Searching for catchers

The Twins announced their instructional league invites on Thursday, and eagle-eyed Steve Buhr noted on Twitter that Michael Davis, who took over at shortstop for Cedar Rapids after Royce Lewis was promoted, was listed as a catcher.

Davis was taken in the 24th round as a senior out of Texas Tech, and he apparently played third base as a senior in college, second base as a junior. When I saw him at the end of the Midwest League season, he sure looked like an experienced shortstop.

But even if he is a shortstop, he's sandwiched between Royce Lewis and Wander Javier in the Twins organization, and that doesn't equate to a lot of opportunity moving forward. The Twins, it's safe to say, have a lot more invested in Lewis and Javier than in Davis.

So this experiment -- assuming that the listing as a catcher wasn't some sort of clerical error -- might be a blessing for Davis. Or it might be another logjam; the Twins have in the past few years, both under Terry Ryan and the Falvine regime, seemed to be gathering as many catchers as possible. Their second-round pick in the same draft in which they took Davis is a catcher.

But it's a tough position to fill because it's a difficult position to play. No-hit receivers like Chris Gimenez, Drew Butera and Bobby Wilson seem to hang around forever -- not necessarily with one team, but but into their mid 30s despite their lack of offense. Davis looks like he can hit, he's got a strong arm, and if he can take to the position with alacrity, there will be an opportunity for him.

Trip to Cedar Rapids: The catchers

The Twins have twice in recent years, once under each front office regime, made concerted efforts to bolster the catching depth in the organization.

Mitch Garver, who is as close as the 2018 Twins have to a primary catcher, is the product of the Terry Ryan regime's effort. Five years ago the Twins used three picks in the first nine rounds on catchers. Stuart Turner (3rd round) is out of the organization, and Brian Navaretto (6th round) is at Double A Chattanooga, where he is having his best offensive season to date, which isn't saying much.

The Falvine regime made another push on backstops starting during last offseason and continuing though the draft. Two of those additions are on the Cedar Rapids roster right now, and I saw each behind the dish.

Ryan Jeffers was the Twins' second-round selection in June. Like Garver and Turner, he's a college draftee (North Carolina -Wilmington); like Garver, he is viewed as a bat-first backstop. 

When Garver came through Cedar Rapids, he hit third for the Kernels. Jeffers hit third in both games I saw, first as a catcher and then as the designated hitter.

His hitting lines in his two months or so as a pro are impressive, and he went 4-for-9 in the two games. The receiving skills are presumably a work in progress. 

Jeffers is big, and he doesn't appear to be as able as Joe Mauer was in his catching days to fold that big body into a low target. With no runners on, Jeffers frequently set up with one leg extended out to the side, a techinque I first saw used by Tony Pena some 30 years ago.

I saw one pitch elude him on Monday, a delivery low and to the glove side that may have been a cross-up and definitely wasn't located where Jeffers was set up. I don't know how to apportion the blame for that one.

David Banuelos had no such issues when he caught on Wednesday. But he also got no hits. Both fit the scouting report on him when the Twins got him from Seattle last November for international pool cap space during the Shohei Ohtani derby. He's been at Cedar Rapids all season, where both his on-base percentage and his slugging percentage are below .300. 

Others of some note in the Twins' catching-acquistion spree:

Chris Williams (8th round out of Clemson) has played strictly first base at Elizabethton, a level below Cedar Rapids, where he has hit 15 homers. That he hasn't caught yet as a pro may be significant.

Trevor Casanova (13th round out of El Camino College in California) is also at E-Town and putting up pretty solid numbers at the plate.

Jangison Villalobos, who was essentially a throw-in in the Phil Hughes salary dump during the season, is playing for the Twins complex team in the Gulf Coast League. He's old for that level, and I don't expect he'll ever get to Cedar Rapids.

How hard to work Castro

No question: Jason Castro was signed to be the Twins primary catcher. But how primary?

Castro has averaged 105 starts behind the plate the past three years with Houston. Paul Molitor has reportedly told him he (Molitor) wants to start him 120-125 times this year.

I intuitively think that's too much. I'd rather see the left-handed hitting Castro deployed as part of a platoon -- Castro starting against right-handed starters, the backup against lefties. Certainly the pieces are there to do that, with backup contenders Mitch Garver, Chris Gimenez and John Ryan Murphy all right-handed.

Castro certainly has hit righties better than lefties. In 2016, for example, his OPS against righties was .757; against southpaws, .478. He's a .190 career hitter against lefties (505 official at-bats). Of course, the Twins didn't commit $24.5 million to him for his bat, and there's no platoon differential in the field.

