Cleveland and New York Choose Their Catchers
Earlier this winter, the New York Mets were looking to upgrade their catching situation. The team was dissatisfied with Travis d’Arnaud, Kevin Plawecki, and Tomas Nido as the frontline options, and after rumors of a J.T. Realmuto trade, the team ended up signing Wilson Ramos to give them four, major league-caliber catchers. Cleveland has moved in the opposite direction. The team traded top prospect Francisco Mejia to San Diego for Brad Hand and Adam Cimber over the summer to aid their bullpen. Then, when winter began, Cleveland moved Yan Gomes to the Nationals to save money. That left Cleveland with the ultra-light hitting Roberto Perez and the all-or-nothing Eric Haase, whose projections lean more toward the “nothing” side than the “all.” That made the two teams pretty good trading partners, and this is the result:
Cleveland receives:
- C Kevin Plawecki
New York receives:
- RHP Walker Lockett
- 2B Sam Haggerty
As luck would have it, our list of the Mets’ Top 25 Prospects went up just this morning. The list has full reports on Lockett and Haggerty, but both players likely have enough flaws to keep them from being average major league players. As for Plawecki, it’s not hard to see the Mets’ motivation for dealing a catcher, as they have too many. Why they dealt Plawecki specifically is also not difficult to figure out. The market for Travis d’Arnaud has to be incredibly limited; he played in just four games last year and has been injured for much of his career. He’s also relatively expensive, with a $3.5 million salary next season, and even if he rebounds, he will be eligible for free agency at the end of 2019. As for Nido, he’s only made 100 MLB plate appearances, so his abilities as a backup might be more in question and merit further assessment. That left Plawecki.
In Plawecki, Cleveland gains a player who is cheaper but not-as-good as the one they dealt away earlier this winter when they team moved Yan Gomes to the Nationals. Plawecki does have some offensive upside. His 93 wRC+ last season is well above the average catcher’s mark of 84, and his projected 90 wRC+ for 2019 is easily above it as well. He does have some pop given, with seven homers and a .160 ISO last season, but he hits a ton of ground balls that lead to outs and double plays due to his lack of speed. If Plawecki could get the ball in the air more, he might be an average to above-average hitter and would lose less value on the bases. Even with his defensive deficiencies – and he’s not a particularly good catcher – that might make him something close to an average player and a decent pair with Roberto Perez, who is good defensively but really can’t hit much at all.
For Cleveland, keeping Gomes would have made them a better team than these moves. Signing Wilson Ramos, like the Mets did to make this move possible, probably would have made Cleveland better. Yasmani Grandal is still sitting out there, and would make the team much better than it is right now. For the moment, though, Cleveland is less interested in becoming better and more interested in moving parts around to save money. We’ll have to wait to see how that strategy pays off.
Craig Edwards can be found on twitter @craigjedwards.
yep, thats the problem , majority of the mlb teams are not interested in winning. theyre interested in saving money….. and a lot just want to tank. sad that grandal still cant get compensated for his abilities as he’s one of the games best currently. terrible for the game whats going on. A team would rather save money and get a medicore player, then spend money and get a great player to help win.
Too bad about the down votes, but I do think it’s a pity that Cleveland has to resort to worrying about money instead of pressing harder to compete in a very winnable division. Perhaps they’re trying to do both, as they still have some great players that could win it for them. It’s possible that Cleveland is just waiting for prices to come down and maybe they will pick up some guys later on… just a few months to go!
Still can’t figure out why the Indians don’t wanna just go all in and win a WS. Even if it means being less good a few years down the line. Yeah the Royals suck – but they accomplished what they hoped to accomplish. Indians have a shot either way, but why not reload instead? Glad I’m not a CLE fan, I’d be so frustrated this offseason.
You know, that’s the way I felt earlier on, but somehow they managed to essentially wind up with a similar team as they did before at every position, except now they’re paying less money and have Jake Bauers (who is likely outfield-capable) instead of Yandy Diaz (who is likely not). That seems an awful lot like a winning offseason to me.
Granted, they still have a ton of needs between the OF and the bullpen, and there’s no guarantee they’ll reinvest the money. But if they do, it’s looking like a pretty shrewd offseason to me.
I 2nd that, feel Cle has had a top 3 offseason even if they dont do much else considering their restrictions- We all have to realize their are parameters set on how much each org can spend so when judging Gms we must apply- I think Cle has aced the test in these regards
Making trades to save money but stand pat as a team, doesn’t sound like a winning strategy. Have they really saved significantly to make a big move at the trade deadline? And this also assumes that a good OF will be available at that point.
