Swings and Takes: Tools of ignorance

Catcher is perpetually one of the hardest positions to find offense from at the major league level. The defensive demands of the position are endless, and most teams in 2024 seem to value defensive contributions for catchers more than offense. This has become especially true within roughly the last five years with the improved ability to quantify those contributions. Metrics such as Framing Runs Above Average, Blocking Runs Above Average, and Throwing Runs Above Average have improved our understanding of catcher defensive contributions, and quantification of skills naturally has a strong positive relationship with valuing specific abilities; if you can measure it you are going to care more about it. In the fantasy space we naturally take an opposite approach, as Framing Runs Above Average is not a category in any fantasy league we have ever seen (probably exists somewhere at this point), but finding a good offensive catcher is often a large advantage at a historically tough position to find offense. So far we have seen a surprising number of primary position catchers with at least 100 PAs post above-average hitting lines (100 or greater wRC+), 21 as of the start of play on June 2 (15 at this same time in 2023, 10 in 2022). Today we want to spotlight one of the best and youngest, as well as provide notes on a few other catchers and their offensive approaches so far in 2024. 

Prince William of Backstop

After a disappointing 2022 playoff run in which they were bumped in the NLDS despite winning 101 games in the regular season, the Braves decided to upgrade at the catcher position. They completed a three-team trade with the Brewers and Athletics in which they sent young pitching to the Athletics and a young catcher to the Brewers in order to acquire Sean Murphy, one of the best all-around catchers in baseball. The young catcher sent to Milwaukee had a reputation already for being an above-average hitting catcher who struggled on the defensive end. The Brewers have long had the reputation for helping to improve catchers defensively, dating back to Jonathan Lucroy and extending to, among others, Yasmani Grandal. William Contreras has extended this tradition and has not only improved on defense, but this year has taken a major step up on the offensive end. Now, it could easily be argued that he is is the best offensive catcher in baseball, with a .322/.394/.498 triple slash line and 154 wRC+, supported by top tier expected numbers (83^rd percentile or better in xwOBA, xBA, xSLG, and Hard-Hit%). His improvement has come largely through a very interesting approach change that is hard to pull off for most hitters.

Contreras, the younger brother of Cardinals catcher Willson Contreras, struggled in his rookie season of 2021, chasing at an above-average rate of 31.9% (compared to the MLB average of 28.4%), whiffing a ton at 36.4%, and putting together a .215/.303/.399 triple slash line. He broke out as a hitter in 2022 by starting to understand the strike zone while crushing most things that he hit, with a 95^th percentile xISO, 91^st percentile Brl%, and a 54^th percentile Chase Rate in his rookie year, on his way to a 139 wRC+. 

Even at this level of production, which was second-best for all catchers with at least 200 PAs behind only Danny Jansen (141 wRC+), Contreras was not yet a complete hitter. He had one major weakness that carried over from his rookie year, which was his penchant for racking up a ton of whiffs, putting up a putrid 6^th percentile Whiff% at 34.3%. This was better than his 36.4% mark from 2021 but still poor enough to significantly lower his offensive floor. They say in some sports, such as basketball and football, that weaknesses are truly exploited in the postseason, when teams can game plan more intensely. While this is less true in baseball due to the inherent randomness over small samples, it certainly appeared that way for Contreras in the 2022 NLDS. He went 1-for-8 overall in the series (1 2B and 4 Ks), starting with a 2B and a BB in the series opener before seeing little in the strike zone over his other two games played. This swing was a good representation of Contreras’ G3 and G4 of that series:

Thor against Contreras 2022 NLDS

You may be thinking you know where this story is going, as we have seen many young hitters take off at the plate with age once they tighten up their plate discipline and force pitchers to attack them more in the strike zone. As Old Dominion sings in their 2018 song “Hotel Key”, however, “But this isn't one of those stories that ends up that way, no.” Well, mostly it is not one of those stories. Contreras indeed started chasing less in 2023, moving from 54^th percentile in 2022 to 75^th percentile in 2023, which has largely carried over in 2024. He did not break out in 2023, however, and has instead excelled in 2024 by swinging more, which is an interesting path for a hitter with power as their carrying tool. 

