Astros Acquire Veteran Game Caller Brian McCann
Without looking at either team too hard, you might think the Astros needed major league pitching and the Yankees needed major league pitching. So of course the Yankees traded catcher Brian McCann (and $5.5m a year) to the Astros for prospect right-handers Albert Abreu and Jorge Guzman. We’ll learn more about the prospects (other than their high velocity fastballs) later, but the major league teams probably both needed this trade, and it might have actually been about pitching for the Astros anyway.
For the Yankees, the emergence of Gary Sanchez at the plate late last year probably necessitated this move by itself. Sanchez gives his team the best value behind the plate, and he was better defensively than some thought he’d be. He deserves to play every day at least, first base should be Greg Bird’s, and this is a team that used to like to rotate designated hitters instead of having the same one in there every day. McCann’s talents would be wasted at DH, too.
Sending McCann away saves the team $17 million this year and next year. It does cost them their only lefty power bat other than the returning Bird, but with $11.5 million freed up and a catcher already in place, the team may be able to find a better lefty bat without any defensive ability. Adam Lind, for example, is a lefty bat projected to hit better than McCann. He’ll cost a fraction.
Acquiring McCann may seem strange for a team already rocking at least league-average production from the catcher position in the form of Evan Gattis. But the Astros have been more comfortable with an every-day designated hitter in the past, and Gattis should probably be that DH.
Gattis was 27th or 29th best at framing last year by Baseball Prospectus’ framing runs last year (Sanchez was right there with him, but the Yankees have traded away top framers again and again, so they may not value that skill as much as others. I digress.) His best season in that regard was in 2013, when he was around league average for a starting catcher, and at 30, he’s probably not headed back in that direction.
| Year | Framing Runs |
|---|---|
| 2010 | 22.3 |
| 2011 | 34.9 |
| 2012 | 27.4 |
| 2013 | 10.2 |
| 2014 | 9.7 |
| 2015 | -3.9 |
| 2016 | 9.6 |
Even as McCann’s framing has fallen off, he remains a much better receiver behind the plate than the incumbent. He was eighth in framing runs (16th in called strike above average), and Gattis’ best year was worse than McCann’s second-worst year in that department. Harry Pavlidis also found that McCann was top ten in catcher calling runs saved from 2012-2014.
Given that we just saw Dallas Keuchel fall off at least partially due to getting fewer calls low in the zone, we’ve already seen how better receiving could impact this team in particular. With 2016’s third-best framing catcher, Jason Castro, out of town, these pitchers were all facing a drastic drop in called strikes.
With the framing and calling added in to his offense — projected to be league average compared to Castro’s 19% worse than league average — McCann is probably worth a win, win and a half at least next year. Move Gattis’ similar production to DH, and you’ve probably gained your team a win on the offensive side.
But this trade may have been as much about improving the pitching staff as it is about the offensive side of the ball. For the Astros — and their pitching staff — the hope is that McCann can still frame and call a good game as his offense falls off. It looks like that calling plus offense, on a two-year deal, was enough for them to move on to a new starting catcher.
With a phone full of pictures of pitchers' fingers, strange beers, and his two toddler sons, Eno Sarris can be found at the ballpark or a brewery most days. Read him here, writing about the A's or Giants at The Athletic, or about beer at October. Follow him on Twitter @enosarris if you can handle the sandwiches and inanity.
Astros just signed Reddick, too. They probably netted about 3-3.5 wins today. They added about 24 million in salary for 2017, so basically they are paying market value for these two guys at 8-8.5 million per win. In a weak free agent market, I can’t say that I am devastated as an Astros fan by any means.
Keeping Castro would have cost some of that $24M, so was going up in any case. There is nothing at C on the farm.
So NYY will upgrade McCann with whoever they sign at DH w/ the $ savings, probably still have $ left over, and get 2 young flame throwers. Looks pretty good to me. Looks pretty good to me even if they didn’t get the arms.
MLBtraderumors says NYY are picking up $5.5M/yr on McCann’s remaining 2 years. So, they’re saving $11.5M, not 17.
Nice deal for the Yankees. McCann’s on a downward trend both offensively and defensively, and while he might be expected to improve a bit, he’s still slightly overpaid. I’m guessing that if he were a FA with no QA attached and had to sign a 2-year deal, he’d get something like $28-$30M.
If that’s the case (let’s call it $29M), then the Yankees are paying $6M for the prospects, which seems like a great deal. Add in the fact that they were dealing from a position of weakness (everyone knew they have no place for McCann and were pretty intent on trading him), and I like it a lot.
This is a great deal for the Astros. McCann is at least average defensively and well above average offensively for a catcher. For $11.5M a year, that’s a great deal, even with some decline. All they have to give up are a couple pretty good, low-level arms.
For the Yankees, I like it, but I don’t love it. This is going to be very helpful in allowing them to re-jigger their roster while keeping the luxury tax in mind. But they already have lots of depth in their system and they ought to be trying to use it to get top-end talent, not more depth. I’m sure Cashman tried very hard to do just that, but the point is it didn’t happen.
Swapping Castro for McCann, if using BP’s farming numbers, makes this a wash overall. The cost for both projects to be roughly the same (since the Yankees are paying part of McCann’s salary; and I’m figuring Castro will get about $10m per). However, by trading for McCann, the Astros are giving up two arms; so net net net, the cost appears to be more for McCann than it would have been to simply resign Castro.
So why did the Astros do this? Are we, as a community over valuing framing? Or are we underrating offense? Is there something else going on here? It’s a fascinating case study the more I think about it.
I wonder if they have game calling numbers and see that McCann is vastly superior to Castro there.
Is framing really a skill that declines with age? I’m not doubting it, I’m just having a hard time imagining what part of framing would be impacted by physically aging.
I was wondering about this too. Maybe it doesn’t decline so much as the umps get better able to look past it? “Your Jedi shit doesn’t work on me as well as it used to, Obi McCanobi!”
I’ve seen the aging curve, it does age decently but still ages. I think you need to have the strong wrists at the bottom of the zone, as Lucroy pointed out: http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/jonathan-lucroy-on-the-art-of-receiving/
Eno, just an aside related to your comment that “the Yankees have traded away top framers again and again, so they may not value that skill as much as others…”
Their history says just the opposite. The Yankees were studying pitch framing several years before it became the rage, going back to the late aughts, which led to Posada being pushed more towards DH and eventual retirement (and, oh yeah, that age thing) and a succession of catchers, both starters and back-ups, that included Jose Molina, Russell Martin, Francisco Cervelli, Chris Stewart, James Ryan Murphy and Brian McCann. All rated at the time as good framers.
As they began to phase Posada out, it was clear pitch framing was one of the key requirements they were seeking. Yet what the willingness to trade all these pitch framers indicates is the Yankees don’t believe it’s a skill that they can’t replace, and they’ve been doing just that for the last 8 or 9 seasons.
Gary Sanchez is going to be the real test. He’s the first catcher since Posada who likely won’t rate positively as a pitch framer. At least so far. They may believe it’s a teachable skill, meaning if the catcher has the right physical skills. I’m not sure they’re wrong. They’ve improved Sanchez’s catching quite a bit the last couple of seasons, and having Girardi and Pena on the MLB staff likely will continue his development. The focus on pitch framers showed up when Girardi showed up.