1:28pm: Texas is also doing diligence on Twins catcher Kurt Suzuki, per Jeff Passan of Yahoo Sports (via Twitter). He has been a popular deadline candidate in years past, twice changing hands to help bolster a contender’s catching situation.
Suzuki is for all intents and purposes a rental piece, as his vesting option (485 plate appearances) is unlikely to be triggered. The 32-year-old struggled out of the gates but has recovered to the point that he’s now among the game’s better-hitting catchers on the year, with a .288/.327/.441 slash in 246 trips to the plate.
9:32am: Padres backstop Derek Norris is a “near-lock” to be dealt before Monday’s deadline, according to Ken Rosenthal of FOX Sports (via Twitter). The Rangers are one team in on the receiver, he reiterates, though there are others as well.
The catching position has seen some serious depth issues arise this year, so it’s not surprising to hear that there’s interest. And from the Padres’ perspective, giving Christian Bethancourt an expanded role while bringing up top prospect Austin Hedges obviously holds appeal.
Norris, 27, is earning $2.925MM this year with two more season of arbitration control yet to come. He is carrying only a .196/.256/.365 batting line on the year, with his slugging percentage and 12 home runs not quite offsetting a precipitous dive in the on-base department.
After a jump up in June, Norris has turned in a rough July, but he has done much more with the bat in the past. Over the prior three campaigns, he ran up a .256/.333/.405 slash. That rated out to a 108 OPS+ when factoring in the pitching-friendly parks in which he hit, which is quite productive for a backstop.
Even better, Norris has seemingly shown vast improvement in his receiving skills, with StatCorner and Baseball Prospectus rating him among the league’s best pitch framers both this year and last. And though it’s surely an imperfect measure, Defensive Runs Saved values him as the game’s second-best overall defender behind the dish.
As I stated the other day, get it done Coppy.
What would we give up and why? Flowers is a more than an adequate catcher. No need to give up prospects for Norris, who’s just horrible at the plate and meh defensively. We have a better hitter and catcher in flowers, so let’s just stick with what we’ve got.
You guys are looking at Norris’s “current” batting average and saying you have the same guy or better in Flowers.
You are wrong.
If you get Norris and watch him everyday you’ll understand why.
If there was ever a player you can’t judge in his .200 batting average it’s Norris.
If it weren’t for Hedges I’d be dead set against selling low on him right now.
Yep. Norris has been much better this year defensively sporting a 1.2 dWAR. I also notice that teams are not running on him as much this year compared to last. He has also had some bad luck at the plate with a .241 babip.
Hmm idk flowers is hitting around .250 ….the numbers came from somewhere. Mayne norris is having a down year but no point trading good pieces for something the Braves already have.
I see Norris often as a fan of the NL West. I think he sucks. I get what you’re saying as he is slightly better than the #’s show… But not much. I would hate to give any prospects for him. Defense is average at best, streaky hitter who slumps 75% of the time, and clogs the base paths on the rare occasions when he actually reaches base
Even the guy who developed dWAR says that it’s not accurate in only one season. Takes 3 years to get a decent metric out of it for other positions. For catchers it’s worse than useless since so much of their game has nothing to do with the one stat that is weighted most heavily in dWAR and DRS, blocking balls in the dirt. Over the past 2 years as a Padre, no other catcher has allowed more PB, only one has had more errors and none have had more fielding errors, only one has had more stolen bases against him and no other catcher had more times other teams ran on him, only one catcher in the NL has had more WP by his pitchers. Yes, those are defensive counting stats and you have to take into account the number of innings he has played, and even then he is among the worst 2 or 3 at all of those stats among regular starters. He ranks 267th this season and 214th over the past 2 years in pitch framing according to Baseball Prospectus, the only accurate pitch framing stat source. Nearly every pitcher on the Padres staff has seen an increase in both home runs and walks with Norris behind the plate over a 2 year period. I just don’t see any part of his game that is worth trading for. He used to be able to hit, but he can’t anymore. NL pitchers discovered that huge hole in his swing and they are exploiting it.
Yes and he had the most runners thrown out. See I can cherry-pick stats too XD
He had 188 guys run on him over the past 2 seasons as a Padre, 15 more than any other catcher and 50 more than the 3rd most. Why did they run on him so often? He stinks. Of course, his counting stats for caught stealing are so high, even if he was meh in caught stealing percentage, he had more running than anyone else. Ryan, he stinks.
They ran on him because he had a reputation for being bad at throwing out baserunners with the A’s, but even before the trade several pundits suggested that it was more the A’s pitching staff being notoriously easy to steal against than Norris himself. With the Padres, he seems to have proven them right as he was 6th out of 13 qualifying catchers in CS%. This year, runners aren’t running on him as much because they realize they were wrong about him. On top of all that, according to Moneyball (small book, you might have heard 0f it) trying to steal is only worth it if you can succeed 70 or more percent of the time. Norris threw out 34% of baserunners last year which means, statistically speaking, trying to steal against him was counterproductive last year. As in other teams would have scored MORE runs against us if they hadn’t tried to steal. Why? Because they gave away 44 extra outs in trying to steal. And with our defense being as bad as it was, those 44 extra outs really helped us. Richard, Norris isn’t bad at throwing out baserunners. You should WANT other teams to try and steal against him. They are basically giving away outs. You have posted this exact same comment 100 times. Delete your account if you think Norris is bad at throwing out baserunners.
Clogs the bases?
I thought you said you watch him often?
As a Catcher he runs just fine.
He’s been a hard luck hitter this year.
Last night perfect example…..bases loaded he rakes a line drive right at the third baseman.
Happens to everyone….I know, but he is a .250-.260 hitter for sure.
