats say whatever they want. I dismiss this data because it's unreliable there is no baby in this bathwater no matter how much you want there to be one.

I try to agree with you as much as I can but this -0.2 WAR is totally off. WAR doesn't come close to evaluate the real worth of a catcher, they focus nearly entirely on slugging, little focus on defense & ignore intangibles. The real worth of a catcher has little to do with his ability to slug but more to do with his defense & intangibles. Some WAR are worse than others but this WAR is the worst I've ever seen. To answer your question. Absolutely not. Vazquez is one of the reasons that brought us out the gutters in '22 to the success we had in '23 & kept us in the wildcard hunt in '24 until we didn't, with his defense & intangibles. I wish we didn't need Vazquez & his salary, but we do. I wish we had an elite defensive catcher in our system but we don't. So we are doomed until we do.

These stats are not credible to evaluate catcher's intangibles as I have given before but people will believe what they want to believe. "Sabermetrician Bill James also performed research into CERA, finding that while it is possible that catchers may have a significant effect on a pitching staff, there is too much yearly variation in CERA for it to be a reliable indicator of ability."

Totally agree, I'm saying how he was presented to us.

Nardi is one of my targets but MIA has been focusing on prospects. Unless the fact that MLB frowns on a budget less than $100M & MIA doesn't want a black check on their name. I'm not sure how that works. CIN is watching their budget & so is SD. Last offseason I thought Bart (SF) would have been interesting pickups. Bart got a chance with PIT & ran with it. But 4 fringe catchers plus whoever else they have at AAA is too many. At BTV I put in a lot of trade offers to many teams & got many positive responses. But as the teams started to fill out their rotations the numbers greatly reduced. Right now my best responses are from BAL, NYM, As & LA. TX was pretty good, so I'll go fishing again & see what I come up with.

I'd rather keep Paddack also but if they need to cut budget Paddack would the easiest to trade & replace.

I see where you're coming from, But if the '25 goal is 100+ innings instead the lofty 140 innings laid on him last year, IMO he could reach it. At any time if he labors at all I'd put him in the BP.

I remember & long for those days.

Congratulations Cody on your best article yet. Cards fans loved Molina but I don't think they really appreciated him & realize how much he impacted their club until he was gone. On paper, they looked better w/o Molina than with him with the addition of Willson Contreras & the same team. But w/o him they tanked & haven't been the same since. I'm not saying that Vazquez isn't overpaid or he's as good as Molina. What I'm saying is that he's the same type of catcher. Vazquez spent his entire 1st year getting to know his pitchers where his hitting took the backseat. When Cole Burns was asked about his main concern about going to BAL? He responded, " He really liked his relationship with MIL catchers & he realizes that it'd take a long time to establish that relationship with another catcher." Not all catchers do that, most get their computer printouts & go with it. It's not organic. Catcher's value isn't the same as DHs or 1B where WAR & slugging are everything. This isn't Fantasy Baseball this is the real thing where defense, leadership, and command of the pitchers & the field are dominating factors for a catcher. I'm afraid that many will come to appreciate Vazquez far too late (including some whose opinions I respect), Too many undervalue Vazquez's abilities & overrate Jeffers, Camargo, Cartaya & Gasper & none of them should be our future starting catcher. Acquire Desclavani, looks good on paper, get a bunch of fringey RPs, look good on paper. Don't trust Keirsey, get RH Margot (CF), looks good on paper. Pick up Richards, look good on paper. Get rid of Vazquez + $5M, looks good on paper. Jeffers is very good at 45% behind the plate increase to 55%, looks good on paper. We need Camargo, Cartaya & Gasper to cover 45%, looks good on paper. But when reality sets in where Camargo, Cartaya & Gasper can't handle 1% playing time. Jeffers will have to catch every day, he quickly falters & lands on the IL (like '22). We have to go to the FA scrap heap to get an expensive FA that wipes out any savings of dumping Vazquez & after Jeffers goes down we get our 2nd expensive FA catcher that'll put us in the hole. We go from Vazquez who knows our pitching staff very well to 2 inferior catchers that are complete strangers to our pitchers. How do you think that impacts our postseason hopes? Looking at past history & projections this is the most realistic scenario if we trade Vazquez.

Last season we still had a great core & Lopez was searching for his path in the early '24 season but that wasn't the cause of our collapse in the beginning. Falvey made it very clear after the '23 postseason that his all-or-nothing approach was the reason for the team's success, even though the main contributors down that stretch did not adhere to that philosophy. They stressed that they were sticking to focus on that approach & the record amount Ks was not a problem. The reason for the team's early slump was the league's drastic adjusting to our approach resulting in a lack of offense- Miranda, Kiriloff & Correa were mashing but Margot, Santana & Farmer were horrid, Vazquez was improving but was not good. The whole team was bad & Lewis was gone. What saved us was Baldelli's change of hitting direction to a less SO-prone one. I agree that that slump put us behind the eight ball to win the division but we still had most of the '23 core together that kept us in the hunt for the wildcard. But not filling the holes at SP & LHRP drained our rotation & BP resulting in poorer performances. Miranda & Kirilof's mashing was gone due to not playing them at 1B thus keeping them healthy & productive but instead putting them into positions where they had to really work their shoulders & landing them on the IL. The lack of chemistry plunged them into a nosedive that nobody could correct. '25 depends again on making the right trades. Do we trade for a very promising young MLB-ready catcher to aid this ailing prime position? Do we trade the right players that can be replaced to help the club? Or do we trade away players that we really need & hard to replace (Castro, Vazquez, Lopez, Correa, Buxton, Ober, or Ryan)? Why do I get that sick feeling that Falvey will be "creative" again? Trading away players we desperately need to acquire players we do not, taking up valuable active roster spots from our well-deserving players who need the playing time to better themselves & the team. How does adding a player for one year help the team the following year? With this kind of move, we don't have worry about making the playoffs. I don't care how we look on paper, we'll be out of it before we get started.

I think it's a great idea to have a former player with baseball smarts to guide the owners in major baseball decisions. Ignorant owners are at the mercy of their FO. If the FO is bad the team goes nowhere for too long. My guess would be Roy Smalley, the conditions seem right, he's baseball smart from his own experience & gleanings from Gene Mauch who was a great baseball mind and he appears to have the money. Mauer was a great hitting catcher but IMO & I could be wrong, he doesn't have the baseball smarts that you normally link to catchers or out-spoken enough to voice his opinions, So maybe someone who could straighten out our catching dilemma, who could be an option if he has the money is Tim Laudner who is also a Minnesotan.

I have doubts about Topa not ending up on the IL before the start of the season. I'm optimistic about Stewart & Alcala if managed right. I disagree with the Twins being stubborn about making Varland a starter to begin the season. He needs to be told to get ready to be the 1st one called up if there's an injury if he performed well in spring training as a RP. Prielipp & Canterino are our aces in the hole & need to be well-managed to get them to MLB. I'm a believer.