Kottaras condensed

Published by on June 21, 2011 | 15 Responses

Piggy-backing on the George Kottaras rumors. Some Kottaras facts:

* George Kottaras is a 28-year-old catcher that bats left-handed and throws right-handed.

* Career minor league walk-rate (BB/PA) of 13.3%

* Career minor league isolated power (ISO) of .177

* In 396 career plate appearances in the majors, Kottaras has an 11.3% walk-rate and a .185 ISO. Very similar to his minor league career numbers.

* Kottaras whiffs quite a bit; he owns a minor league strikeout-rate (K/AB) of 23.2% vs. a major league career strikeout-rate of 22%. Not much difference there. He’s going to swing-and-miss a lot.

* He profiles as a ‘offense first’ catcher.  Over his career at catcher, Total Zone has him at -11 runs below average; plus/minus at -7 runs below average; and the fan scouting report at -9 runs below average. He’s only thrown out 16% of base-stealers in 896.1 innings behind the dish.

* ZiPS projects a .324 wOBA for Kottaras over the remainder of the season.

Kottaras profiles as a patient hitter with power. His defense looks to be below average, but the Giants seem locked in on adding more firepower to one of the worst offenses in baseball. As usual, depending on cost, he seems like a solid addition. I’d prefer a catcher with a little more glove skill, but beggars can’t be choosers. If the Giants do acquire Kotteras, they will control him by arbitration until 2013, which is an added plus since we don’t know how Posey will recover from his injury.

I still think I prefer Yorvit Torrealba. He’s the better defender and baserunner of the two, and that helps him close the gap some on offense.

—

UPDATE: It looks like the Giants may have signed catcher Max Ramirez for AAA depth.

Giants picked up Texas Ranger Max Ramirez... he will be wearing a Grizzlies uniform tonight. Oh by the way, hes a catcher......
June 21, 2011 2:35 pm via TweetDeckReplyRetweetFavorite
@ellenfool
Ellen Ward

There was once a time when Ramirez was considered a very good prospect. In 2008, Baseball America ranked him as the 10th best prospect in a very strong Rangers system; BA noted that he was a gifted ‘natural hitter’ and that he had ‘plus raw power’. On the downside, his glove was then (and has continued to be) a concern. In 2008, across three levels — RK, AA, AAA — Ramirez had a blistering season on offense hitting a slash of .347/.439/.628 in 81 games. He had injury wrist problems (2009 and 2010) that hampered his production and he really hasn’t hit since his 2008 season. In 2009 he posted a .653 OPS; in 2010 a .754 OPS. This year in AAA he’s posted a .606 OPS between the Cubs and Astros organizations.

How do the projection systems project Ramirez?

CAIRO: .240/.328/.361
ZiPS: .239/.319/.371
PECOTA: .242/.331/.383

My first reaction is those projections are probably similar to what Kottaras could do on offense, and neither — Kottaras or Ramirez — is considered a strong defender. It’s hard (impossible?) to argue with a minor league contract like this. I’m doubtful that Ramirez is going to hit, but at least he’s resembled something of a useful player in the past. That’s more than we can say about our current options at catcher.

Article written by

15 comments
  Livefyre
Newest | Oldest
Robert Haymond
Robert Haymond

I get extremely frustrated with the Giants and, now, with some of the commentators. The Giants are sold out at every home game. If you don't already have a season's ticket, you'd better know a friendly scalper. It follows that the Giants make money hand over fist. Since Barry Zito, however, the Giants refuse to bid on capable or excellent ballplayers who might otherwise give them sufficient firepower to stand a formidable offence to back their pitching. The Giants owners won't do it because they make money, plenty of it, win or lose. What's the point, then, of spending money to field a winning team when they can profit even more by fielding a weak hitting one. The Giants win last year was a fluke and won't reoccur without batting power, something which they lack now and, it appears, will continue to lack. Shame on the owners!

parishfrank
parishfrank

Wait, what? I'm pretty sure that having a payroll in excess of $100 million consists of spending money. They've been burned consistently because of large contracts so they changed their philosophy. That's called running the team in an intelligent matter. What's that saying about doing the same thing and expecting different results???

Robert Haymond
Robert Haymond

So are you saying, "parishfrank", that bidding on excellent ballplayers and offering them extended contracts is irrational, unjustifiable and illogical? I don't think so. You just have to make the right moves. Barry Zito wasn't one of them. As to having a payroll exceeding $100 million, that is not high nowadays.. Given the overwhelming popularity of the Giants, I shall repeat my statement: "The Giant owners "make money, plenty of it, win or lose."

sean
sean

lure molina out of retirement?..sandovol can catch but theyd prefer to leave him at third. if your looking for a good defensive catcher they should try for jeff mathis of the angels.