Houston does not appear to have ever tried a straight platoon with Castro. Last season Castro started 81 of Houston's 109 games against righties and 21 of their 53 games against lefties. That leans toward a platoon, but is pretty loose.

Last year the Twins faced 46 left-handed starters and 116 right-handers. If repeated in 2017, that sort of splits the difference between 105 and 125. It may well be that even if Molitor were to adopt a strict platoon at catcher (at least in terms of who starts) that Castro would get more work than he did in Houston. And it would focus his at-bats against pitchers he has a chance against.

Joe Mauer and catching comps

When I visit player pages on Baseball Reference, I frequently check the similarity scores down near the bottom of the page. Similarity scores are a Bill James invention, a formula that starts at 1,000 and subtracts for statistical differences and includes a positional adjustment.

Because of the positional adjustment, the closest comps are generally players of similar position. Example: Greg Gagne, the shortstop of the 1987 and 1991 World Series winners. His 10 best comps are eight shortstops and two second basemen, including two of his predecessors as Minnesota's shortstops (Leo Cardenas and Zoilo Versalles). His closest comp is Mike Bordick, whose career overlapped with Gagne's. Bordick's closest comp is Gagne, and his top 10 includes five of Gagne's top 10.

Anyway: When I was doing last week's series of posts about catchers on the Hall of Fame ballot, I glanced at the similarity scores for those guys.

Jorge Posada's list is topped by five catchers, starting with Lance Parrish and including a pair of Hall of Famers (Gabby Hartnett and Gary Carter). Then come four middle infielders (one in the Hall), followed by another HoF backstop (Bill Dickey). None of them, by the way, is a particularly close match for Posada (860 is the top score); James has said that that is often the case for a Hall of Fame caliber player.

Ivan Rodriguez's list is headed by Pudge 1.0, Carlton Fisk, and includes three other catchers (Ted Simmons, Carter and Yogi Berra). Fisk's score is 818, which isn't very comparable at all. Pudge 2.0 was a unique player.

Jason Varitek's best comps are all catchers, and the first nine are more comparable to him than anybody is to Posada. None of Varitek's comps are in Cooperstown.

A.J. Pierzynski has six catchers and four middle infielders in his comps. Two Hall of Famers, as I mentioned in an earlier post.

And Joe Mauer has ZERO catchers in his comp list. No. 1 is Dustin Pedroia. The next two are Hall of Fame shortstops, Lou Bordreau and Travis Jackson. Then come a bunch of infielders whose scores are rather distant.

(Pedroia's best comp is Mauer, followed by a bunch of second basemen.)

It's really odd to see a catcher with no catchers in his comp list. But as I've said often, Mauer is a historically unique figure. The catcher I've long thought of as the Mauer prototype is Mickey Cochrane, Hall of Fame catcher of the 1920s-30s. Mauer is No. 5 on Cocharne's list, which contains nine catchers and Boudreau (four Hall of Famers in all, plus Mauer and Yadier Molina). But nobody scores particularly close to Black Mike either.

Turnover among the catchers

Mitch Garver caught
in the Arizona Fall
League for the second
straight season.

The Twins spent most of 2016 with Kurt Suzuki and Juan Centeno as their catchers.

Neither remains on the 40-man roster. Suzuki is a free agent after the expiration of his contract, and Centeno was outrighted Friday. Each was a better hitter than receiver last year, and the new regime appears to have defense as a priority behind the plate.

The Twins have two catchers on their 40 now: John Ryan Murphy and Mitch Garver. I wouldn't care to wager that either will be the main receiver in 2017, but it's possible.

I saw Garver in 2014 with Cedar Rapids. He was in his first full season of professional ball, hitting well and reportedly rather rough behind the plate. He's still got some bat, even though his raw numbers the past two years aren't quite as impressive as in the Midwest League, and the reports on his catching are improving. (Mike Berandino of the Pioneer Press had this piece recently about Garver's work on his defensive skills.)

Garver was the Twins ninth-round pick in 2013, a draft in which the Twins took catchers in the third (Stuart Turner), sixth (Brian Navaretto) and ninth rounds. Neither Turner nor Navaretto have hit, and neither was added to the 40, so Garver has clearly passed them on the depth chart.

But it seems pretty clear, both from what the new regime has said and from what their organizations have done in the past (particularly in Cleveland) that the priority behind the plate is going to be defense. Murphy had a miserable season hitting last year, both at the majors and at Triple A, but his defensive metrics score well. Garver may well be a better hitter, but that probably doesn't give him an advantage over JRM.

And it would hardly be a surprise if a veteran backstop were added this winter.

