Jonathan Lucroy Is Back in the Best-Catcher Conversation

The current major-league leader in WAR for a catcher is Jonathan Lucroy. All right! Go home, we’re finished.

I’m only kidding, but only kind of. My job here is to offer more detail, but now you’ve got the thesis. Jonathan Lucroy has been playing like a really good catcher. This is important, because last year, Lucroy didn’t play like a really good catcher. And this is extra important, because the year before that, Lucroy did play like a really good catcher. We went over all this during the offseason, but back then, we didn’t know which Lucroy would show up in 2016. A good one, is the answer to that.

Lucroy shined never brighter than he did in 2014. He was, all together, a contact-hitting everyday catcher with power, patience, and pitch-framing skills. The only thing he didn’t really have was recognizability, but that wasn’t his fault. And on account of the whole skillset, it could’ve justifiably been argued that Lucroy was the best catcher in the game. I don’t know if he was or wasn’t — I just know he had a case. Somewhere during the summer, I made that case. I’d long been a Lucroy supporter, and he had clearly entered the upper tier.

But then, down he tumbled. I guess I don’t need to keep summarizing the Lucroy biography, but 2015 was rough, with injuries threatening both Lucroy’s hitting and defense. This is what made the prospect of trading Lucroy so difficult: the Brewers saw an affordable quality backstop, but other teams saw question marks. Lucroy sustained a late concussion, after which he didn’t catch. Teams were hesitant to trade for a catcher who most recently hadn’t caught. This seemed to put the Brewers in a bind, where they couldn’t get what they wanted, but there was risk in hanging on. What if Lucroy didn’t rebound? What if it proved too hard to sell a catcher midseason?

Now we’re back to where the post started. The current major-league leader in WAR for a catcher is Jonathan Lucroy. It still isn’t the easiest thing to move a catcher in the middle of the year, because of the relationships that form between catchers and pitchers. But it’s not an impossibility, and Lucroy has answered most of the on-field questions. Teams interested in adding a catcher ought to be more interested in Lucroy than they were in December.

As durability goes, Lucroy has had no problem assuming his familiar position. Yadier Molina has caught more innings than anyone, and that’s also familiar, but Lucroy is in second, between Molina and Salvador Perez. Wait, no, turns out I’m wrong — third place is J.T. Realmuto. That’s what I get for educated guessing. Lucroy, anyway, is way up there. The concussion hasn’t cost him his spot. That concern has evaporated.

And so now we consider Lucroy as a hitter. Here’s Lucroy as a hitter:

lucroy-offense

Back to normal, pretty much. It’s like last year never happened. Now, in truth, it’s not back to normal-normal. The wRC+ looks right, but the process has changed. Lucroy has made less contact than he used to, but he’s also hit more fly balls than he used to. Power has followed, suggesting that Lucroy has made a fairly normal trade-off. Instead of searching for contact and singles, Lucroy has thought a little more about doubles and homers, and that’s not making him any better or worse. All that really matters is that he’s a good-hitting catcher, and he doesn’t have a worrisome platoon split. And even his reduced contact rate is still better than average.

So Lucroy has caught and caught often, and he’s hit as well as he used to hit. He’s even had pretty good success throwing out runners. The last thing I want to look at is his pitch-framing. That skill allowed Lucroy to become popular among the saber crowd. At the same time, year over year, the numbers showed a peculiar decline. I wrote about it in January, and I didn’t really have a good explanation. But, time provides some answers. Here’s a table of Lucroy’s framing statistics, showing runs better or worse than average per 5,000 chances. I’m including the more complicated numbers from Baseball Prospectus, and the simpler numbers from StatCorner.

Jonathan Lucroy Pitch-Framing
Year Baseball Prospectus StatCorner
2010 34.6 19.5
2011 32.0 22.4
2012 24.5 16.6
2013 20.2 15.7
2014 10.0 11.0
2015 1.1 5.8
2016 3.4 5.9
Pitch-framing runs per 5,000 opportunities.