They don’t have the offense to compete with Boston without a significant upgrade at some point.
Over 162 your correct, but in a 5/7 game series they have more than a punchers chance with Kluber Carrasco Bauer Clevinger-
The thing is “they cant” be Boston/NYY, they cant spend that way, so just to give them a punchers chance year after year is more than admirable. Lifes not fair, but you have to do the best with what you are given and I think Cle has been a great model for that for quite a bit of time now. They happened to get younger, more versatile financially and on the field while not touching their primo staff to make any of that happen. Now the bullpen is god awful but the weak div puts time on their side here to figure it out.
Watch Jake Bauers play the outfield and then tell me he’s capable.
Steamer and DepthCharts project the Indians to win 93 games which puts them 9-11 games ahead of the Twins. They have the luxury to not be a super team. Last year, they drew 25k fans/game. In their World Series year of 2016, they drew just under 20k fans/game. Cleveland ranks as the 33rd MSA in the country, so while not small, not big enough to provide a lot of TV revenue. They’re not a high-revenue team.
Given these facts (and Indians’ fans can add more color), it’s reasonable that they try to extend the window through Lindor & Ramirez’s control period instead of trading all their prospects to binge for one year. They did get Hand and Cimber at the ASB last year and bats are cheaper than arms at the ASB, so they’ll probably plan to finish off the OF at the ASB. In the AL Central, they have the luxury to wait.
So the Gomes and Brantley moves confused me at the time, but they seem to have enabled them to keep Bauer and Kluber for one more year. And remember, Edwin Encarnacion is the only significant FA they’ve signed. They’ve built their whole team, a World Series team, through the draft, trades, and minor league free agents.
The Indians outfield is filled with maybe’s. Players that have shown potential and flashes of brilliance in the minors or over short periods in the show. Given extended time, one or two might step up…or fall flat.
As many have said, they can’t throw money at the problem so they’re throwing bodies at it. As long as the rotation holds they can afford to go with an outfield by audition until they find and answer one way or another.
The old Billy Beane quote applies to their situation: “…spend two months finding what you have, two months fixing the holes, and two months contending.”
Waiting until july to see what the maybes can do also allows time for the farm hands to develop. One of them might be the answer…or be the currency that brings an answer.
There simply aren’t many Mike Ilitch type owners left out there: most teams are forced to live within their means and Cleveland’s means are meaner than most.
I sort of agree with this. But there are two problems with their situation:
1) It is absolutely true that they are going to have a lot of trouble hanging with Boston, NYY, and Houston right now in a 7-game series. They simply do have to find ways to improve, because right now this looks like a team that skates through the regular season and doesn’t make it through.
2) The projections are not infallible. I know this is heresy around here, but people were making the same argument about the Dodgers last year, that they were projected to be 12 wins over the D-Backs and they were good, so whatever. And clearly that take was incorrect, since they literally needed a 163rd game to win the division.
This is a team that absolutely should not be done. It could really use some more help lengthening the lineup and the bullpen. But what they’ve done this offseason mostly makes sense…provided they reinvest the money.
I hear you, but what does holding onto those prospects really get them?
Once this core ages out/departs, they’re going to be not very good.
So if they hold a couple extra prospects, they win 74 games instead of 70 during the rebuilding years?
Reasonable people can differ, but I don’t think it’s realistic for a team with their financial resources to consistently compete – they’re going to have windows of contention. My preference would be to manage assets to make the highs higher and the lows lower as opposed to what they’re doing. [shrugs shoulders]
I think they’re attempting an on-the-fly rebuild. Sometime this year, trade Bauer. Shane Bieber replaces him and they get 1 excellent prospect, 1 good prospect, and 1 ok prospect back. Next year, they trade Kluber, McKenzie replaces him, and they get a similar haul. The year after, they trade Lindor for a similar haul, and hope one of the guys they got for Bauer or Kluber can replace him. Then Ramirez.
You’re right, they’re going to dip doing this since replacing Superstars with even good players means you bleed wins and there’s no guarantee that prospects become good players. But this should keep them around 82-ish wins as a floor with a deep farm system. Kind of what the Rays, Pirates, and A’s are trying to do.
It’s interesting that they’re doing a massive change like the White Sox trading Sale, Eaton, and Quintana but spreading it out over several years so they never have to endure the long rebuild. They should have both a good major league team and one of the better farm systems in MLB. We’ll see if it works.
