Caleb Joseph is a seven-year MLB veteran catcher and current free agent. He’s played in the Majors for the Orioles, Diamondbacks, and Blue Jays. This year, he had minor league deals with the Mets and Mariners – the latter of which he attributes in part to an MLBTR post on his availability!
Drafted by the Orioles in the seventh round in 2008 out of Lipscomb University in Nashville, Caleb got the call to the Majors in 2014 when Matt Wieters went on the shelf. His first big league hit would come several days later in the form of a single against the Tigers’ Drew Smyly. Caleb has smoked 32 home runs in his big league career.
From 2014-18, Joseph was by far the Orioles’ leader in innings behind the dish. He served as the Orioles’ starting catcher in three playoff games in 2014, including in the ALCS against the Royals. In his 2014 rookie season, Joseph led all qualified AL catchers by throwing out 40.4% of attempted base-stealers.
Caleb hosted a live chat today with MLBTR readers. He was generous with his time and gave tons of insightful and hilarious answers. Check out the transcript here, and give him a follow on Twitter @YYZBackstop.
Aside from Caleb, we’ve held live chats recently with Chad Cordero, Dan Straily, and Christian Colon. The player gets to decide which questions are published and answered, and all four have enjoyed the experience. If you’re a current or former MLB player who’d like to chat with our readers, send us an email through our contact form or have your agent reach out to Tim Dierkes.
“Who did you love hitting against?
Caleb Joseph: “Have you seen my career offensive numbers?!?”
Someone just passed Jeff Mathis as my new favorite backup catcher
But, “Caleb has SMOKED 32 home runs!”
I liked the question from player’s contract year. Caleb seemed surprised or unknowing about some players becoming great as soon as they hit a contract year. You need look no further than another former Baltimore Orioles catcher.
On Javy Lopez’s contract year he hit .328/.378/.687/1.065 for an OPS+ of 169. He also set the then all time single season home run record for a catcher in MLB history with 43 home runs. He was an All-Star, a Silver Slugger and a top 5 MVP finisher that contract season. Needless to say he had never come close to that production before. He had some good seasons but nowhere near that good. Those seasons were also mixed in with a lot of terrible seasons. Once his contract season came around he became the best hitting catcher in MLB history.
The Baltimore Orioles gave Javy Lopez a 3 year 8 figure contract after that astounding record breaking season. He was good his first year in terms of OPS+ at 127. That’s nowhere near as good as 169, though. He was also terrible each of the last 2 years after that. In some way or another Javy Lopez was definitely “putting more effort in” to better his numbers during that contract year. His numbers were insane that contract year. They were never close to that before and never got close again after.
How does a former Baltimore Orioles catcher like Caleb Joseph not know about that?
Career contract year. Never heard of it! What a laugh there major leaguer!
@Steve Nebraska What happened to deleting your account?
yeah the brutal honesty there was amazing
“When a 4 year old tries to tell you how to drive a car”
That was blunt and hilarious!
That’s my new favorite comebacker…..
Pretty cool to learn that the vast majority of major league players visit this site regularly. I wonder how many of them actually leave comments? It must be awkward reading negative comments about yourself.
Im going to assume players handle it in different ways. I’m hoping a lot can just brush it off to “idiots on the internet”. I also think he may have been exaggerating just a *little* with the 99.9%
Hey, this is just what a player would write!
I usually tune it out. I’ve heard a lot worse from the fans sitting by the dugout at away games. The internet is where all the hardos and wannabes can act tough
Nice work, Caleb. Good read. Thank you.
Good luck on the employment front !
As a self-proclaimed bad hitter, Caleb always seemed to come up with a big hit against the Red Sox. I wonder what his career average was against the Red Sox? I’m willing to bet they were in his Top 5 of BAA.
If you only count teams he had at least 100 PAs against, you’d be right on the money (#1 at .245). He’s hit better against a bunch of other teams, but with mostly fewer than 50 PAs.
Seems like a really great guy.
Awesome chat! Thanks Tim for setting it up and Mr. Joseph for participating!
Im such a baseball nerd.. I’d actually love to hear about those sign combinations he talked about. People find baseball boring, but there’s so much finesse and strategy.
I think it was especially enlightening to remember that Caleb has a 0.00 ERA in the majors! Also, he’s never walked a batter or given up a home run…
Catchers are some of the smartest guys on the field. This guy is funny too. I’ve always wanted to ask a pro catcher why none of them throw left-handed.
Is it because you don’t know why or just to tease them?
I can see you don’t know why either.
what pitchers have the hardest stuff to hit?
Caleb Joseph
All of them!
Have you ever caught a knuckler? Was it fun??
Caleb Joseph
No, not fun at all. Horrible. Best way to catch a knuckle ball is to let it stop rolling, run to the b backstop and pick it up and throw it back.
I love this guy!!!!
That was originally a Bob Uecker line
Great artists steal.
Perhaps Caleb is a modern day Bob Uecker
Kudos to Bravos fan who asked Joseph the question about robo-umps, a great question and a very interesting, insightful answer.
I missed it! Caleb Joseph is the man! Let’s go Os! Bring him back in some form
Baby’s gotta eat
That was great!
Loving all these player chats, Tim; thank you!
Pretty sweet, I liked following Joseph’s career back in the Oriole days. I love he mentioned his 5 consecutive games with an HR with all the zero RBI year chats. I remember that streak well. Not sure which came first. Kinda funny no mention of playing with brother Corban together on the Orioles in 2018, whom he himself made it back to the majors after 5 years when he got a cup of coffee in 2013
He’s a good guy. When he played for the Dbacks AAA affiliate in Reno, his kid was in my wife’s preschool. Very nice person.