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How Atlanta Braves position players stack up in NL East: Catcher

By Clint Manry

WASHINGTON, DC - JULY 28: The mask of catcher Brett Hayes #9 of the Florida Marlins (not pictured) is shown between plays against the Washington Nationals at Nationals Park on July 28, 2011 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Rob Carr/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON, DC - JULY 28: The mask of catcher Brett Hayes #9 of the Florida Marlins (not pictured) is shown between plays against the Washington Nationals at Nationals Park on July 28, 2011 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Rob Carr/Getty Images) /
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(Photo by Rob Carr/Getty Images)
(Photo by Rob Carr/Getty Images) /

Moving along in our positional ranking series, we look at how the Atlanta Braves catchers stack up in the NL East this season.

The catcher position is a complicated position to really evaluate. It’s a position that cannot be examined in exactly the same way as other positions on the field, as there are so many other moving parts involved.

Defense, pitch-framing, and how a catcher handles his pitching staff are all skills that have real value; but are not easily quantified. For a while now, major league teams have been putting less emphasis on offense and more on the defensive side of catcher responsibilities.

The NL East is a division that, this year, should be extremely competitive. Almost the entire division has made numerous additions to go for it in 2019, minus the Marlins and arguably the Atlatna Braves — if going by additions.

The NL East features a few catchers that are more than just pitch-framers and riflemen throwing out would-be base stealers. Several of these catchers can swing the bat, and that’s not very common as a whole in Major League Baseball.

Here’s what we’re working with at catcher, in the NL East this upcoming season:

Atlanta Braves: Tyler Flowers / Brian McCann

Washington Nationals: Yan Gomes / Kurt Suzuki / Spencer Kieboom

Philadelphia Phillies: J.T. Realmuto / Andrew Knapp

New York Mets: Wilson Ramos / Travis d’Arnaud / Devin Mesoraco

Miami Marlins: Jorge Alfaro / Chad Wallach

The 2018 season saw a few changes at catcher in the NL East, including a huge trade between the Phillies and Marlins that involved J.T. Realmuto and Jorge Alfaro. We’ll get into that in a minute.

Last season, though, really went about the way you would imagine it would. Here’s the fWAR (Fangraphs WAR) of each NL East team in 2018 at the catcher position:

  1. Miami Marlins                — 4.5 WAR
  2. Atlanta Braves               — 3.0 WAR
  3. Philadelphia Phillies     — 2.8 WAR
  4. Washington Nationals — 0.5 WAR
  5. NY Mets                           — 0.4 WAR

You can pretty much expect practically a flip-flop to those WAR rankings for the 2019 season. With the trades and signings made by NL East teams this offseason, the outlook for this upcoming season has changed essentially for every team in the division.

At the end of this piece I will give you my WAR projections for each NL East team, but here is how the NL East looks at the catcher position going into the 2019 season, by rank:

  1. Philadelphia Phillies
  2. Washington Nationals
  3. NY Mets
  4. Atlanta Braves
  5. Miami Marlins

As you can see, the list is in a very different order than before. This is the effect of the Phillies/Marlins trade, and also a result of the Atlanta Braves essentially letting their best catcher walk, with the Mets set to get a full season from Wilson Ramos (2.4 fWAR in 2018) in 2019.

The Nationals also improved somewhat at the position, as they signed former Brave Kurt Suzuki (2.0 fWAR in 2018) and former Cleveland Indian Yan Gomes (2.2 fWAR in 2018) this offseason — both solid catchers.

So with the introduction out of the way, lets dive in to the rankings.

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