I don’t really care that they didn’t go after someone super high-priced or that they traded Gomes. In fact, this gives them more flexibility to lock up pictures long-term which they have been trying to do.
The difference between Gomes and Plawecki is made up between the difference between Bauers and Diaz.
The only thing that really hurts is letting Brantley walk
Probably true.
It’s all about placing bets.
Plawecki will probably never hit like peak Gomes, but Gomes himself is unlikely to hit that peak again because of injuries and aging. They’re betting it ‘s a wash.
Santana vs Encarnacion is also a likely wash for similar reasons: Encarnacion had a higher peak but by now his bat is losing enough value that Santana’s defense and OBP skills make him a safer bet.
Even losing Brantley is a bet: they are betting on Bauers minors numbers playing out at the big league level so he can cover rf. The fallback being a platoon outfield. Total uncertainty but then, Brantley’s full season availability has been uncertain for years now. Isn’t he scheduled to DH a lot at Houston? He might not have been a full-time outfielder for Cleveland.
It isn’t a great situation but it wasn’t great last year, either.
They’re not significantly better off but they’re not significantly worse off, either. Who knows how they end up: lots of things can and do happen over 162 games. They’re placing their bets and hoping for some good luck this time around.
Plawecki has a reputation as a good framer, and he’s been okay defensively, if not great (DRS thinks he was basically a scratch defender there last year, and he was above average in 2016. I think there’s a pretty good chance that with his lousy baserunning, Plawecki will have similar offensive production to Yan Gomes this year (Plawecki is projected to be a slightly better hitter).
More than that, I think that Plawecki has been jerked around a lot and I’d love to see what he can do if he gets a lot of PAs in the majors. I like this deal a lot for Cleveland, since Perez is basically a zero and Haase is unknown. There’s a small chance this guy could be a regular, if an un-insipiring one.
It’s a nifty move, getting a sort-of-okay prospect for Gomes and then getting a similar, cheaper player for two guys who are barely prospects. I don’t think Cleveland is going to miss Haggerty, who might make it as a utility guy (24 year old doing okay in AA without many tools) and Lockett who is a 24-year old barely good enough to hack it as a starter in AAA.
For the Mets, I just don’t know why they even bother keeping d’Arnaud around. There’s going to be a good chunk of the year where both he and Ramos are injured. That doesn’t seem like a good situation at all. There’s a good reason he doesn’t have any trade value!
Your last paragraph answers itself. d’Arnaud has no trade value, but since Ramos has injury concerns of his own, TdA makes for some insurance. I’m sure the Mets would have been happy to move him instead, but that contract sucks for someone with his question marks.
Yeah, but the bigger question is why did they decide to keep him at all? The Mets are trying to win now. The guys they traded Plawecki for are barely prospects. Plawecki helps them to win now, since Ramos will be hurt. So why not keep Plawecki and cut d’Arnaud loose?
Plawecki has strong AAA numbers at Las Vegas but has looked relatively overmatched at the big league level. I think the Mets and Met fans are resigned to the fact that he’s just not a good enough hitter to make a difference. Plus he’s really not that good defensively, either framing or throwing. Seems BVW went talented/oft-injured over healthy/boring.
Is there some empirical reason to believe this “injury magnet” thing is predictive, that a player who has been injured in the past is likely to be injured in the future? This seems like one of the strange points of coincidence between the Fangraphs comment section and the talk-radio-caller version of common opinion. “Talented” + “hurt in a few recent years” seems to me to make a player a good buy-low candidate, not one to give up on.
I believe that there is regression to the mean in terms of injuries, but he’s played the following number of games the last few years: 268, 276, 376, 16. It’s a pretty extreme case. I’d definitely try and buy low on him if I were, say, the White Sox, or the Rangers. If you want a guy who can play when you need him? Like I said, this is kind of an extreme case.
If you are going to let your catcher catch 200+ games a year, three years running, you’d better expect those injuries to pile up. 😉
whoopsies 🙂
I agree with you on one hand, but on the other the best predictor of future injury is past injury.
The best predictor of future injury is looking down at your uniform and seeing “METS” embroidered on your chest
Not sure where the idea of Plawecki being a good framer is coming from, his BP framing numbers aren’t too hot.
My comment on that might be a little out of date, because I remember him as a good framer, but I just checked and he hasn’t rated as a top-of-the-line framer since 2016.
