Depending on your advanced metric site du jour, the Braves catching duo finished between 1st, 2nd, or 3rd in cumulative stats. In 2022, Travis D’Arnaud, William Contreras, Manny Pina, and Chadwick Tromp saw innings at catcher with D’Arnaud carrying the bulk at 876.1, followed by Contreras with 520.2, Piña with 44, and Tromp with 9.
Travis D’Arnaud
When Freddie Freeman left for the West Coast, Braves fans immediately claimed Dansby Swanson as the clubhouse leader, but I didn’t really see it that way. With his ability to keep things loose and make an entire staff feel comfortable, D’Arnaud’s my choice as the clubhouse leader and the proof is in the squatting as Travis, at age 33, was only bettered by his 22 year old self, who caught 990.1 innings.
It wasn’t just the defense, though. Snitker wanted D’Arnaud’s bat in the lineup, penciling him in at DH for 6 games alongside his 99 games started at C. Overall, D’Arnaud slashed .268/.319/.472 with 25 doubles, 1 triple, and 18 HRs. The Braves have D’Arnaud under contract for $8MM in 2023 with a club option for the same in 2024, and I bet they’ll pick it up because it’s a bargain.
William Contreras
Willian Contreras had a problem in 2021. In country terms, “He didn’t catch good”. In 415.2 innings, he was worth -7 DRS. The saving grace was the bat…it was hot. Then it wasn’t. From game 10 through game 51, his OPS dropped over .300 points and it became apparent that the bat not the glove was playing up, so playing time became few and far between from July on.
That wasn’t the case in 2022. The catching was good enough to get the call to start 60 games, totaling 518.2 innings behind the plate and the bat stayed strong throughout the season as Contreras carried a slash-line of .278/.354/.501 topped off by 20 HRs.
Manny Pina
On November 5th, 2021, the Braves signed Manny Pina to a 2/$8MM deal with a $4MM club option and that is when I thought William Contreras’s days with the Braves were over. Apparently, so did Contreras as he put up a social media post with the “Hmmmm..” emoji, followed by the “angry” emoji. Luckily for both the Braves and Contreras, Pina had season ending surgery and innings were found for Contreras and he capitalized on someone else’s unfortunate circumstance.
We didn’t get to see Pina very much, but he’s a pitcher’s catcher that can hit and I have no idea out AA convinced him to sign for so little with a club option for so little. It feels like Pina is a trade chip, especially if the Braves add another catcher to the 40-man roster at some point this offseason. However, it would not surprise me to see the Braves re-visit giving Contreras innings in the outfield and keep Pina, providing more positional flexibility for the team. If I were a betting man, though, I’d bet Pina is bound for a ticket out of Atlanta.
Chadwick Tromp
Well, THAT was unexpected. Chadwick “Hitting Machine” Tromp, had 4 ABs, 3 hits, 2 doubles, 3 RBI, and earned a 0.2 WAR, and that was it. And yes… it was a fluke. Even in a good year, Tromp is a very average hitter (.697 OPS for his MiLB career) and has always been known for his defense. Tromp still finds himself on the 40-man roster, but I cannot imagine that he stays there and will likely be DFA’d at a time when other GMs have filled out their 40-man, therefore AA can outright him and keep the depth. Unfortunate for Tromp, but it’s the business.
Final Breakdown: Braves have a luxury that other teams do not: 3 above average catchers. I believe the Braves will utilize this asset in a trade to grab a bench piece and/or a reliever.
I love carrying three catchers. If Piña is healthy then Bill Contreras needs to be the DH the majority of the time. It’s currently a hole on the roster and Contreras needs to be in the lineup more often than not; I don’t think a backup role helps his development.
There will still be plenty of catching reps available over the course of a long season, especially with Atlanta summers.
I figure once Pina hits a little in spring training, he is probably traded. They might also try to sell how on Contreras. Meaning REALLY HIGH. If somebody offers something really good, that might be tempting.
Great stuff, Ryan. The catching situation is interesting. 3 good catchers is a good problem to have.