Notes, quotes and comment

The Twins made their first cuts of spring training after Sunday's game, sending five non-roster invitees to the minor league complex. More cuts are to be announced today,

None of Sunday's reassigned five -- SS Engleb Vielma, 1B-OF Reynoldo Rodriguez, C-OF Alex Swim, RHP Jake Reed and IF Heiker Meneses -- had any realistic chance of making the 25-man roster. I did think Swim might last longer as the successor to the Dan Rohlfing role of "last non-roster catcher cut because he plays enough other positions that we can use him to sub for a regular."

I suspect today's wave of cuts will include a few more pitchers.

---

Speaking of Swim and catchers, the Monday print column this week actually saw print. (The sports editor apparently forgot to budget last week's.) It is, in effect, "Parsing the catchers, part four" and focuses on Kurt Suzuki and John Ryan Murphy, the duo expected to handle the catching duties this year for the major league team.

---

I want to recommend to you this piece by ESPN 1500's Derek Wetmore about the Twins and medical technology. Injury prevention is the next big goal in baseball's "big data" revolution. It's good to see some evidence that that Twins are working on that.

Parsing the catchers, part three

Mitch Garver threw
out 38 percent of
base stealers last
year for Fort Myers.

Juan Centeno and John Hicks; Stuart Turner and Carlos Paulino. Four catchers who spent 2015 at Triple A or Double A and who, barring injury, have little opportunity to move up the ladder in 2016.

And coming up from behind, Mitch Garver and Alex Swim.

If Turner and Paulino are catch-and-throw guys who offer little hitting, Garver and Swim might be the opposite. Garver's raw numbers last year at High A Fort Myers don't look like much -- his OPS fell almost 200 point from his 2014 in Low A Cedar Rapids -- but Hammond Stadium is notoriously difficult for hitters. Garver led the Miracle (who finished with the best overall record in their division of the Florida State League) in RBIs and doubles, and he had the best OPS of the six position players with at least 100 games played.

Garver can hit. So, albeit with little power, can Swim, a left-handed hitter who gets much of his playing time in the outfield or at first base. Swim hit .311 in Cedar Rapids in 2014, and he hit .311 again in 2015 for Fort Myers, but with a total of 24 extra-base hits over the two seasons.

Alex Swim caught
264 innings in 2015
and played 341 innings
at other positions.

They were drafted in the same draft as Turner (2013), Turner in the third round, Garver in the ninth and Swim in the 22nd. Turner was slotted a level above Garver from the beginning and has remained there, while Swim and Garver have moved up the ladder roughly in tandem, with Garver getting the priority in at-bats and innings behind the plate.

Last summer, Terry Ryan said that if one could combine Turner and Garver -- Turner's defense and Garver's bat -- you'd have a pretty good catcher. That's not an option. Ryan and his colleagues will have a decision here soon, probably centering on Turner. Does he repeat Double A? If he does, what do you do with Garver? Garver is 25, and there's no point in him repeating High A (he was old for the league last year).

The Twins remade their catching depth this winter, and now they have to sort it out.

Parsing the catchers, part two

Stuart Turner has,
according to Baseball
Reference, thrown out
35 percent of base
stealers in the minors.

Stuart Turner is frequently on prospect lists for the Twins. Baseball America, for example, lists him this spring as the organization's No 16 prospect; MLB.com at No. 23. The 2013 third-rounder was regarded as the best collegiate catcher in the land his junior year.

But he simply has not hit as a pro. His defensive chops will likely get him to the major leagues anyway, but he brings Drew Butera to mind: Good receiver, not good enough with the bat to be a regular. Still, virtually every list you'll find as Turner as the best catching prospect in the organization.

He spent last summer in Double A Chattanooga, and so one would expect that he's ticketed for Triple A Rochester. Problem: One would also expect that John Hicks and Juan Centeno, the duo I discussed in part one, will be in Rochester. I doubt there's playing time for all three.

Then there's Carlos Paulino, who split 2015 between Rochester and Chattanooga. Paulino's arm really stood out to me last week when I watched the catchers during infield and pitcher fielding drills; his throws made a audibly louder snap than anybody else's when they hit the infielder's glove.

Carlos Paulino's
career caught
stealing is 31
percent.

Paulino is a couple years older than Turner (who is himself less than a year younger than presumptive major league catcher John Ryan Murphy), and this is his third organization. He started in the Marlins system, then went to the Pirates chain. The Dominican has had only two seasons of more than 300 at-bats. so he's been basically a back-up catcher in the minors, hardly the fast track.

