Just When You Thought Catching Might Be Settled

One thing we hear for certain from every #AskCoppy session: there is never a “never” is Coppolella’s discussions of player possibilities.

Though virtually every other possible Catching avenue has been allowed to pass for the Atlanta Braves this off-season, there’s still one catcher out there that fans are asking about and one that Coppy has yet to rule out completely.

Matt Wieters.

Indeed he hasn’t.  Here’s a quote directly from Coppy to the question from several this week:  “Is there any possibility of Matt Wieters coming to Atlanta this off-season?”

‘Good’ or Merely Adequate?

Part of the struggle in figuring out whether Wieters is worth pursuing at all involved his injury history – though the notion of a catcher having Tommy John surgery is admittedly unusual and he was actually pretty durable before that happened.

Correspondingly, Wieters did have 4 consecutive productive seasons:  2010-2013.  He averaged 3.3 fWAR over that period, though much of that was actually due to his defense.

But it’s the 2016 season that’s the real quandry – a year in which the Orioles paid him a Qualifying Offer price and didn’t get Qualifying Offer-level results.

Wieters did manage 124 games played, but only 980 innings behind the dish.  In those 2010-2013 years, his stints ranged from 1060 to 1201 innings.  He still nailed a third of would-be base-runners this past season, but also allowed a career-high 42 wild pitches with a (marginally) career-low fielding percentage.

But it’s the offense that never has really taken off for the Georgia Tech product.  He’s slightly better than the average catcher at the plate, with a career 97 wRC+ and .739 OPS… but those numbers should be viewed with his best years now being behind him.