Contreras would catch a haul, but you need a second catcher, and we don’t have a DH. Contreras probably feels like he can develop into what his brother is, and I’d sure love to find out if that’s true. I’d actually trade Pina for a reliever, stick Tromp on the bench as the emergency catcher that we never use because d’Arnaud and Contreras trade off DH/C duties. d’Arnaud could catch 90 games and Contreras 70, and it’s like having two elite running backs you can keep fresh.
I think you gotta hang onto Contreras — there were definitely times when I was wishing he was in the lineup instead of Ozuna. And I always hear about how d’Arnaud is one of the real clubhouse leaders… Catcher is a position of real strength. Good for us.
From previous thread…
Each year, 2-point conversion success rates run between 40% and 55%, while PAT kicks are about 96%. IMO, these 2-point analytics sheets can defy common sense. Yeah, it’s great if you make the 2-pointer, but if you don’t, you can really screw yourself chasing points or giving your opponent an undeserved break late in the game.
In the UF/UT game, I didn’t understand Napier’s thinking when his team scored a TD to make it 38-27 late in the game. Just kick the PAT & make it 10. You need 2 scores to keep the game alive anyway – why make it harder on yourself? I understand he had an analytics sheet in front of him. But if he misses the try (and he did) he’ll just have to go for 2 again just to catch up. Of course, he missed again & when UF immediately got the onside kick with 15-20 seconds left, they were down by 5, not 3… so a tying FG was out of the question.
Same thing for Saban. Stretching a 4-point lead to a 6-point lead made no sense to me. I thought, “Well, what if LSU comes back & scores a TD to go up by 1 & they miss their 2-point PAT? You can still win the game with a FG.” In that situation – and not necessarily the OT situation – I’d rather have the opponent try the 2-pointer than my team.
I know there are coaches who don’t really take the worst-case scenario to heart — MSU’s Mike Leach is one of them — but maybe they should.
Piña may be an “above average” backup catcher but his salary tells you how much that’s worth.
I think Tromp might compare pretty well to someone like Brayan Peña. A guy who can put on the tools of ignorance and hit a single every couple of weeks can collect a major league minimum paycheck for a good long while. I think org depth is great to have, especially as it’s hard to know how long d’Arnaud’s body will hold up. But Contreras looks like the real deal. And his brother is about to get paid.
I think we keep Contreras and trade Piña. If healthy, his salary is very attractive and he can handle the stick at a league average rate, which is better than league average for a catcher. If AA waits out the market until there’s nothing left but scrubs, he can pounce and grab a pretty good 6-7th inning reliever for him.
I’m also praying that Rob is wrong and that the Braves have a plan to rotate the DH around the field, not utilize the extra catcher to allow Contreras and D’Arnaud to rotate C/DH.
I’d put TdA and Piña at catcher, and make Bill the DH, at least for this year, since Piña will be a FA in 2024. This also assumes you rid yourself of Ozuna.
You all know that I hate the three-catcher plan already, but yeah…I hate the three-catcher plan.
The 3 catcher plan makes a lot of sense if 2 are absolute studs at hitting. Contreras may very well be that, but D’Arnaud would be a well below average DH.
Respond to this: “In the UF/UT game, I didn’t understand Napier’s thinking when his team scored a TD to make it 38-27 late in the game. Just kick the PAT & make it 10. You need 2 scores to keep the game alive anyway – why make it harder on yourself? I understand he had an analytics sheet in front of him. But if he misses the try (and he did) he’ll just have to go for 2 again just to catch up. Of course, he missed again & when UF immediately got the onside kick with 15-20 seconds left, they were down by 5, not 3… so a tying FG was out of the question.”
Bingo bongo. This was the call that was the biggest headscratcher.
We also turned it over on downs at the UT 20 in the first drive. That was 3 points lost there. Between not kicking those 2 PATs late and that 3 points on the first drive, that’s the 5 points we lost by.
I’m also praying that Rob is wrong and that the Braves have a plan to rotate the DH around the field, not utilize the extra catcher to allow Contreras and D’Arnaud to rotate C/DH.
