Brian Harper's Start-O-Matic card from the 1990 season, when he hit .294. It was his lowest batting average in six seasons with the Twins. |
But in truth, that was only part of the story. Harper's bad defense rap was largely because he was very poor at receiving pitches. He dropped a lot of balls that hit him in the mitt. Junior Ortiz was Scott Erickson's personal catcher because Harper simply couldn't handle Erickson's sinker.
On the other hand, when Harper and Laudner were splitting the job, Laudner caught the guys who didn't need help (mainly Frank Viola and Bert Blyleven), and Harper caught the rookies and projects. Tom Kelly trusted Harper's pitch calling more.
This is all part of why catcher defense is so difficult to quantify. All defense is, really, but catcher defense particularly so.
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