Nivra
Nivra

Reading up on fangraphs, it appears Ramirez had a poor 2009 because of an injury. In 2010, he was set to be part of a starting platoon for C with Treanor. Ramirez had 85 PA over 28 G with a .314 wOBA between 4/29 and 6/30, at which point the Rangers traded for Bengie Molina and demoted Ramirez to AAA. He posted a .344 wOBA in AAA last year in April, July, Aug, Sept. I'd say he's a sure bet to post at least a .300 wOBA, a 1-2 win improvement over the current catchers. His upside could be a .330-.340 wOBA which would be very nice indeed.

Eddie (SF)
Eddie (SF)

Music to my ears: "George Kottaras is a 28-year-old catcher that bats left-handed and throws right-handed." Oh my gosh, we HAVE to get him! Why, you ask? Well, because then we could fulfill my dream of fielding an all-ambidextrous team. Don't laugh. Well, yeah, you should laugh, because it's more real than anybody may realize. Consider the lineups that Bochy trotted out this past Saturday *and* Sunday against the A's. You have your ambi-infield: 1B - Huff (bats left, throws right) 2B - Burriss (bats both, throws right) SS - Crawford (bats left, throws right) 3B - Sandoval (bats both, throws right) Then you have your ambi-outfield: LF - Ross (bats right, throws left) CF - Torres (bats both, throws right) RF - Schierholtz (bats left, throws right) If Bochy fields this lineup again tonight with Bumgarner (bats right, throws left) on the mound or Thursday with Lincecum (bats left, throws right), then that puts 8 ambi-dudes onto the field together. In other words, Kotteras is the perfect fit!

Liem
Liem

Another way they can have an all ambi team is to have Sandoval and have Fontenot (throws: Right, bats, Bats: left) play third. You can give an extra award to ambidextrous players who hit splash hits as well: The ambidextrous-amphibious team!

Eddie
Eddie

I totally thought about the option of having Sanoval catch and yes, Fontenot playing 3rd. In fact, that is how my original post was going to read, but once I saw the Kottaras discussion leading off with his amphibious qualities, I quickly re-edited. In the spirit of this tangent, I'm now recommending to Sabean that he swing a deal for the two-way pitcher, Pat Venditte (http://nbcsports.msnbc.com/id/36105989/ns/sports-baseball).

Liem
Liem

This is the most amazing comment I've ever read. It even made me smile after tonight's 9-2 massacre. Thank you.

Chris Quick
Chris Quick

Yeah, interesting. He really hasn't hit since 2008 but maybe he has something (anything) left in the gas tank. He's supposed to be weak on defense, right?

marcellosfg
marcellosfg

I think so, but he has some patience (which has disappeared so far this season) and used to have some power, so he's at least worth a shot in my mind. At this point, I'm fine with throwing things at the wall and seeing if anything sticks.

LeviDavis
LeviDavis

Yorvit has always had a better defensive reputation than stats (obvious caveat about catcher defense being hard to rate). Baseball Reference has him rated as a negative defender this year, after being positive last year, negative the previous two years, positive the previous two...

LeviDavis
LeviDavis

Forgot to mention--Despite winning the World Series, let's remember that the Giants are a mid-market club. In the realm of baseball $3 million doesn't seem like a lot, but it is still $3 million. They just may not have that. To get Torrealba, they might have to take money out of scouting, player development, training staff...or not at all. I don't know, and I don't think any of us really do.

Nivra
Nivra

err, how about taking it out of payroll? $3mm is 0.6 wins. Yorvit projects to be 0.6 WAR if given the starting catching job. Considering he's replacing Whiteside/Steward, you might expect Yorvit to be +2 wins over whiteside for the rest of the year. That covers both 2011 and 2012 salary. What? an extra $5mm means Sabes can't resign Tejaja next season and has to go with Crawford? too bad. The Giants should have cheap in-house or already signed options at most positions in 2012: IF: Pablo, Crawford, Sanchez, Belt/Huff, Posey/backup. Backups: Conor, Burriss. OF: Torres, Nate, Rowand, Ross(?), Belt, Neal. That leaves pitching. DeRosa & Tejada both drop off the books, freeing $12mm to help cover arb-raises and pitching. Hell, you could probably make the argument that the WAR Yorvit provides as a starter in 2011 and a backup in 2012 is greater than the WAR Casilla will provide over the rest of his arb-years. Salary is comparable if not greater for Casilla over those years. OTOH, I can also see the argument that (a) Sabean isn't worried about -1 WINS between now and the trade deadline, (b) he is shopping around to get the best deal he can. Perhaps Kott is the same number of WAR as Yorvit over 2011 and 2012. Perhaps Kott is cheaper. Perhaps he can flip Casilla +prospects/middle relief for offensive help elsewhere(JJ Hardy?). This argument relies on the fact that Yorvit is a good deal, but Sabean thinks he can find an even better deal.

LeviDavis
LeviDavis

What if payroll is maxed out? We tend to think of baseball teams as bottomless money pits. A great deal may be available, but if there is no money in the bank to get it...