I’m also team “rotate the DH around the field”, but it also depends on personnel. If you have 2 really good catchers, that changes the calculus a little. Contreras putting on an outfielder mitt also allows you to have position players DH a little as well.
@ 4,
There really is a book on “I really need to go for 2.” And both Napier and Saban have poor reading comprehension.
“When scoring a touchdown which brings your score to either 5 down or 12 down, go for 2.” Why? Because the difference between being down 3 is greatly better than 4, which is barely better than 5. How does that work? 24 to 19. Go for 2 and get it and it is 24 to 21 and one field goal ties. Don’t get it or get 1 and you still need a touchdown to take the lead.
Otherwise, if it is end of game and your team is physically whooped against a deeper team and you score to make it 32 to 31 (like Saturday), you go for 2. Think 2021 Iron Bowl. Every overtime made it more likely Alabama would win. Georgia against Auburn (1997? the Edwards 4 overtime game). With Edwards suspended for first half, he was the only player on the field at full speed.
I think the big problem with the 2-point book is that the coaches start looking at it way too early. There are too many possible scenarios left in play for them to be going for two in the third quarter. Especially in college – take that chip shot extra point for as long as you can and make the other guy chase points.
It seems like there are two different “two-point conversion books.” The first is the one that’s been around forever, which Cliff is referencing @12. Go for two to tie it up, make the opposing team score touchdowns to tie instead of lead (go up 7 instead of 6, 14 instead of 13, etc….and yes, this is assuming the opponent can make PATs, because I’m not sure why you wouldn’t), bring the margin to 3 points, or to eliminate a possession from your deficit. This I largely agree with. I would certainly go for two in all these situations after halftime at the very latest. There is no point in the game where I wouldn’t go for two if making it would tie the game. Intentionally remaining a point behind when you could try to tie it just seems willfully obtuse. And for all the games you can find where going for 2 in these situations results in a calamity that wouldn’t have happened if you’d just taken the PAT, I think there are at least as many, if not more, of teams just taking the PAT to go up 13 or 20 or whatever and having that come back to bite them. I can think of two such examples involving my two teams (the Vols and Falcons) right now off the top of my head.
Then there’s the kind of game theory thing that seems to be coming into vogue now which was not a thing before, and the most common example of it is if you score a TD in the fourth quarter to go behind by 8 pending the conversion, go for 2. If you make it, you can win with a TD and PAT and if not, you can still tie with a 2. I believe this is what Napier was trying to do with his 2-point conversion, but it was kind of a weird time to do it. It’s like he really wanted to do it, but he knew that he couldn’t because he was down a TD and an FG instead of just a TD, so he decided to do it then? But it was really stupid because not making it took the FG out of the equation.
When it comes to fourth-and-short, though, particularly on the opponent’s side of the field, I think you should virtually always go for it. There’s nothing dumber than a team punting from the opponent’s 40 and then seeing them advance the ball past the 40 within two plays. Field position means very little in today’s game.
And when it comes to this year’s Florida-Tennessee game, Florida was 5-for-6 on fourth-down conversions in that game. Going for it on so many fourth downs is the only reason they were in the game in the first place. So yes, you could wish as a Florida fan that they’d taken the points on the one fourth-down conversion they missed, but to just take the points on that one and go for all the others would seem to be an unlikely decision. Napier knew they needed as many points as possible because he knew they weren’t stopping Tennessee. It was the right plan. The game theory 2-point try, though, was too much. It wasn’t worth the cost at the time.
And when it comes to this year’s Florida-Tennessee game, Florida was 5-for-6 on fourth-down conversions in that game. Going for it on so many fourth downs is the only reason they were in the game in the first place. So yes, you could wish as a Florida fan that they’d taken the points on the one fourth-down conversion they missed, but to just take the points on that one and go for all the others would seem to be an unlikely decision. Napier knew they needed as many points as possible because he knew they weren’t stopping Tennessee. It was the right plan. The game theory 2-point try, though, was too much. It wasn’t worth the cost at the time.
