Did the lack of an established every day catcher play a role in FA for the Angels?

[Pancake Bear]

8 minutes ago, Billy_Ball said:

Yeah, Cole won't have the comfort of having Maldonado or Stassi catching him.  His pitching will resemble more what he did in Pittsburgh than Houston.

Catchers don't make that big of a difference.

[arch stanton]

43 minutes ago, Pancake Bear said:

Catchers don't make that big of a difference.

Greg Maddux begs to differ

[zenmaster]

But what about all this about Stassi being an amazing pitch framer? 

[Angel Oracle]

17 hours ago, Jeff Fletcher said:

My understanding is the Angels weren’t even that close on Keuchel. They had health concerns with him so were looking more in the neighborhood of 3/45ish. 

Not just health concerns, also lots of hits concerns

Let this sink in.   In three of the past 4 seasons, not only was he on the DL for significant time in two of them, for all three of them his ERA was in the high 3s to mid 4s and his WHIP was consistently around 1.30.   And he got almost $20 million a year for 3 years?

Thanks for nothing Nationals, you broke the salary structure for pitching.

Randy Orton has three words for you.

Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!

Edited December 31, 2019 by Angel Oracle

[mulwin444]

19 hours ago, tdawg87 said:

I don't think so. It's about $$$. I mean, Cole is going to be pitching to Gary Sanchez. The Jays have a bunch of great young catching prospects but no one established.

If the Angels offered Keuchel more money, I'm guessing he would have talked up the infield defense as a selling point.

 

This...Keuchel went to the team that offered him the best deal.  We didn't lose out on him because who is on the roster.

[AngelsFaninGA]

I heard we offered Keuchel 8/180 and he turned it down because he didn't vibe with Max Stassi during their lunch meeting. Big black mark on Eppler's resume

[Pancake Bear]

6 hours ago, arch stanton said:

Greg Maddux begs to differ

His catcher turned him from a 2-3 to an ace? They should’ve elected them to the Hall as a pair. 

[TroutCron]

On 12/31/2019 at 5:13 AM, Pancake Bear said:

Catchers don't make that big of a difference.

Wrong. A quality catcher can control the running game, can detect a problem with a pitcher’s delivery, and can control the pace of the game. This is especially inportant with young pitching. 

[Pancake Bear]

21 minutes ago, TroutCron said:

Wrong. A quality catcher can control the running game, can detect a problem with a pitcher’s delivery, and can control the pace of the game. This is especially inportant with young pitching. 

Context. If you weren’t so busy trying to score points and actually read what I was responding to, you just might’ve noticed that the question related to how good Cole will be in NY. Someone said he’d be more like he was in Pittsburgh. That’s ridiculous. 

I responded by noting that catchers don’t make that big - turning a pitcher from a 2-3 into a best pitcher in baseball - a difference. 

So maybe next time read the post I’m responding to first before you respond to something I didn’t say. 

[disarcina]

Martin Maldonado just signed a two year deal with Houston.

He makes the pitching staff better,

I still do not understand that after the Astros World Series run in 2018 where Maldonado did so well (and with the pitching staff responding / performing well) why Houston did not immediately re-sign him,

then Maldonado was a left as an unsigned F/A until literally the 2019 season started -- KC signed him because Salvador Perez went down with a season ending injury.

So Maldonado goes to KC -- does ok there and they deal him to Chicago (Maddon) and Chicago flips him back to Houston where he winds up where he was in 2018 -- playing for Houston in the 2019 post-season.

Meanwhile in 2019 we signed Lucroy - who many here questioned his defensive ability -- well he was gone by mid-August after having a poor offensive and defensive year for the Halos,

why didn't we sign Maldonado after the 2018 season (he was an AL Gold Glove winner at C in 2017)?  Why didn't we jump in and sign him when we had the chance in 2019 during the season?

now Houston - this year - decided to sign him to a two year deal -- meanwhile Halos are without a true every day catcher.

[disarcina]

38 minutes ago, TroutCron said:

Wrong. A quality catcher can control the running game, can detect a problem with a pitcher’s delivery, and can control the pace of the game. This is especially inportant with young pitching. 

I agree with TroutCron -- look - a quality catcher won't turn a mediocre pitcher into Cy Young but can make the difference around the margins and as TroutCron points out can really assist in the development of young pitchers Iaren't they all young pitchers these days? -- seems so) especially in taking command of a certain pitch and building the confidence to throw that pitch at key points in the count.

Also - a weak defensive catcher (does anyone seriously argue that the Yankees Gary Sanchez may be the worst defensive starting catcher in MLB today?) -- Gary Sanchez is a player who I think should fill the DH/ third string catcher role on an AL roster.  You then have a back up catcher when a team runs out of players in a game (seems to be happening more and more -- the games where position players end up pitching),

So Cole -- he's good -- but would be better with a quality catcher behind the plate - he won;'t have that for a lot of his starts for NYY.

[Pancake Bear]

3 minutes ago, disarcina said:

So Cole -- he's good -- but would be better with a quality catcher behind the plate - he won;'t have that for a lot of his starts for NYY.

Severino and Tanaka don’t seem to have much trouble shutting us down. 

[ten ocho recon scout]

On 12/31/2019 at 8:09 AM, Vladdylonglegs said:

Every player (besides Greinke) always does the typical PR campaign about how being offered the most money by a team was an unrelated factor and they actually signed with that team because of a,b, and c. It’s laughable and scripted. 

I think there are exceptions. Some guys truly do have different reasons. Some really want to play somewhere in particular.

But generally, it absolutely is about the money.

[Jeff Fletcher]

1 hour ago, disarcina said:

I still do not understand that after the Astros World Series run in 2018 where Maldonado did so well (and with the pitching staff responding / performing well) why Houston did not immediately re-sign him,

Apparently the Astros offered him something like 2/12 and he turned it down, so they signed Chirinos. Then Maldonado got nothing for months and fired his agent.