There's a lot more to catcher defense than arm strength, of course; pitch-calling, pitch framing, pitch blocking. I'm hardly expert enough to evaluate Paulino's skills in those areas, or Turner's either. But I do see them running into a numbers crunch. There's four guys ahead of them at the next two steps up from Chattanooga, and, as I'll discuss in part three, two pushing up the ladder right behind them.

Minor league teams often carry three catchers, and the Twins may have that in mind for their high-level farm clubs. Presumably Turner will be the playing time priority. But I doubt he's ever going to hit enough to make a genuine impact on the major league team.

Parsing the catchers, part one

Juan Centeno has never
hit more than one homer
in a minor league
season, but he already
has one this spring.

As is typical in spring training, the Twins have eight catchers in camp. It's a markedly different crew this year, however. Kurt Suzuki's still around, of course, but the other three backstops who spent time on the 40-man roster in 2015 -- Chris Herrmann, Eric Fryer and Josmil Pinto -- are all gone, as are Dan Rohlfing and Tyler Graves, two other non-roster invitee catchers for 2015 camp.

I have mentally split this year's catching crew into four two-man parts:

• The presumptive major leaguers, Suzuki and John Ryan Murphy. 
• The cup-of-coffee imports, John Hicks and Juan Centeno.
• A pair of catch-and-throw high minors guys, Stuart Turner and Carlos Paulino.
• Two guys hoping to get out of A ball, Mitch Garver and Alex Swim.

John Hicks was
2-for-32 with the
Mariners last season
and hit .245 for
Triple A Tacoma.

Hicks, who the Twins picked up on waivers early in the offseason from Seattle,  is on the 40-man roster. He got 34 at-bats with the Mariners last year, and that's the extent of his major league time. Centeno, who was with Milwaukee last year and the Mets before that, has had 66 plate appearances spread out over three years; he's a non-roster invitee. They're both 26. Centeno hits left, Hicks right.

Presumably they are competing with each other to be the first option should something before Suzuki and Murphy. They've both hit some in the minors. Centeno has a .298 batting average (with little power) in more than 600 Triple A at-bats, and Hicks has a .280 career batting average in the minors with some power, although most of that has come in the lower levels. (I saw Centeno homer last Saturday during my Fort Myer visit against a Baltimore reliever.)

Hicks' roster status probably gives him a leg up on Centeno, but the Twins would probably be just as happy if neither ever saw Target Field. That would mean Suzuki and Murphy remained healthy and productive enough to stay on the roster and in the lineup.

The non-roster invitees

The Twins on Thursday announced 22 non-roster invitees to spring training. Some of the names are big prospects who are't on the 40-man roster: Jose Berrios and Nick Burdi,  Some are roster fillers for the upper levels of the minors. A couple -- left-handed reliever Fernando Abad and veteran outfielder Ryan Sweeney -- were fresh minor-league signings who may have legitimate chances to make the active roster.

And, as always, there are plenty of catchers on the list, five to be exact. There are also three catchers on the 40-man roster, so the Twins will have eight catchers in camp. The reason, of course, is to have plenty of backstops to be on the receiving end of dozens of bullpen sessions.

The catcher list always intrigues me, partly because most of them have to know that they're just there for the bullpen sessions. Barring injury, we know that Kurt Suzuki and John Ryan Murphy will be on the 25-man roster, and the other six will not. But they get major-league per diem while they hang around camp, and they are jockeying for position in the upper levels of the system.

The Twins made big changes in their catching depth this offseason. Five of the eight catchers in camp last spring are gone: Eric Fryer, Tyler Grimes, Chris Herrmann, Josmil Pinto and Dan Rohlfing. (Left, besides Suzuki, are Mitch Garver and Stuart Turner.)

The Twins have been big in recent years on hyphenated catchers. Herrmann was a catcher-outfielder. Grimes was a catcher-middle infielder. Rohlfing played a lot of outfield and first base. This seldom made a lot of sense to me. Most catchers are too slow for the other up-the-middle positions, and hit too lightly for the corner positions.

This spring's eight catchers includes one multi-position guy, Alex Swim. Last season, at Fort Myers, he played 30 games at catcher (Garver was the primary catcher), 24 at first base and 16 in right field. He also hit .311, which is also the batting average he put up in Cedar Rapids the year before. But the batting average is about all he has. He has three minor league seasons on his resume, more than 700 at-bats, and has yet to hit a homer. He turns 25 in March and hasn't gotten out of A ball.

So I say: Not a prospect. And then I say: If he keeps hitting .311, maybe ...

The catching future

The Twins this offseason have, as noted in Monday's post, shed three catchers who have bounced between Triple A and the majors the past three years -- Eric Fryer, Chris Herrmann and Josmil Pinto. They also, during the season, moved Dan Rohlfing to the Mets organization.

