The Diamondbacks’ behind-the-plate combination of Carson Kelly and Alex Avila’s was one of the National League’s best in 2019, from an offensive standpoint. The two combined for 27 homers last year, with Kelly’s 108 wRC+ falling fourth among NL backstops. The club doubled down on an offense-first approach at catcher when it signed Stephen Vogt to a one-year, $3MM deal with a 2021 vesting option earlier this week, posits Zach Buchanan of The Athletic.
In acquiring Vogt, Buchanan argues that executive Mike Hazen essentially secured Avila-plus; both players are left-handed, veteran sluggers, but Vogt performed at a higher level in 2019 and swings at a higher launch angle than the 32-year-old Avila (a feature which figures to play well at Arizona’s Chase Field). With catcher defense front-and-center for many front offices, going bat-first at backstop certainly represents an against-the-grain strategy for Arizona’s front office.
More items from around the NL…
- It’s been an offseason of change in San Diego, with new manager Jayce Tingler taking the reins after a four-year stretch of losing seasons under Andy Green. We’ve also seen former Yankees pitching coach Larry Rothschild take over for longtime Padres fixture Darren Balsley, and a few of Manny Machado’s old friends from Baltimore have been brought in to provide additional coaching help. Rothschild has now settled on Ben Fritz as the club’s new bullpen coach, according to Kevin Acee of the San Diego Union-Tribune, although a new hitting coach has yet to be identified. Damian Easley, who has already been working with the club’s infielders, remains a possibility for that role. Acee also relays that Rod Barajas, who served as the club’s interim manager after Green’s mid-season exit, will be redirected to another role in the organization after being passed over for the role of skipper.
- Tim Britton of The Athletic tracks payroll trends surrounding the Mets over the last decade, with his analysis resting largely on info culled from Baseball Prospectus’ Cot’s On Contracts. Though perhaps unsurprising to most faithful followers of the team, Britton notes that New York has enacted the lowest percentage increase in total payroll among all teams in this decade. While total MLB revenue has risen nearly 50 percent in the last ten years, the Mets have not kept pace with other big-market spenders (New York was third in payroll over the course of the aughts, but spent the majority of this decade outside the top ten in payroll spending). Still, it’s important to emphasize that the Mets’ payroll is trending up of late, with GM Brodie Van Wagenen denying to speak unequivocally about a potential approach to the $208MM CBT line.
Hmm
“In an age when catcher defense is front-and-center for many front offices”
99% of baseball history covers that age. With only a few exceptions, catcher has always been a defense first position. Other than pitcher, it has historically been the most “defense-first” position.
A lot of crappy defenders who could hit got long careers in the past. That happens much less now.
If there were more Mike Piazza talents then you would see more of it.
An elite hitter today might change positions earlier in his career or even in the minors to lower knee stress (Possey and Sanchez aside although the latter may be forced to move due to defensive lapses). What is not being talked about though is there seems to be more guns behind the plate than ever before which in part explains why stealing is down.
If there were more Hall of Fame talents, yes, yes, we would see more of it. Great observation, Sherlock.
Or more cheaters if you believe he was a PED user. He and Bagwell in my view should not be in nor should Ortiz in a few years. I realize there was no direct evidence in many cases but circumstantial evidence has been used to convict before. Integrity is a part of the process and to me fraud on fans and other players was committed. I’ve never changed my position and also feel Bonds and Clemens should be kept out. The HOF was at one time sacred for those being considered and they’ve forever changed things. To be fair, the HOF has also been watered down by politics in recent years with the veterans’ votes (Santos, Trammell and Baines, all very good players who in my view was not a mistake of the writers but who fell just short – some may argue my pushing for Dwight Evans falls in this category).
Mike Piazza was an above average defensive catcher. His only problem was throwing runners out.
He called a good game. Back then you didn’t hear much about pitch framing so the analytics may say otherwise but for his era he was definitely not a minus back there.
Yeah you never of pitch framing and all that in Piazza days. Also I don’t remember any pitcher angry with him behind the plate. Sure he didn’t throw out a lot of guys. But some of that also lies with the pitching staff
Dewey – clearly you haven’t paid attention to the quality of character, or lack thereof, that has plagued the Hall of Fame since the beginning. Suspected PED users are the absolute least of the moral concerns. If you’re going to draw a line there, you need to kick out everyone who used greenies in the 70’s, stanzolol and dianabol in the 80’s, not to mention the racists, segregationists, druggies and abusive alcoholics.