This was definitely Napier’s thought process. Problem is, it didn’t prove to be true. We only needed 39 points to beat UT. We finished with 33. How many points did Napier think UT was going to score to justify going for it so many times on 4th down, especially deep in UT territory when we could have just taken the points?
Part of the reason why we converted so many 4th downs is that we set up a lot of 4th and shorts from different playcalling on 3rd down, so it’s just a completely different approach. Overall, I like Napier’s analytical approach. But if you’re wrong on your game theory, which he proved to be against UT, then you end up with a lot of indefensible decisions along the way that result in a loss.
I’ll enjoy the journey.
Considering the advantage that the team that lost has in a rematch, does anyone think a UT/UGA rematch in the playoffs is competitive?
#16
Depends on what you consider competitive… I think the results are in: Top-to-bottom, UGA just has a better & deeper roster than UT. I’d be more than happy to see a rematch.
Personally, I’d love to see UGA, UT, Michigan & Ohio State make the Final 4, as long as you don’t have the conference rematches right away. Talk about a run-up to the CFP… (Eg. — A UT/OSU semi game could be pretty wild.)
#14
That’s exactly what Napier was doing & he dug himself a hole he couldn’t get out of. And that idea of “hey, if I miss the first 2-pointer, I’ll just get the next one” just strikes me as faulty.
Also, if anyone thought Napier was going for it too much on 4th down in the UT game, watch a Mississippi State game sometime. Mike Leach coaches almost like he doesn’t have a punter or a placekicker on the roster.
And yes, I understand going for it on the short end of the field on 4th down, especially when your placekicker is terrible (as is often the case with MSU). But IMO, going for a 4th and 1 at your own 29 in the 1st quarter vs. Alabama is downright nuts.
FWIW, was looking at the newfangled ’23 Braves schedule & saw that we only play at Citi Field in April (4 games) and again in August (3 games). Both are weekend series & we don’t play the Mets at all after Aug. 23. (Our last 10 games are Nats/Cubs/Nats — the last 6 at home .)
This new, division-lite schedule will take some getting used to…
@ 16,
I believe that there is no more than 1 team besides Georgia that is arguably better than Tennessee. That is Ohio State. Michigan is grotesquely overrated. Georgia “athleted” them to death last year. So, when it all shakes out, if one of Oregon and Tennessee is looking like 4, they ought to be seeded 3 to put off the rematch.
But, bring it on Orange. You get your ass kicked and you know you made it.
Last year’s Orange Bowl notwithstanding, I’ll give Michigan the benefit of the doubt for now.
I know their schedule hasn’t been especially imposing, but they’ve pretty much smashed everyone they’ve played, and you can’t ask for more at this point. They’ve been efficient & they roughed up the best team (Penn St.) that they’ve seen so far. They finish with Illinois & OSU, so we’ll know who they really are pretty soon.
And yeah, there’s a probability that the committee will have to choose among a group of some good-resume, one-loss teams (at least 2 of which won’t have to play conference title games).
DOB predicting we sign Xander and not Dansby. Interesting. I enjoy watching Dansby a great deal but we need higher OBP players in this lineup.
I would hate to lose Dansby, but Bogarts is only 1 year older and has a career 34.9 WAR compared to Dansby’s 14.5. If Xander is affordable, he would seem like a significant upgrade.
I really like Tromp. I would be fine/happy if the Braves get a big left fielder and keep Pina, Travis. and willy. Travis seems to have bad luck with injury every other year—so let’s keep all 3 with Tromp in AAA. All 3 rotate through the dh/c.
There are other factors in the 2-pt decision too (like can my offense make it or is my kicker any good or can my defense hold them if we miss). For Alabama, I’d have thought my offense is having a rough day, my defense can’t hold, and I have a great kicker – let’s get 1.
@17/18
Has there been a rematch in a playoff/natty that didn’t flip the other way? I’m thinking of 1996 UF/FSU, 2018 UGA/Bama, 2021 UGA/Bama offhand.
A concern with Bogaerts is that his bat appears to be going backwards — he’s lost almost all of his power, a bit like Lindor. But he’s got a heck of a back of his baseball card.
