House That Hank Built
Fansided

The Atlanta Braves Scott Boras and Matt Wieters

By Fred Owens

May 25, 2016; Los Angeles, CA, USA; Scott Boras attends a MLB game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Cincinnati Reds at Dodger Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports
May 25, 2016; Los Angeles, CA, USA; Scott Boras attends a MLB game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Cincinnati Reds at Dodger Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports /
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May 25, 2016; Los Angeles, CA, USA; Scott Boras thinks the Atlanta Braves and other should think of Matt Wieters as the new Carlton Fisk Mandatory Credit: Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports
May 25, 2016; Los Angeles, CA, USA; Scott Boras thinks the Atlanta Braves and other should think of Matt Wieters as the new Carlton Fisk Mandatory Credit: Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports /

Talk of Matt Wieters ending up a member of the Atlanta Braves  continues even after Tampa made him an offer.  Wieters’ agent Scott Boras insists the Braves and others are not seeing the whole picture but are they?

In a flurry of recent interviews Boras told the world that teams like the Atlanta Braves were missing a good bet because Matt Wieters is the new Carlton Fisk.

This week he was a guest on Jonah Keri’s podcast and provided the following rebuttal to a “someone” who questioned  that comparison.

"“. . . Matt Wieters has won two gold gloves at 30, Carlton Fisk had won one. He’s a better ball blocker and he throws the same. Carlton Fisk was on the All-Star team six times by the age of 30. Matt Wieters, four. He has the same number of games caught by the age of 30. Their home runs and RBIs are very similar. . . . What I’m saying is he’s Carlton Fisk-like. Carlton Fisk’s batting average is 30 points higher. But he plays in Boston . . .”"

Hmmm, okay that bears a look. Not that I doubt Mr. Boras’ veracity, but Pudge Fisk is a Hall of Fame Catcher.  To my eye Wieter’s isn’t close to that but maybe I’m missing something and the Atlanta Braves should be jumping on this undervalued player.

The Contestants

Fisk played a couple of games in Boston in 1969 but didn’t became a permanent fixture until 1972.  Injury cost him most of the 1974 and 75 seasons but from 1976 through 1978 he was the everyday guy.

Wieters made his debut in 2009 and was the Orioles everyday backstop through the 2013 season. Like Fisk he lost parts of two seasons to injury – most of 2014 and a good bit of 2015 – but returned to catch the majority of the games last season.

To be fair to both candidates I removed their injury years from consideration when looking at the data.

  PA HR BB SO BA OBP SLG OPS
Fisk 2919 111 291 421 .279 .359 .478 .837
Wieters 3074 104 258 565 .258 .319 .418 .738

Statistics courtesy Baseball-Reference

As Boras said, Fisk has a better average – less than the 30 points better because I removed those two years – but he neglected to say that Fisk’s OBP was 40 points higher, his slugging 60 points higher and his OPS 99 points higher.

The home runs are ‘about the same’ but Wieters had 155 more PA and while Fenway was a good place to hit, Camden Yard is a pretty good hitters park as well. Allowing for extra at bats the walks are close but Wieters struck out more often.

In today’s game strikeouts are considered not as awful as they once were, so call it a bump. What about advanced metrics?

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