Your integrity is selective.
Cam, I follow the line of two wrongs don’t make a right. The players you likely are thinking of fall into the miserable character (Cobb for example) or hard drinkers (Ruth, Mantle, etc.) but they made it to the HOF despite their off field issues. PED users cheated the game. I also am only considering those that I saw play whose cheating made other players’ stats look less important and in some cases may have cost others ballot votes. I’ve also mentioned before I do not consider PED users the same as those that took greenies in the 60s and 70s. Greenies were authorized by team doctors and to me anyway was comparable to todays use of energ shots. The fact that PED users hid their use is all I personally need to know.
Greenies are Dexedrine, which has significant performance enhancing characteristics. They were legal, until they were banned.
Steroids come in various forms, with varying performance enhancing characteristics, up to significant. They were legal, until they were banned.
Again, your integrity is selective. If you take an impartial look at your argument, you’ll realize it doesn’t have much substance. Bottom line in, you’re giving a pass to a whole bunch of people purely because it aids your argument. That’s it.
From the same era, Javy
Lopez may have been the best
“pitch framer” of all time.
Talk to somebody with ADHD before you lump “greenies” (dexedrine) in with anabolig steroids. Then talk to a doctor and compare the long term effects of each. Greenies were prescribed, they weren’t used chronically in most cases, and their effect was short lived.
It’s never been especially common to get through the minors as a crappy defending catcher. If they hit but suck at catching they almost always end up getting moved somewhere else.
That’s what the article says… They said Arizona choosing offense first in signing Voit goes against the grain
You have to remember for the #Mets, they went through the Bernie Madoff issues where they had approximately $500 million invested in Madoff accounts. The Wilpons had to borrow hundreds of millions to cover debts against their Madoff assets, and have money due every year just in interest on those debts. So there was good reason why they Mets had such a low payroll and you’ll see over the next few years a continued increase as assets have returned.
Dammit, wish I could’ve remembered Madoff’s name an hour ago playing Trivial Pursuit.
You really are a special kind of stupid.
The Wilpons are criminals, human scum.
Appreciate you responding, seriously, thank you. Most people wouldn’t even think about it. Have an awesome rest of your weekend.
ForestCobraAL,
Only haters with an agenda, or the mal-informed, claim that.
Like the many, many victims of Madoff, the Wilpons got screwed. In their case however, they got screwed by a family friend who utterly betrayed their trust.
That friendship began years before when the Madoff and Wilpons met when their kids went to same school.
Then they got hit again, when the court appointed Trustee, Irving Picard, sued the Wilpons 1 billion dollars in clawback, falsely claiming they were part of the scam and had to pay up.
So the Wilpons saw 500 mil of Mets money disappear from Madoff and were sued an additional billion.. But try as Picard did for years to take a billion more of Wilpon assets hauling them to court a bunch of times. Picard couldn’t find evidence of Wilpon wrong doing and eventually dropped his lawsuit and accept a fraction in a settlement.
Meanwhile Picard lined his own pockets as trustee getting paid millions and millions by the court.
ForestCobraAL,that could be said about almost every sports franchise owner. most of them have more skeletons in their closets than the Spirit Halloween store on November 1st.
Paul, it was a perfect storm in that at the same time as Madoff, the team borrowed to finance their share of Citi Field and they had just gotten burned signing Jason Bay. Team’s develop a financial plan several yearsvib advance and in their case, their forecast involved Madoff money that not only wasn’t there but the government was also then trying to claw back prior years’ gains.
Great take. Enjoyed your thoughts on this!
Thanks.
So, the Wilpons were idiots. They were unwilling to do due diligence. They got swindled.
They weren’t the only ones and in their case had many past years of high returns supporting their investments. Some might argue they “had to know” but they were thoroughly investigated. Considering the government is the number one watchdog (theoretically anyway) and there was a big time CPA firm doing yearly audits as a second. There’s a lot of blame to place. Their due diligence was done as Madoff passed audit after audit and they ended up getting burned by a friend who turned out to be a con man.