To my eye-test Plawecki seems pretty good at stealing high strikes and not great at getting the more frequent calls on the bottom edge of the zone (slightly odd because d’Arnaud is so good at that, you’d think Plawecki could’ve learned from him). But I wouldn’t call him a better than average framer by eye.
Haggerty is a marginal prospect who fits well honestly in an nl type coaching situation where he comes in in the sixth or seventh inning to pinch-run and then plays defense for a couple innings. He’s got no real hit tool to speak of, a solid defender but it’s really only his speed that keeps him as being considered a prospect
I’m not sure if Plawecki will repeat Yan Gomes circa 2017, but I’m also not confident that Yan Gomes will either. I think he regresses a little bit and probably gets banged up again. Pojoaque is serviceable, 3 years younger, and I believe has four years of team control.
Plus, his batting weaknesses of hitting too many grounders have slowly but steadily improved
From 2017-2018, Plawecki’s wRC+ is 97 while Gomes was 94. Considering Gomes is on the wrong side of 30 where Kevin is in his peak age range, reasonably they probably gained at the plate with the difference between them coming in a big Defense gap.
And as much as the Indians probably loved having Yan around, they never actually knew when he would be around either because of the injuries and slumps. In making this move they save money, get younger, get healthier and gain years of control – plus picked up a 45 OF prospect and a young RP with control problems they might feel they can fix
As far as the Indians roster – they went to Extra Innings of Game 7 in the WS with exclusively Roberto Perez behind the plate and an Outfield of a semi-healthy Chisenhall, rookie Naquin, retiring Crisp, Guyer and Rajai Davis with Michael Martinez as their only other bench option. They haven’t really had an OF for years because of the absolute constant injuries to the few above average guys they’ve had.
While fully aware that woke basebros whingeing about capitalism is growing a bit stale, the way that Cleveland has comported themselves this offseason has been positively shameful.
They have the entire season to trade for players in an effort to goose their playoff chances. Why pay more from the jump, in a division they will likely win in their sleep?
The fact that they’re not in on Grandal or Pollock, to say nothing of Harper, is pretty gross. Two huge holes and all it would take to fill one is a little bit of money
I’m not sure if the Indians are going to invest big money in a catcher after having traded way Yan Gomes. It’s not a position they value highly enough to go after Grandal.
Pollock is someone who has a fan I would like to see them yet and I’m disappointed but he might just be asking outside of their price range
I would’ve thought there was a more obvious thing for these putative “woke basebros” to be mad about concerning the, you know, Cleveland Major League Baseball Franchise.
Roberto Perez is projected for 1.6 WAR right now, despite a -.7 season last year.
Most of this is due to him being projected as the CLE starter, I suspect. So it’ll come back down to Earth when it’s updated for Plawecki’s part in the timeshare.
Still, he was worth .8 WAR combined in 2016-2017, receiving about as many PA as he’s currently projected for. If they bought that he was a 1.5+ WAR player as a starter, they probably don’t trade for Plawecki. Haase is still around.
As a Cleveland fan the idea that Perez gets 1.6 WAR must be based on the assumption that the baseball season expanded to 250 games
More like 10-12 hrs.
He has mistake pitch power so given enough ABs he’ll see enough hangers and missed spots to offer some value.
As a Cleveland fan, I like this move.
I liked Gomes but considering his price, age, and injury history the move made sense.
Plawecki is a nice under-the-radar signing. His 1.3 WAR over 116 games over 2 seasons compares favorably to middle of the road guys like Pina and Hedges. Not world-beaters, but serviceable catchers.
He does hit too many ground balls but he is slowly improving, GB% went down 1.1% last year after a 5% drop the year before. His launch angle went up 1.8% in 2018.
He also did this while pulling the ball more, hitting it harder, and getting more fly balls and reducing his liners.
He’ll probably still have this year but catchers are notoriously slow developers and he has been a slow but relatively steady project.
an interesting wrinkle is that he hit significantly better on the road, so it’s possible a change of scenery to a different Park affects his numbers as well.
He won’t be the offensive player that Gomez was, but he will probably improve his launch angle some more to a serviceable 12 degrees and draw walks at the above-average clip that he has been and getting better at.
Plus, he’s got significant amounts of team control
Ironically, Plawecki outhit Gomes over the last 2 (97 wRC+ to 94 from 2017-18) 3 (87 to 78 from 2016-18) and 4 (78 to 77 from 2015-18) year periods