This essentially clears the deck for the trio of catchers the Twins selected in the first nine rounds of the 2013 draft: Stuart Turner (3rd round), Brian Navarretto (6th round) and Mitch Garver (9th round).

Turner, who turns 24 next month, figures to be the primary catcher at Triple A next year. He didn't hit much at Double A Chattanooga (.223 batting average with a .306 slugging percentage), and he didn't hit much the two previous years either. Drew Butera is probably a good comp to him: the defensive chops to catch in the major leagues, not enough bat to be a useful regular.

Garver can expect to move up a rung to Chattanooga. He'll turn 25 in January. He has shown a good bat in the past, but his production fell off notably when he moved from Low A Cedar Rapids to High A Fort Myers. That's not a plus, obviously, but some decline is always likely with that transition because Fort Myers is a notoriously difficult hitting environment, while CR is one of the more hitter-friendly venues in the Midwest League. Anyway: Garver is certainly a better hitter than Turner, and also said to be weaker behind the dish, He's also been consistently old for his level of competition.

Navarretto was the one high schooler of the three, which is why he's a level behind the other two.  He turns 21 next month. He will probably be the No. 1 catcher for Fort Myers. What he showed in Cedar Rapids was an excellent throwing arm and a weak stick -- .217/.256/.281. I happened to witness one of his two homers.

If there's a major league regular in that trio, my money's on Navarretto, but that's strictly on the basis of his youth, But the Twins can't count on any of the three emerging, which is part of why they traded for John Ryan Murphy. I think it likely that Murphy will split time with Kurt Suzuki in 2016, then become the regular in 2017, perhaps with Turner as the backup

I also think it likely that the Twins will be targeting catchers again in the 2016 draft.

Good-bye, Josmil

Josmil Pinto spent
2015 in Rochester
and on the disabled
list.

The Twins have moved rather aggressively to reshape their catching options for 2016.

Kurt Suzuki is still around, of course. But Chris Herrmann was traded to Arizona, Eric Fryer was outrighted and signed with St. Louis, and Josmil Pinto was claimed by San Diego. That's three catchers with major league experience cleared off the roster -- and one, John Ryan Murphy, added -- in roughly five weeks.

Pinto's departure had three causes: First, he isn't much of a defensive catcher, and it's not for lack of effort. Second, he was, by my count, sidelined three times by concussions last season. And three, there didn't figure to be a role for him on the roster. There are plenty of other DH options.

That he was claimed by a National League team suggests that not everybody is convinced that his defensive issues negate his batting. San Diego is a tough park to hit in, so even if Pinto gets playing time with the Padres, his numbers may not impress anybody.

The Padres have Derek Norris as their No. 1 catcher, and he's pretty solid. Austin Hedges was the primary backup, and he hit just .168, so there is an opportunity for Pinto to make the club. But he's one of four catchers on the 40-man roster.  He's got his limitations, and he's got competition.

Shows what I know

On Monday, evaluating the Twins catching situation, I surmised here that the Twins would stick with Chris Herrmann as the No. 2 catcher behind Kurt Suzuki.

Tuesday night they optioned Herrmann to Triple A, put Ricky Nolasco on the 60-day disabled list, and pulled Eric Fryer off the U.S. roster for the Pan Am games.

Fryer hit .299 for Rochester this year, albeit with little power (one homer and just seven extra base hits in 184 at-bats). He's regarded as a better defensive receiver than Herrmann, but I think Herrmann, despite his poor major league numbers to date, is a better hitter. Plus Herrmann's left-handedness provided a platoon option, even though Paul Molitor didn't always take advantage of it.

Fryer wasn't on the 40-man roster, but putting Nolasco on the 60-day DL opened a spot for him. Nolasco is to have surgery on his ailing ankle. I don't know how likely he is to return this year. If he does, it probably won't be until September, and the opportunities for him to get tune-up starts in the minors will be limited.

---

Another guy went on the 60-day DL Tuesday: Former Twin Justin Morneau, out since May 16 with yet another concussion.

The Rockies say the move doesn't indicate any deterioration in his condition, and he's about a week away from being eligible to come off the 60-day DL anyway. But reading between the lines, it doesn't appear that the 2006 AL MVP and last year's NL batting champ is going to be able to take the field any time soon.

To repeat what I've said before about Morneau and his brain injuries: It's his life and his health, but it's probably in his best interest to retire.

Contemplating the catcher situation

Kurt Suzuki's hitting
has fallen off sharply
from 2014, when
he was named to
the All-Star team.

The Twins played the first half of the season with just two catchers, regular Kurt Suzuki and backup Chris Herrmann. They haven't hit at all -- Suzuki's OPS+ is 65, which means he's 35 percent below league average, and Herrmann's OPS+ is 43, or 57 percent below average.

