(*) MASTER NOTES: Catching casualties
May 15 2015
The first several weeks of 2015 have not been kind to the catcher pool.
Jonathan Lucroy, Yan Gomes, and Devin Mesoraco have all been just-about-useless so far this year due to injuries. Based on BaseballHQ pre-season projections, that trio was supposed to be the #2, #3, and #4-ranked catchers in terms of mixed league roto value this year. That projected value has gone "kaput", at least so far.
The carnage runs deeper than the top tier: breakout candidate Travis d'Arnaud is out until mid-season. John Jaso stopped catching in an attempt to stay in the lineup, but even DH work couldn't keep him from the DL. The Red Sox lost their top two catchers, first Christian Vázquez and then Ryan Hanigan. We haven't seen Matt Wieters in Baltimore yet, even though he was supposed to be just slightly delayed in his return from Tommy John surgery.
There are non-injury situations too: Jarrod Saltalamacchia got flat-out waived by the Marlins, and hasn't surfaced in Arizona yet. And the Rockies essentially gave up on Wilin Rosario catching at all.
All of this attrition came from a pocket of the player pool that didn't have any slack in the first place: when I wrote my annual Straight Draft Guide back in March, one of my observations was that the back end of the catching pool (at least, in 2-catcher mixed leagues) was particularly hideous, even more so than usual.
So how do you manage your roster around this mess? I'm not sure I have any good answers, but thought I would share my experiences.
I have Mesoraco in several leagues, but let's focus on two: LABR-Mixed and my NFBC Main Event squad. In the former case, my Opening Day catchers were actually Mesoraco and Saltalamacchia. A couple of weeks ago as I tried to patch my way around that situation, I spent a week with five catchers on my roster (2 active, 3 more reserved). That's not something I've ever done before, nor is it something I can even pretend to defend as a best practice.
But, given the context, I think how I got there is actually defensible:
- added AJ Pierzysnki when Mesoraco first got shelved.
- added Wellington Castillo when Saltalamacchia got released.
Those were straightforward moves. There was an opportunity cost to clogging those two bench spots, as neither of my starters could be DL'd. But, since LABR-Mixed has unlimited DL spots, plus 6 reserve spots, tying up 2 of those 6 spots on extra catchers wasn't all that stifling. Of course, I wasn't done.
The next week, I bid on (and won) new callup Blake Swihart. Because I had a pitcher go on the DL that week, I didn't need to drop anyone to add Swihart. And since the league has a rule that any player picked up needs to go into the active lineup, there wasn't anyone in the free-agent pool that I wanted to pick up and start. So, I carried five catchers for a week.
We're still at four catchers there. But Mesoraco spends next week in AL parks, and Arizona could be a boon for Saltalamacchia's outlook, based on park factors alone. So, I'm glad to still have those two, and look forward to cutting Pierzynski soon. If Mesoraco and Saltalamacchia both come back, I'll have some trading options.
Over on my NFBC roster, the situation is rather different. That league doesn't have unlimited DL spots: there's a seven-man reserve list without a separate DL. And we were already carrying a few injured guys: Anthony Rendon, Masahiro Tanaka, José Reyes. Here, our 2nd catcher paired with Mesoraco is René Rivera, who has been less than productive. So, we set out to find another catcher here as well, figuring that we would cut Mesoraco if his situation didn't resolve soon, or, if Mesoraco gets back behind the plate, we could cut Rivera.
Once Alex Avila got injured and James McCann got the resulting playing time bump in Detroit, we added McCann as that replacement catcher. To add a 3rd catcher to that already-tight roster, we had to put the injured Reyes back into our active lineup this week. (If we hadn't added him, we would have been starting Mesoraco, which is almost the same thing as taking an empty roster spot.)
These nebulous injury situations are the worst. If Mesoraco were declared out for the year, that would be a blow, but at least one I could start working to recover from. Instead, waiting for a resolution is a kind of purgatory. Mesoraco said this week that he thinks his hip is getting better, and he's acquired an outfielder's glove as another potential path to get back into the lineup.
So, it looks like I'll be spending some more time in this purgatory.
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