Bogaerts doesn’t have a very flattering 2022 Statcast page. He has a career .336 BABIP and had a .362 BABIP in 2022. For the most part, guys with high BABIPs that are somewhat sustainable will have high exit velos. Bogaerts does not. Bogaerts has had a +.300 batting average for the last 4 years with a very healthy walk rate.
If those 2 can continue, I’m down.
I can’t even think about Bogaerts until Dansby signs elsewhere. It’s Dansby or bust for me at the moment.
I’m more interested in the outfield, personally. Ozuna is useless, Duvall is probably washed. We have no one to play LF. Not feeling great there.
Bogaerts has been a significantly better offensive player than Swanson. By reputation at least, his defense is not as good as Dansby’s. If the price is close, you get better value for Bogaerts. The real question is, can he stick at shortstop? Lots of folks say he is destined to move to third in the next couple of years. That’s not an option in Atlanta.
Football is still way behind the other sports re: game-theory backed by analytics. You should go for it on 4th down almost always these days. A punt is a turnover. You should always go for 2 as well if you’re making more than 50% of them. I keep thinking someone will do this one year in major college football. Vandy would be the perfect place to experiment from.
@27 LF candidates include Rosario and Contreras and possibly also Grissom and (eventually) Justyn-Henry Malloy. No can’t-miss names there but Rosario has been a capable starter before, Contreras has an excellent bat, Grissom is a good athlete, Malloy is a decent prospect with good OBP skills.
I wouldn’t be surprised to see the Braves make a move to fill LF from outside the org, but only after ridding ourselves of Ozuna.
@24–LSU-Alabama 2012 championship game is another flip of the regular season result. The 2018 Bama-UGA natty was not a flip of an earlier meeting between those two. UGA had flipped Auburn that year, losing to them in the regular season and beating them in the SEC championship.
There may be other rematches/flips in the natty, but I’m not coming up with it off the top of my head.
Apparently Xander was much better with the leather last year.
@29
This has cleared up a lot recently as football coaches have finally started to embrace the probabilities of these situations, but for the longest time, you’d find me on the “analytics” side when it came to football and the “anti-analytics” side when it came to baseball. Baseball had embraced analytics to the point where they were frequently overdoing it, like taking a pitcher out after two times through the order even if they were cruising for instance, while football coaches were still punting from the opponent’s 40-yard line down two scores with 10 minutes to go in the fourth quarter.
Now I don’t agree that you should never kick in football at all (which is the extreme analytics side), so I think it’s less that I was a huge analytics guy in football and more that old-school football coaches are/were insufferable luddites for the most part and we’ve now arrived at moderate analytical thinking, generally speaking.
@ 32, but that is one season out of several and the variability of defensive stats and stabilization makes it scary to count on that.
I guess A.J. Pollock costs too much and doesn’t hit enough, but his glove plays well in LF.
Interesting article on Fangraphs as to why the Braves might have targeted Hilliard (the seemingly AAAA outfielder of 28 years old formerly of the Rockies). Appears he is a left handed pull hitter very susceptible to shifts who over the past few years has consciously tried to go the other way and destroyed his batted ball profile. He added lots of off field fly ball out and lost pull field fly balls that would have been more likely to result in home runs, hits, and extra base hits. His ML work suggests he is a slightly above average fielder in left. He has no options, but 5 pre FA years. Hmm?
Mets’ SP Chris Bassitt opts out of contract, turns down $19M.
That now makes 3 Mets SPs (Bassitt, Walker, deGrom) declaring for free agency. The Mets also have 2 notable relievers going FA (Ottavino & Lugo), plus their CF/leadoff man (Nimmo). They have 11 FAs, the most in MLB.
After Nunez’s whopper deal, we’ll see how many they re-sign.
@36
That’s really interesting. It’s pretty cool to think that we have a team of people in the front office scouring through batted ball data to see who had been uniquely harmed by the shift and therefore is in a prime position to rebound by its removal.
New thread.
https://bravesjournal.mystagingwebsite.com/2022/11/09/2022-braves-player-review-travis-demeritte/