They should have sold the team, which would have generated a substantial profit and let someone take over with the resources to do the franchise justice.
It’s not the fault of the team, the city, nor the fans that the Wilpon’s were grossly irresponsible with their money and pared back in payroll so they could have some positive cash flows.
While sports franchises are investments, treating them strictly in terms of dollars and cents is the best way to disenchant a fan base which in turn hurts the value of the franchise. Even pro sports team have limits to their brand power.
Great take. Enjoyed your thoughts on this!
Who could have forced them to sell outside of proving they did something illegal? I forget what happened with the Dodgers but the owners’ pending divorce I think impacted it along with an inability to fund day to day operations due to high interest costs from buying the team were the reasons. Yes, the Wilson’s were friends with Selig but the money flow in their case was short term. If they were coerced into selling, they might have been able to sue MLB.
Dewy, The Wilpons debt ratio at the nadir of their problems was worse than the limit specified by the baseball commissioner. Bud Selig chose to overlook that when he could have intervened and forced a sale.
Thanks Mr. Mett. I just the Madoff situation was unique in that the owners were victims of fraud. Decisions made were based on the fraud and since their situation was short term with a resolution strategy, MLB theoretically could have tried but my guess is the Mets ownership could have sued and tied things up for so long that it would have resolved itself. The Dodgers situation involved a divorce that would hsve forced a sale to divide assets. At least that’s how I remember it. Anyone out there want to correct me? Please do.
deweybelongsinthehall.
You have that correct.
The Dodgers owners were using the team as their persona piggy bank to fund a lavish, greedy lifestyle, even when they couldn’t afford the payroll and had to borrow money to pay it. They were forced to sell and rightly so.
The Wilpons always had money for the payroll but needed several years to recover from being major victim of fraud.
MrMet62,
There were a bunch of teams in that position.
Unlike the Mets, they weren’t crime victims.
Thanks Longtime. Funny as I’ve in the recent past accused the Mets of being cheap when they’ve consistently have been in the upper NL payrolls excluding the most immediate Madoif years. Living in NY, the problem is they’re always compared to the Yankees and would never seem to pull the trigger and make the move that put tgem over the top (at least not since Jason Bay was signed).
averagejoe 15,
Grossly irresponsible is myth.
Actually here in the NY area it’s been reported they profited off the Madoff situation. They borrowed money to help build their stadium.
So, they maybe could’ve sold the franchise instead of making the Mets fans share their pain? How selfish and shortsighted of the Wilpons…
Mets payroll is inflated due to Wright and Cespedes insurance money not being deducted from the total.
Who is Zach Buchanan? More then likely, Arizona realizes they are not going to get much production from there current catchers.
Buchanan is a beat writer that actually covers the Diamondbacks; no offense, but I’m more inclined to believe what he says about the team.
why do my comments not post?
The Mets are that friend who goes to the nightclub with $18 on them
So Arizona’s FO are idiots, what else is new?
Are they moving to Vegas yet?
Curious, but what about this article leads you to the claim that the DBacks FO are idiots? I got the exact opposite impression when they signed a backup C for cheaper, with more defensive versatility, and more offensive upside.
BTW since when is carson kelly a defensive liability? He is great behind the plate and a young top pitch framer. Vogt will be one of three catchers for sure. Just a solid bech player that can play first as well.
Were you meaning to address the person above? I never once commented on Carson, I think he’s an absolute stud (baserunning aside). I was commenting on Vogt’s ability to play C and the corner positions at least semi-credibly. I don’t even think that they carry three C this season; no more Greinke means no more need for a personal C. If Kelly can get up to 120 games, they only need Vogt back there for ~40, he can spend the rest of his time backing up 1B, LF/RF, and being a strong bat off of the bench. I’m excited for the team as is (Ahmed, Escobar, Kelly, Marte, Peralta, Rojas, Vogt, and Walker make for an exciting group), anything they get from Leyba, Locastro, Souza, Vargas, or whoever they add is just gravy in my eyes.
Whatever ever happened to the blogger by the tag name Tatis? his predications were far and away not even close to reality, one of them was they’ll never get rid of Urias and at least two others that I’ll have to go back on. I also noticed his absence over the last two weeks, very interesting.