Not a .200 hitter and he can play 6 games a week.
MUCH better with base stealers than Flowers.
There’s a reason he was an AS just a couple years ago.
Here’s another example. Would you say Jonathan Lucroy is bad at throwing out baserunners just because he is tied for the most stolen bases against him this year? Didn’t think so.
mrpadre19………I agree……..Norris has @1.8 WAR average over 5 years….Chirinos, Johnson and Flowers (all mentioned here) don’t add up to Norris’s average WAR. BA is all they look at.
Meh defensively? Did you not just read the article? Also, norris is one of the better hitting catchers in the league whos just having a down year
I glanced at the article. But I use the eye test. I don’t need a nerds breakdown to know whether a player is good or not. I watch Norris often.. His bat is super inconsistent like I said, which is why the A’s traded him in a hurry after posting solid numbers
Of the 9 catchers with 800 PA over the past 2 seasons, Norris is dead last in BA, OBP and OPS, and he is 8th in WAR.
If you include guys that have only 600 PA over the past 2 seasons, Norris ranks 15th of 19 in BA, 17th in OBP, 14th in OPS, and 15th in wOBA.
He is not a good hitting catcher anymore.
As for defense, read my post on that. He is one of the worst in the league over the past 2 years.
(This is coming from a Braves fan)
Why? I think Norris is an okay catcher but Braves already have a right-handed-hitting catcher in Flowers, who hasn’t been bad at all. (Yes I know he’s injured but it’s not ATL is doing anything competitive this year).
I think Braves would be better off signing Matt Wieters this offseason to a 3 or 4 year deal. He can be a veteran catcher to a young pitching staff, with a pretty good bat, with T-Flow as the backup. When Wieters’ deal is in its last year we can flip him for prospects as Herbert/Cumberland/Morales would be MLB ready at that time.
I agree the Braves should not go after norris, but imo they shouldn’t go after writers either. Too old and gonna want too much. Plus injury history.
He’ll be 30, not too bad of an age considering how little there is available in the catcher market. I think he’s a fine fit w/ Flowers for 2017.
I’d like Norris, but not what it’ll require to get him.
He’ll be 31 next season and is a Scott birds client. I imagine Baltimore will give him a QO but even if they don’t why would the Braves spend that money on an aging catcher when they could have given it to a younger McCann a few years ago, and for what it’s worth I love McCann but didn’t want the Braves to pay that much for him
Braves didn’t have the money to go after McCann. Frank Wren invested it in BJ Upton. Upton got 5/75 while McCann got 5/85 a year later. Which at the time could’ve been argued as a better investment with Betancourt and Gattis behind the dish.
Wieters in not too old! Even so, I’d worry about his health. If my favorite team was going after him, anything longer than 2yrs with a club option would make me nervous
As much as I love Weiters, he’d sacrifice a draft pick and as a Boras client, won’t be cheap especially with the lack of overall impact bats, which Boras will sell him as, let alone quality catchers. As much as I would LOVE to have Weiters, I wouldn’t want to sign him unless his market doesn’t develop and has to take less than what he’ll demand, or he simply instructs Boras to get a deal done with Atlanta. We’ll see.
You have forgotten that the Braves have one of 10 worst records in baseball (the worst record at this moment), so they don’t need to sacrifice their 1st round pick for signing Wieters this offseason even if he receives QO again.
Braves used to have a guy named Bethancourt.
But Braves are out of it.
Rangers for Gallio to play 3B and so on?
that would be a clear overpay.
How about Bobby Wilson for Anderson Espinoza?
Jared Hoying for Wil Myers
I can’t see the Rangers giving up Gallo for Norris.
Has beens and never wases are never worth more than the week before the trade deadline. What causes GMs to lose their sanity during that week?
At this point Flowers is a David Ross type backup. To much time will expose him. Let him be Julio’s & Wisler’s catcher and bring in Norris to catch the rest.
I hope we can move Markakis but if we can’t we still gotta get a RH power bat for the OF. Maybe move Mallex as a 4th OF until Markakis is gone.
Unless ATL parts with Touki Touissant for Norris, I would turn my attention to Texas if I were San Diego. Luke Jackson & Ariel Jurado are two pitchers in the 10-15 range on their top 30 that could help the rebuild in SD.
How about Mallex Smith for Norris?
No 🙁 MallexSmith Hype Train has already left the station! You can’t call it back now man
Norris will be playing his last couple games as a Padre this weekend. I’m wondering if Preller would try and package him with another player to try and get a little better return, just like he did with the Cashner trade.
So, for example, if the rangers are in on Norris, would it make sense to also send another player with him? Maybe a controllable bullpen piece like Butcher?
Buchter?
Yes him, haha.
Kemp?
Why is nobody in San Diego talking about Hector Sanchez? He doesn’t seem to play much but seems to have put up very good numbers. He was always a good player, put up decent numbers for a guy who played once a week for SF except they would say he would sit too high and thus was always getting foul tips and therefore getting hurt.
What do Pardres fans think of Sanchez? Any reasons why he isn’t getting more playing time?
He isn’t getting playing time because Norris needs all the reps he can get to up his trade value and Hedges is the catcher of the future
Jeff, the link you posted from Baseball Prospectus doesn’t have pitch framing. Norris ranks 267th of all players that have stepped behind the plate this year. baseballprospectus.com/sortable/index.php?cid=1918786
Of players that have qualifying number of innings played he is 21st of 27. .
If you read Stat Corner, right on the site it says that the stats on Baseball Prospectus are more accurate, so why even use his stats at all?.
Norris or Suzuki are only worth a lower level class A prospect. I doubt either would present any more wins than what the Rangers would win anyway. Let it drop.