Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 38: The Greatness of Yadier Molina and the Not-So-Greatness of Omar Vizquel

Episode Date: September 10, 2012

Ben and Sam discuss Yadier Molina’s career year, catcher defense, and catcher aging, then talk about Omar Vizquel and the point at which clubhouse chemistry can’t cancel out poor on-field production.

Good morning and welcome to episode 38 of Effectively Wild, the Baseball Perspectives daily podcast in New York, New York, where it is going down to 55 degrees as we record. And I'm considering opening a window myself, although that would only let in traffic sounds, no crickets. In Long Beach, California, it sounds like with the door closed tonight. You know, the door is open, but a lot of the crickets have vacated the garage. And so I can hear them, but I'm not surprised that you can't hear them. And to all the cricket supporters, I should warn you that crickets are seasonal in these parts and we will not have them forever. But next summer is not too far away. I didn't realize they were

actually in the garage. They were. Actually, they were under some shingles, some old roofing shingles that I had not used when I roofed my house a couple years ago. And I moved those shingles and they scattered. I like how you say roofed. As opposed to? I don't know. I've never said that word. Because I've never had to do anything with a roof as an apartment dweller. But I say roof.

I guess I probably would have said roofed. I guess that would be wrong. How was your weekend? You know, it was another interminable weekend of waiting for another podcast episode. Otherwise, it was as good as... And yet, four minutes ago, you were still searching for a topic. Six minutes ago. Your name is Sam Miller, by the way. I never said that.

What is your topic? Yadier Molina. Okay. And my topic is Omar Vizquel. Oh, okay. So first, do we want to get a ruling, Yadier or Yadier? So first, do we want to get a ruling, Yadier or Yadier? I would say Yadier. Yeah, me too. So, of course, as you know, he's having a heck of a season. Well, he's having a heck of a season. I think I did a quick sort of query to see which catchers have ever had a season with an offensive performance in the same range as him while having a offensive performance in the same range as him

while having a defensive performance in the same range as him, and basically came up with nine in history. How are you judging defensive performance? I just went simplistically with DeJuan's numbers because, of course, the superior numbers that we have don't apply to Johnny Bench. But he, of of course rates extremely highly on max's most recent catcher ratings and pretty much every catcher rating that's ever been done so anyway nine seasons um that are and he's not i didn't set him as the floor so we're not just

squeaking in nine seasons and um four of them by Bench. So it really is pretty historically great. And, of course, it wasn't all that long ago. It was like five or six years ago, four or five years ago, that Molina was a terrible, terrible hitter. Really one of the worst in the game. And I think that at one point we wrote in the annual that he had had one of the 20 worst offensive seasons in the post-expansion era. And I don't know, there's two things about this that are interesting to me. And I'll just tell

them to you and then we can do your topic if you don't want to talk anymore. But one thing is that I find that we tend to get, I don't know, when I watch a player who is aggressive, who hacks, you might say, who swings at a lot of pitches and swings at a lot of pitches outside the strike zone, it's very easy to diagnose that as the problem and to think that when he grounds into a double play on the first pitch that he's just dumb and if he could only figure out the strike zone, he'd be better and easily exploitable

and all those sorts of things. And what's sort of interesting about Molina is that he has not improved. He's a very aggressive hitter, and he has not improved in any of those fields. He swings basically just as often as he always did. He swings as often outside the strike zone as he always did. His walk rate is unchanged. His strikeout rate is unchanged. And really what has happened is he simply hits better now.

He's just as aggressive. He's probably just as frustrating when he grounds into a double play on the first pitch. But he hits better. And that's a hard – I don't know. I don't know that we anticipate guys simply hitting better without really making approach changes because we're i i feel like we're such an approach um an approach focused field um but he hits a lot more line drives now than he used to and he hits a lot more home runs uh of the fly balls he hits than he used to and that's the

difference it's not that he's um he's got some sort of control of the strike balls he hits than he used to. And that's the difference. It's not that he's, he's got some sort of control of the strike zone. He just hits more line drives and he hits his fly balls further. So I think that's an interesting thing. And the other interesting thing is, of course, that he just signed this contract extension in the off season. Most people, I think, thought that the Cardinals overpaid for a guy who is a catcher, and he's going to be in his 30s when the contract kicks in. And I just wonder if you think this changes that. I mean, this is clearly a season far, far above what his previous performance level was. But as Nate Silver wrote in 2005, in which I'm stealing from RJ's transaction analysis

of the contract extension Nate wrote, catchers are one of two positions at which the divergence from normal aging patterns is unmistakable there is no good news here these guys take a long time to get ready and decline very quickly once they do so do you now, considering that this season, which is like somewhere between like a 4-7 win season,

