The Predictable failure of the Catching tandem

Nobody listens

Russel Martin signed a two year deal with the Pittsburgh Pirates this off season and despite the fact that the Yankees could have matched the offer or signed him to a 1 year $10 million deal but the Yankees declined that in favor of having Chris Stewart as their starting catcher. As you may remember Stewart was supplanted by Francisco Cervelli but after only 17 games Cervelli was hurt and Stewart became the starter again. In the first half Stewart didn't play well but he hit .241 with three homers so some people were able to pretend that he did well. In the second half he nosedived offensively and at this point in the year he is basically a replacement level player. This could be attributed to either him wearing down or the fact that he got exposed in more playing time. Martin on the other hand put up similar numbers to his two years in pinstripes and has been praised for his handling of the pitching staff in Pittsburgh.
The sad fact is that GM Brian Cashman knew this would happen and wanted to sign Martin but ownership overrode him and let Martin walk, instead they spend $13 million on Ichiro who if he wasn't a name and didn't have another year on his deal would likely have been cut by now.  I wish I could say that the Yankees will fix this problem in the off season with free agent Brian McCann, but I do not honestly expect them to. The Yankees could have tried to see if Austin Romine could handle the starting job but instead they stuck with alternating the two so we never got an extended look at Romine and now he is out with a concussion. Unfortunately I feel resigned to the fact that we are going to have to see the Yankees trot out Chris Stewart as the starter again next season which is just insane for the New York Yankees to do two years in a row.
The worst part is how everyone saw this coming, nobody thought oh gee Stewart as the starting catcher that will work wonderfully and yet the Yankees did it and Cervelli as the backup who could have seen that coming unless we look at the fact that he has been injury prone for his entire career. Austin Romine wasn't ready for the big league when he got called up because everyone knew he wasn't going to be ready as he had only had 17 games at Triple A last year and his year before had also been shortened due to injury. I don't know what convinced the Yankees that Stewart starting would work but clearly they were wrong, but rather than admit this they have just kept going with it and very possibly will keep going with it into next season.

A True Yankee Podcast 2/12

A New Podcast for pitchers and catchers reporting! Brooke returns from her hiatus and we talk about the World Baseball classic, the A-Rod PED accusations and the Yankees offseason. Focusing on the Youkillis signing, the Ichiro deal, the catching situation and a potential new deal for Cano. We also examine the competition in the AL East and what to watch for in Yankee spring training.

Lamenting the loss of Russell Martin

 

Well the Yankees lost out on Russell Martin to the Pittsburgh Pirates. First off lets have that sink in, the Pittsburgh Pirates outbid the New York Yankees for the best free agent catcher on the market. The worst part is that Martin gave the Yankees the chance to match the offer of 2 years $17 million and they said that they did not have the money.
Without a doubt Catcher is the most difficult position to play in baseball and if the season started today they would need to rely on a combination of Austin Romine, Chris Stewart and Francisco Cervelli. Obviously Romine has potential but he has only had a limited time in AAA, after missing most of last year with a back injury. Also the Yankees pitching staff the last two years has been great, thanks in no small part to Martin being behind the plate. Martins defense is often undervalued by Yankees fans but his receiving skills and play calling are extremely important to making this pitching staff as good as it has been. Without Martin the Yankees will see a noticeable drop off from catcher defense, not to mention the loss of his offense, as the only current regular right handed bat in the lineup is A-Rod. Say what you want about his batting average but Martin hit 40 home runs in his two years as a Yankee and the balance he helped provide to the lineup cannot be undervalued. Last year the Yankees had four lineup regulars that could bat right handed in Swisher, Tex, Martin and ARod and now they will likely only have two. Those four guys hit 87 Home Runs last season and 45 of those are leaving with Swisher and Martin and its extremely unlikely that the Yankees will be able to make them up with whomever they have to replace those two. The fact that the Yankees refuses to pony up the extra $5-6 million is really going to cost them, especially with him poor the catching market is right now.

Francisco Cervelli 2011

(Nam Y. Huh/AP)

Heading into spring training there has been a lot of talk about the Yankees catching situation with the newly acquired former Dodger Russel Martin and Top Prospect Jesus Montero both looking at the starting job. The Yankees have already said that Martin will be the Starting catcher but Montero hopes to win the job in spring training, however most expect that he will start the year in AAA before making his debut later in the season. One person lost in the Montero/Martin talk is current backup Francisco Cervelli, who despite being the backup last year actually started more games than Jorge Posada. Cervelli will likely start the year as the backup behind Martin, but could still catch a fair number of games if Martin doesn't feel 100%.

Francisco Cervelli endeared himself to many Yankees fans when he was called up in 2009 after both Posada and Molina were injured and he did a great job behind the plate. Starting off the 2010 season Cervelli was great at and behind the plate and some even said that the Yankees should trade Montero and Romine because Cervelli was clearly the future starting catcher for the Yankees. Unfortunately Cervelli made a lot of errors in the second half of the season and as a result his defense rating plummeted and he finished  at the bottom of the league defensive ranking, but anyone who watched the games saw that a lot of these errors were not due to Cervelli making true defensive errors but were more bone headed than anything else. Also he was has statistically been good at throwing out runners until this year when he posted his lowest caught stealing percentage ever and again he was good at the beginning of the year before falling apart around the second half. He did post a .359OBP but his batting average took a nose dive after a very hot April & May and he has never had any power , but oddly enough did hit more triples this year than he hit in his entire minor league career.

Despite the criticism of Cervelli he has was a good backup and he hits well enough to be the starting catcher on most teams and in a recent interview he talked about working with Robinson Cano on hitting and on his desire to be a Starting catcher and win a Gold Glove. Cervelli has been apart of a lot of trade talks with many clubs asking the Yankees about him and he was almost dealt to the Dodgers for Russell Martin. Unfortunately for Cervelli I doubt that he will ever be the Starting catcher for the Yankees due to their great Catching prospects, but he could be a long term back-up or he could be traded at some point in the future as he is definitely capable of starting for a number of teams. Many could project that Cervelli could be dealt some time this season when the Yankees trade for a Starting pitcher but I expect that Romine will be the most likely trade chip this season if a catcher is involved.
I expect to see Cervelli about once a week and I expect that now that he will be playing in the backup role his defensive stats will improve. Also hopefully we will see the return of his Rawlings S-100 protective helmet which earned him the nickname Gazoo.