One key to understanding how he is excelling by swinging more is by understanding Contreras’ primary strength as a hitter over his career: crushing fastballs. He has had encouraging results against breaking balls in 2024, posting a .425 wOBA against them so far (a continuation of improvement from his .356 mark in 2023), but hitting fastballs has typically been his bread and butter. Since 2022, in chronological order, Contreras has posted wOBAs of .438, .383, and .396 against fastballs. He really thrives when he gets a fastball belt high or below middle or in, as we can see by this breakdown of wOBA on fastballs from 2022-2024 by strike zone quadrant:

Contreras 2022-2024 wOBA on Fastballs by Location Chart

 

Now that we know Contreras wants to hit fastballs in the middle or lower parts of the zone and in the middle or inner parts of the plate, the next question is how to maximize that ability. For Contreras in 2024, the answer has been to get very aggressive in the strike zone. Here is a chart of Contreras’ In-Zone Swing% by pitch type by year:

Contreras In-Zone Swing% by pitch and year:

 

We can see a major difference in 2024, as while Contreras is swinging at significantly more off-speed and breaking balls in the zone, his largest increase has been swinging at more fastballs in the zone, up from 61.4% in 2023 to 72.4% in 2024. Contreras is also not wasting any time at the plate in 2024, with a 37.6% First Pitch Swing% in 2024, compared to 28.7% in 2023 and an MLB average of 29.7%. 

Contreras swinging more in the zone in isolation could be taken in a few different ways, as swinging more in the strike zone is not always a great thing, especially for a hitter that still has a 20^th percentile Whiff% (high-power, high-whiff hitters such as Kyle Schwarber and Max Muncy have shown an effective blueprint for this archetype by being very selective in the strike zone). Increased aggression for power hitters can be especially damaging at times because swinging more in the zone usually leads to swinging more out of the zone, leading to a huge spike in whiffs and strikeouts.

Therein lies the rub and the magic of Contreras’ two-month start to 2024: he has managed to swing at a ton more pitches in the zone while marginally decreasing his chase rate. This is adjusting statistical attributes in a video game such as MLB: The Show kind of stuff, as almost every hitter would take swinging at more hittable pitches without chasing more, but few can pull it off. Contreras has managed to do this, almost matching his 2023 24.7% Chase Rate at 24.9% in 2024, paired with an outstanding 72.4% Zone Swing%. He is being aggressive on balls in the zone, even if it means swinging at the first pitch, and it is paying off for him in a big way. 

Quick Hits

• Danny Jansen may be one of the most underrated hitting catchers in baseball, as most fans are likely unaware that over the past four seasons (2021-2024) he has slugged .493 with a 126 wRC+. The 2024 season has been his best offensive season to date (.287/.371/.535), as he has combined his power with a much more selective approach at the plate, reducing his Swing% from his career 47.2% mark to 38.3% so far in 2024, reducing both his In-Zone Swing% over 10 points, from 69.3% career to 58.7% in 2024, and his Chase% from 23.0% career to 18.2% thus far this season. He is almost never swinging at first pitches these days, at 16.4% compared to 29.6% career, and is maintaining close to equal K% and bb% (15.5% and 12.1% respectively). We are still at the small sample area for him, at only 116 PA due to a spring training HBP that fractured his right wrist, but early returns hint to potential approach changes that are allowing him to add new dimensions to his previously power-driven offensive profile.
• It has been a tough start to the 2024 season for Jansen’s former teammate Gabriel Moreno, who was good enough in 2023 to bat 3^rd in a lineup that made it to the World Series but has struggled to a .229/.319/.313 start so far in 163 PAs in 2024. Moreno has done a better job so far in 2024 of controlling the zone, cutting his Chase% by over 3% (26.3% to 23.0%) compared to 2023, and has whiffed less as a result (19.7% to 16.9%). One potential negative byproduct, however, has been a large increase in Chase Contact%, from 62.2% to 73.7% in 2024. Moreno is still capable of hitting the ball reasonably hard, as his Max EV was in the 67^th percentile this season compared to 53rd in 2023, but those extra balls in play on chase pitches are likely dragging his overall batted ball profile down. This is not especially concerning for a 24-year-old hitter with a recent track record of hitting, and whose defense will keep him in the lineup regularly regardless. He does look like a hitter, however, who needs to adjust, possibly by trading some additional whiffs for taking more chances to drive the ball. 

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