Lucroy doesn’t seem to be back to where he was, for whatever reason. Those +20s are gone, and I’m not sure why. But a modestly encouraging takeaway is that the decline, at least, hasn’t continued, if these numbers are correct. There’s even a slight hint of a bounceback. Jonathan Lucroy might no longer be a league-elite pitch-framer, but he should still be considered above-average. It’s something. It’s more of a strength than a weakness.

So Lucroy is durable, and he’s hitting, and he’s catching, and he’s throwing. As with anyone, you can’t simply throw a whole season away, but just looking at the landscape right now, I think there’s again an argument to be made that Lucroy is the best backstop in the game. If I actually had to make a choice, I’d probably still go with Buster Posey, but that’s not obviously true, and besides, being maybe second-best behind Posey is no insult. Lucroy is having as good a season as he could’ve wanted, as he’s put 2015 almost entirely behind him. That’s not bad for a player on a rebuilding ballclub.

The rebuilding part is why Lucroy is of particular interest. It’s always fun to talk about who might be the best players at a given position, but those players typically aren’t available in trade talks. So Lucroy ought to be the best catcher out there, and while I’m sure it’s bittersweet for Brewers fans to think about all this, this is the way these processes go. You have to make tough, cold decisions, and I doubt the Brewers will be good before Lucroy hits free agency after 2017. He’s someone about ready to be exchanged, and the consolation is the return package. He’s worth a hefty one, whether that comes from the Rangers, or the White Sox, or the Rays, or somebody else. There aren’t many everyday catchers who get moved in the middle of the year, but there aren’t many everyday catchers in Lucroy’s present situation. He’s the Brewers’ most desirable sellable piece, and everybody recognizes it.

I still don’t know what to make of the framing stuff, but overall, Jonathan Lucroy is back to being maybe the best catcher in baseball. That’s how the Brewers tried to sell him over the winter. Now — now, they don’t look so crazy.





Jeff made Lookout Landing a thing, but he does not still write there about the Mariners. He does write here, sometimes about the Mariners, but usually not.

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Jimbomember
7 years ago

On the pitch framing point, I’ve wondered if the extremes are starting to be compressed as people have become more aware of the value it can generate (I know the topic has been written about more in the last few years, not sure if this extends to front offices). Seems like if you’re athletic enough to play catcher, it’s a low hanging fruit type thing to improve your value.

Is there any evidence that the floor has been raised and therefore, historically strong framing catchers like Lucroy are closer to average with a relatively unchanged skill set?

wildcard09
7 years ago
Reply to  Jimbo

I was thinking the exact same thing. Also, with how popular framing has become, is it possible that the umps are learning how to “see through” framing better than they used to, and calling balls and strikes without taking the catcher into account?

the_little_tree_in_the_big_forest
7 years ago
Reply to  Jimbo

The only problem I have with this theory is that pitch framing is essentially an optical illusion. That’s like saying that if you watch a Criss Angel show 100 times, you’ll get any better at figuring out his trick and that once figured out you can somehow then see the slight of hand with your naked eye. Optical illusions are near impossible to see, even when you know what they illusionist is doing. Pitch framing is much the same, it’s essentially positioning the body in a way to fool the umpire into believing the ball took an alternate path than it really did. There’s a reason it’s a skill. Just because we are just figuring this out with sabermetrics, doesn’t mean that the catchers haven’t been doing it for a while and that umpires haven’t had a chance to overcome this pitch manipulation. That is to say, they see different catchers setting up differently, that part isn’t new, they see different glove positions, they don’t need an article to sit behind a plate 40-50 games a year and recognize that the catcher is trying to work them.

Jimbomember
7 years ago

Agreed that catchers have probably known about this phenomenon forever. It was only recently quantified in terms of run value though. Maybe catchers have made a bigger effort to improve after realizing the extent of its value.

darkove
7 years ago
Reply to  Jimbo

I think this is a good point, but I also think that the pitcher has as much to do with it as the catcher does. If you look at the pitchers that the system brought through MKE, they were low on UCL replacements, and high on the over the top throw. This pairs well with a breaking ball that is moving downhill vs. across when the catchers gets it. Lucroy had one of the best low zones in the majors, and if the pitchers aren’t placing as much emphasis on this, it would stand to reason that his numbers would go down.
I would venture a guess that whomever is catching for Gallardo will have a good low zone rating going forward.