doesn't count to the extension because the extension won't kick in until next year, do you still think that the Cardinals, or I don't know, did you ever, think that the Cardinals would regret this move? I guess it changes your projection a little bit. A lot. I mean, it should change it a lot, I imagine. So he's going to be making something like $14-15 million through 2017 when he'll be 34. And then there's a team option after that. After that, I think for a guy like him who seems to be so skilled at the plate and behind the plate,

for whatever reason, I have the sense that a catcher's defensive skills don't decline as quickly as the offensive skills. Maybe just because we tend to see so many older catchers hang around forever, long after they've stopped hitting or possibly they've never hit. But teams keep signing them or keeping them around as insurance or third string or backup guys because, I guess, the experience that they have with handling a catching staff maybe outweighs some loss of mobility or reaction time. So I don't know. I think the fact that he does everything so well right now would make me more confident

in his ability to be worth that kind of money several years from now. Yeah, back in 2007 in the annual, we wrote that even if he could just hit at a replacement level, he would be tremendously valuable because of his glove. And I think that's, I mean, I think that it's sort of the opposite of most defensive stats, where I think with most defensive stats, we're not great at measuring, we're not super great at measuring who's good and who's not good necessarily, or at least I think Colin would argue that. But I think the stats have done a good job of setting the parameters for how much value a good defensive player is compared to how much a bad defensive player is. And with catcher, I feel like probably most catching defense

is probably fairly intuitive or the conventional wisdom is pretty strong on it. And we don't yet really know how much that catcher is worth, though. And Max had him most recently at about plus 15 runs for the year. And so prorate that out and you're talking about a 20 or 25 run defender. And that alone, even at a replacement replacement level hitter would probably be worth the contract i do wonder if if catcher defense as like on the market is going to change if people are paying more attention to catcher defense now or if they're able to assess certain aspects of catcher defense more accurately than they used to,

will we reach a point where everyone is a really good receiver and all catchers are selected for that skill to the extent that you don't see a Ryan Domet ever behind the plate and the Jose Molina type is less of an outlier. Do you think that's something that will happen or is happening? Well, I think, again, it just depends. I don't think anybody knows whether a good receiver is worth 10 runs or 40. And that's the calculus. And Jason kind of, Votrakovsky kind of addressed that in a piece he wrote last week

about the amazing offense of this generation of catchers and wondering whether this is the last great batch of hitters behind the plate because of that very reason. But I mean, it's still, I think that the assessments are still in flux and it's hard to say for sure. Molina, by the way, 11 for 13 stealing bases this year. Well, from one defensive specialist who is hitting very well to one defensive specialist who is not hitting at all. We go from Yadier Molina to Omar Vizquel. And Vizquel is honestly someone I haven't thought of a whole lot because he hasn't done much to make you think about him. And I just happened to see that MLB Every Night

runs a Stars of the Game or Highlights of the Game thing on MLB.com, and Omar Vizquel was the star of the Blue Jays-Red Sox game because, it says, playing in his final game at Fenway Park, the veteran infielder hit a go-ahead sack fly in the ninth. Wait, it's his final game he's announced his retirement his final game uh has he i i mean at this point it's almost if he hasn't he's having the same year he had last year uh it's kind of it's even worse i mean anyway yeah the fact that he is a star of the game offensively for a sack fly is sort of indicative of the season he's had at the plate, which is, I mean, he's hit 223, 263, 254.

So the all twos slash line, which is never something you really want to see. Almost worse than a one-2-2. Yeah, just the sameness of all the twos is sort of depressing. That's a 180 true average. And he's, last year, for instance, he was at 226. So considerably better, though not good. So he hasn't... That was his first sack fly of the year. Well, no wonder that was a highlight then. So he hasn't hit, I would say, conservatively since 2006 was the last time.

Maybe 2010, he had a little bit of a, like a BABIP resurgence and batted.276 and wasn't awful. But he hasn't hit really at all for several years, which is understandable in that he is 45 years old and wasn't a great hitter at any point. I mean, really, he, at his peak, was slightly, slightly above average, which made him a very valuable player since he was an above average defensive shortstop at the time.

But this year, he is seemingly contributing less than nothing. statistically at least. We have him as worth almost a full win below replacement, which is impressive in that he has only had 138 at-bats or so and played in 52 games or 53 now. And yet he has been on the roster the entire season. He hasn't been hurt or anything. He's played at seven different positions, I believe, although very little at shortstop. And the story with him early in the year was that he was invited to spring training and everyone kind of freaked

out because the Blue Jays were expected to be a competitive team this year. And everyone thought, well, how does Omar Vizquel fit into this? And I remember there was kind of a Twitter backlash against the people who were upset about the invitation to spring training by people who said, don't worry about it. People get invited to spring training all the time. He's not going to make the team. It's just a depth thing. But he did make the team and he has remained on the team all year. So do you think he could have been worth it through mentoring or teaching younger players? Despite how terrible he's been really statistically, does it matter in that the Blue Jays weren't going to compete with a better utility infielder? Would he still be on the roster, let's say, if the Blue Jays were in a playoff race right now, do you think? I think that, well, it's hard to know exactly how they would respond to that.