Still, there seems little indication that anything is going to change in this arrangement. Josmil Pinto, the only other catcher currently on the 40 man roster, was sidelined weeks ago by a concussion and is just starting to resume baseball activities, specifically catching in the bullpen.

And Eric Fryer, who had callups in both 2013 and 2014, is going to play for Team USA in the Pan Am Games, which begin next weekend in Canada and runs through July 19. Presumably the organization would not have given Fryer permission to leave the Rochester club for that purpose if they were thinking about bringing him back to replace Herrmann on the roster.

My guess is that if something were to happen during Fryer's absence that required a catcher callup and Pinto isn't ready that they'd turn to Stuart Turner, the No. 1 catcher for the Double A Chattanooga Lookouts. He can't hit either (.189 in Double A), but he wouldn't be an embarrassment behind the dish.

Ron Gardenhire
was more apt to
play Chris Herrmann
in the outfield than
at catcher, but
Paul Molitor has
used Herrmann
strictly behind the plate.

Suzuki, obviously, gets the bulk of the playing time. He's fourth in the American League in innings caught. less than two innings behind Russell Martin of Toronto but trailing Salvador Perez of Kansas City and Mike Zunino of Seattle by wider margins.

Herrmann plays only when Suzuki gets a day off. Herrmann caught the Saturday night game against a right-handed starter and Suzuki caught the Sunday day game against a lefty. That took advantage of one of Herrmann's defining traits: He hits left handed. Given his decent minor league numbers, I think he could be a reasonably productive hitter if he got more frequent playing time against right-handers, but about a third of his plate appearances have come against lefties. Such is the lot of the backup catcher.

Herrman has had more success throwing out basestealers than Suzuki has. Herrmann's caught stealing rate, 33 percent, is pretty much a match for the league average, while Suzuki's is just 21 percent.

There have been 21 wild pitches with Suzuki behind the plate and two passed balls charged to him. Herrmann has not been charged with a passed ball and been unable to block nine wild pitches. Suzuki has 0.36 WP+BP per nine innings, Herrmann 0.49. That's a wider difference than I would have guessed.

The Twins by position: Catcher

Kurt Suzuki had a career
year hitting last season and
parlayed that into a two-year
contract extension.

I saw an item this weekend about the Arizona Diamondbacks' catching situation. Miguel Montero had been their No. 1 catcher since 2009, but his offense has been down the past two seasons, he has a sizable contract and he'll turn 32 this summer; the Snakes traded him earlier this winter to the Cubs for a couple of minor leaguers.

Now they're looking for catching help, and not getting anywhere. They have two on their 40-man roster: last's year's backup Tuffy Goeswisch, a 31-year-old with all of 55 games on his major league resume, and Oscar Hernandez, a Rule 5 draftee out of the Tampa Bay organization who was left off the Rays' 40 after repeating Low A ball.

It's not a promising duo. Yet when the Twins outrighted Eric Fryer -- their primary backup catcher for most of 2014 -- last month, Arizona didn't claim him. Presumably they didn't see Fryer as any sort of upgrade over Goeswisch or Hernandez, and certainly not as a guy they could start 125 games behind the plate.

Catcher is a unique position, the most supremely specialized of the non-pitching positions. Kurt Suzuki, the Twins No.1 catcher these days, doesn't do any one thing superbly, but he does everything well enough. If Suzuki stays healthy, the Twins are OK behind the plate.

Behind him ... well, there's Josmil Pinto, who hits better than Suzuki but is regarded as a poor receiver, and there's Chris Herrmann, who hits left-handed and has some positional versatility. In fact, the Twins list Herrmann on their 40-man roster as an outfielder.

Paul Molitor should already know this, but Herrmann doesn't hit well enough to merit sustained playing time in the outfield. If he makes the team, it's as a backup to Suzuki. Pinto hits well enough to merit sustained time at designated hitter, but Ron Gardenhire was reluctant to play him there without a third catcher on the roster, and now Kennys Vargas appears to have the first crack at the DH job.

And Fryer, while not on the 40, remains in the organization and remains the superior defensive option as Suzuki's caddy.

Were Gardenhire still the manager, I would assume Fryer will be the backup catcher. Who makes the roster figures to tell us something about Molitor's priorities -- how he balances hitting potential and defensive skills, and how he views the importance of the platoon advantage.

Catching on: Kurt Suzuki and Josmil Pinto

Kurt Suzuki has been a far better hitter this season than anyone could have imagined. The veteran backstop, signed for his defense, is bopping along at a .312/.378/.416 clip. My preseason expectation — that the Twins would need to catch Josmil Pinto for his offense — is looking pretty foolish at the season's quarter pole.

Kurt Suzuki applies the tag to Adam Jones of Baltimore
to complete a strikeout earlier this season.

Not that Pinto has been a slouch at the plate himself. Pinto's OPS+ — On-base Plus Slugging, normalized to league context with 100 being average — has actually been slightly better than Suzuki's: Pinto's is 125, and Suzuki's is 123.

But Pinto is regarded as a raw receiver at best. The Twins broadcasters have raved all season about Suzuki's skills at blocking pitches in the dirt.

Last September I offered this examination of the 2013 Twins catchers and their abilities (or problems) at preventing passed balls and wild pitches. As I said at the time, the two events have the same outcome on the game: base runner(s) advances, or a batter reaches base on a strikeout. Passed balls are blamed on the catcher, wild pitches on the pitcher — but as the praise aimed at Suzuki suggests, a good catcher can prevent wild pitches a lesser one will allow.

Suzuki so far this year has caught 269.1 innings. He has not been charged with a passed ball, but there have been 10 wild pitches with him behind the plate, .33 per nine innings, or about one every three games. That's a better-than-league rate (.35 entering Monday), but not up to Joe Mauer's career standard (.27).

Pinto: 112 innings caught, five wild pitches and three passed balls. That's .40 WP/9, but .64 WP+PB/9.

Pinto is allowing a wild pitch or passed ball about twice as often as Suzuki. That certainly fits the belief that Suzuki is the superior defensive catcher.

There are complications, of course, and one complication that may ultimately make directly comparing their numbers futile is that it appears that Ron Gardenhire is going to make Pinto the personal catcher for Sam Deduno, who is probably the Twins' most difficult pitcher to catch.

Eye on 2014: Catcher

Josmil Pinto had 26 hits in his
late-season call up, but also struck out
22 times.

When the Twins signed Kurt Suzuki a bit before Christmas, the idea was that he might be the starting catcher, but more likely would be the backup and mentor to rookie Josmil Pinto.

The word out of Twins Fest this past weekend was that Suzuki is likely to be the regular behind the dish.

I infer from this notion that Pinto would be shipped out to Triple A. He's not going to sharpen his defensive chops sitting six days a week, and with Josh Willingham, Oswaldo Arcia and Jason Kubel the presumptive corner outfielders / DH, there doesn't figure to be enough at-bats available to justify Pinto as a DH-catcher.

Suzuki's backup would be either Chris Herrmann or Eric Fryer. Herrmann, a left-handed hitter with the ability to play outfield, is probably the better hitter of the two, Fryer the superior defender.

Last year, with Joe Mauer and Ryan Doumit getting the bulk of the catching time, catcher was perhaps the one position at which the Twins got better-than-league offensive production. Mauer's a first baseman now, and Doumit's an Atlanta Brave (and, apparently, not a catcher any more either), and it doesn't matter if it's Suzuki-Herrmann or Suzuki-Fryer -- the Twins catchers will be decisively below average on offense if Pinto's in the minors.

That might be acceptable if the Twins were't giving away so many outs at so many other positions. The Twins were near the bottom of the league in runs scored last year. They will probably need Pinto in the lineup to change that.

Twins can't catch a veteran backstop

A.J. Pierzynski has caught
at least 1,000 innings in each
of the last 12 seasons, an
impressive feat.

It became obvious Tuesday that, while the Twins may have gotten the deals they wanted in the starting pitching field of free agency, they were missing out on the catchers.

A.J. Pierzynski, whose proposed return was welcomed by the sentimentalists in Twins Territory, opted instead to sign with the Boston Red Sox.

Jarrod Saltalamacchia, the Red Sox' No. 1 catcher last year and another reputed Minnesota target, moved on to his hometown (more or less) Miami Marlins on a three-year deal.

Which left Twins general manager Terry Ryan, during the Tuesday Ricky Nolasco presser, gamely declaring that the Twins are willing to go with Josmil Pinto as the No. 1 catcher.

Willing, perhaps, but not quite eager. This isn't the Twins after the 2003 season trading away Pierzynski to make room for Mauer. They wanted an established catcher to buy time to further marinate Pinto in the intricacies of catching.

But I infer from the apparent insistence on a short-term deal that the Twins believe Pinto can indeed become a capable defensive catcher. They don't want to block Pinto.

It's still early in the offseason. The Twins might still land another receiver. But I doubt they're eager to invest in the likes of John Buck, J.P. Arencibia or Kurt Suzuki. And I'm not particularly eager to see them in Twins uniforms.