It's conceivable that, I mean, Michael Young is still starting specifically because the Rangers are in a playoff race, and they value his leadership in that playoff race. So it's always hard to know how they'll respond to that. But I don't know. I mean, he really is—people in the game love him, and it's a pretty unanimous opinion. I think—I don't know how much it hurts. He's really bad, but it's hard to know how much the positional flexibility matters. It could be a thing that a manager really likes,

and it could be just a manager's choice to have a guy like that. Omar Infante made the All-Star team a few years ago. So, I don't know. I mean, I think that it was probably, I don't know. Would I be freaking out if my team signed Vizquel to the 25th spot? Probably not. I mean, the big danger with Vizquel is not that he'll be bad as a utility guy, which is what he's done for Toronto. I mean, he probably, I bet you that John Farrell has been happy to have him. And as a utility guy, he, sure, he's below replacement level. But like I said, the flexibility maybe is a relief. The danger is that he's taking a spot on the roster.

And if somebody goes down, there's a real threat that you might accidentally put him in for three and a half weeks in a row you don't want him playing regularly and i guess considering all that the fact that vizkel has 138 plate appearances this year makes this uh a big success i um i do have to make fun of him though um first of all i watched the sack fly uh just now it was to shallow left the left fielder kind of double clutched and rajai davis was the runner um which i think explains why vizkel was able to get credit for a deep enough fly ball and um his previous highlights before this i'm going to just i'm going to run down the rest of the highlights on this play on this page his first page uh bj upton firing a strike to nail omar vizcal at home okay matt weeders throws to ryan flaherty catching omar vizcal in a pickle for the eventual out alex

avila makes a strong throw to catch omar vizcal stealing Adrian Veltre races home after Omar Vizquel cannot handle a ground ball. Omar Vizquel steals third base easily after Brzezinski's throw hits him and travels into foul territory. And, oh yeah, and here's a good play. Yeah, there you go. Omar Vizquel highlights from 2012. That is almost unfiltered post-worthy. And, of course, our friends at Productive Outs have pointed out the dad hat phenomenon that he has perfected this year.

Yes. He is dreamy. You can't deny his dreaminess. Yes. He looks unique in a uniform. Yes. Deny his dreaminess. Yes, he looks unique in a uniform.

Yes. Anyway, I'm interested in kind of where the clubhouse presence and on-field production intersection is, how good a guy has to be in the clubhouse to overcome being really bad at baseball. Well, if you can get all that clubhouse goodness at such a minor investment on the field, by which I mean he doesn't actually play, that's probably pretty good.

If you can manage to get that guy. What you don't want is Michael Young. I mean, bless Michael Young's heart, and I don't mean to pick on him, and I think maybe he'll have another good year or two in his life, but what you don't want is your clubhouse guy to be getting 670 plate appearances, DHing and, you know, with a 230 true average or whatever Michael Young has.

I guess there's also the argument that if you're using a roster spot on a guy who very rarely plays, maybe there's a better use for that roster spot. And especially at this point in his career, because he's not a guy necessarily you want to put in for defense. I don't think, I mean, he can still field the balls that get to him, but at age 45, uh, I don't think he's a plus defender, certainly at a demanding position anymore and really he's only played 64 innings at shortstop um and and it's it's kind of interesting to look at his career defensive stats if you look at his fielding runs above average our bp fielding stat he's barely above average uh for his career he's at 14.2 um and it's not all recent negatives either. It's even from his prime period,

he was just kind of average-ish. And of course, you could say, well, the stat is wrong. Omar Vizquel is great. We know that. But I wonder, because the stat is not wrong about Ozzie Smith, who I think is maybe the top fielding runs above average guy ever. So for whatever reason, the stat recognized his greatness. If Fiskell was also great, it's not picking up on that for whatever reason. So I wonder. That's something I've wondered about with a guy like Ray Ordonez before, who had a similarly excellent reputation and was also kind of barely above average. I wonder whether we overrated those guys. But regardless, at this

point, he is not that guy anymore. So I just kind of wonder whether if the Blue Jays season had gone like it was planned to go, if they hadn't lost their entire starting rotation to injury, seemingly two times over, if they were in the thick of the wild card race right now, would they have held on to 45-year-old Omar Vizquel wearing his hat on the top of his head and hitting 200 all year? Perhaps they would have. I don't know. So that is our show.

We will be back with episode 39 on Tuesday.