Eric Fryer's roster spot

Eric Fryer: Do the
Twins really have a
major-league role
in mind for him?

The Twins, as noted in Monday's post, list four catchers on their 40-man roster: Ryan Doumit, Eric Fryer, Chris Herrmann and Josmil Pinto.

Doumit is an established hitter with a contract. Herrmann is a lefty bat who can play a competent corner outfield. Pinto is raw behind the dish but a promising hitter. And Fryer is ... well, he's probably a good comp for Drew Butera: a good defensive catcher, no real reason to believe he can hit in the majors. (Yeah, Fryer's major league slash line is .302/.400/.395; that's just 50 plate appearances. His Triple A batting average, over three seasons, is .208.)

Fryer is 28, and this is his fourth organization (Milwaukee, Yankees, Pittsburgh, Minnesota). Presumably he's out of options. Organizational depth guys like him lose a lot of value if they can't be organizational depth — if they can't be assigned to the minors. Fryer's on the 40, so to ship him back to Rochester will require passing him through waivers.

Which is why I have spent the offseason so far expecting the Twins to outright Fryer to Rochester. If he opts for free agency instead, so be it. This is probably as good an opportunity for a player of his ilk as he'd find anyway.

Instead, the Twins have kept him on the 40. (For that matter, the Dodgers have hung on to Butera as well, and I know he's out of options.)

Why? Here's a theory.

As matters stand — and the roster certainly is up for change — at least two and quite probably three of those four will be on the Opening Day roster. Doumit has seen a good deal of his Twins action as the designated hitter, and catching is such a specialized job, and so subject to injury, that managers are often loathe to skip having a reserve catcher on the bench.

Let's say that:

• The Twins decide that Pinto will benefit from time in Triple A to polish his defensive skills; and
• The Twins don't sign a free agent catcher.

In that case, there's a role for Fryer. Of the four catchers, he's probably the strongest defensively; with Pinto out of the mix, he's the one true right-handed hitter of the remaining trio (which isn't to say he's a better righty hitter than the switch-hitting Doumit). Doumit catches about 50 games a year, and Herrmann and Fryer split the rest.

I suspect that if the Twins do sign someone like A.J. Pierzynski, it will be Fryer who gets lopped from the roster. But if they need to make room for a starting pitcher, it'll be somebody else who loses their spot.

The catching market

Ryan Doumit, seen in a 2012 mound conference, is
seldom mentioned in talk about the Twins catching situation.

Joe Mauer's not a catcher anymore. For the first offseason in more than a decade, the Twins don't know who's their No. 1 backstop.

They have four catchers on the 40-man roster — Ryan Doumit, Eric Fryer, Chris Herrmann and Josmil Pinto — and good reason to shy away from any of them as 100-game starters. This has them prominent in speculation about a fairly rich crop of veteran catchers, which is rapidly dwindling.

With the likes of Brian McCann (five years, $85 million, Yankees) and Carlos Ruiz (three years, $26 million, staying with the Phillies) reaching big-ticket free-agent deals in the past week, and such veteran backstops as Jose Molina, Geovanni Soto and Brayan Pena finding 2014 homes as well, the primary speculation is about Jarrod Saltalamacchia and ex-Twin A.J. Pierzynski.

 My thoughts:

• Importing a catcher probably means optioning out Pinto to work on his defensive skills. I'm pretty sure he can hit well enough to be a regular major league catcher right now.
• Pierzynski, who turns 37 next month, is probably a good candidate for a one-year deal. Salty, on the other hand, is likely to at least match Ruiz' deal, and having him block Pinto doesn't make sense — unless the Twins are already convinced that Pinto will never be good enough to be more than a backup.
• Doumit seems to be overlooked in all this.

The primary argument against Doumit as a regular catcher is, of course, his defense. He's a hit-first backstop — and, as it happens, so are Pierzynski and Saltalamacchia. But Doumit is regarded as less adept than the other two, and he didn't hit to his usual standards in 2013.

A secondary argument — and a good one — is that Doumit, who turns 33 in April, has a track record of injuries. He has just one 100-game season behind the dish in his career, and didn't catch at all in September after returning from an August concussion. He's not a good bet to carry the bulk of the load.

Doumit has one year left on his contract. If the Twins do bring in a established No. 1 catcher, Doumit isn't likely to catch as often as he has since joining Minnesota. If the Twins don't, then I would expect him to share the job with Pinto.

Which is my preference. I suspect Pinto will learn more about catching in the majors — especially with Terry Steinbach on the coaching staff — than in Triple A. The old Yogi Berra line about working early in his career with Bill Dickey — Bill is learning me his experience — applies.