Quick, baseball fans, give me the name of a 26-year old catcher who so far in his 4-year career (just 176 games played) has been worth nearly 6 wins for his team. I'll wait.
Need a hint? He made just over $500k in 2013, his first full season behind the plate, and is under team control until 2018.
Still nothing?
How about some stats to help out: This guy posted a .274/.349/.397 line in his 380 at bats last year while saving more runs with his defense than perennial All-Star and MVP candidate Yadier Molina.
Stumped? C'mon guys, it's not like we're living in the height of the catcher era right now.
Ok, fine, I'll give you the answer. The mystery man I'm referring to is none other than Chicago Cubs catcher Welington Castillo, a player who gave us a glimpse last year why he just might be one of the most underrated assets in all of baseball. Or why he might have all of us fooled into thinking that way.
While it may seem the 26-year old took his time before finally making a big league impact (he was signed as an amateur free agent in 2004), his rise to the everyday catching role has been a steady one. In 2006 he debuted in the Cubs organization in rookie ball, and from there he began the usual progression through a system trying to determine which of its hundreds of assets might someday help the big club bring home a winner. If you've read this far, I don't need to tell you that the Cubs have been searching for a winner for a very long time.
In 2007, playing A ball with the Peoria Chiefs, Castillo burst on the scene with 11 homers in 317 ABs, posting an impressive .757 OPS. He also showed high-end defense in his 98 games behind the dish.
He would continue to put up above-average stats throughout the next few seasons before capping an impressive minor league career with bests in slugging (.498) and OPS (.815), while bopping 13 homers in 2010 with the AAA Iowa Cubs.
Following his career year, Castillo had a couple cups of coffee with the big club in 2011 and 2012 (33 ABs combined) before finally catching his break. In 2012, in the middle of yet another Cubs-like season in which the losses were racking up and management was desperate to ship bust after bust out of town, the Cubs dealt former NL Rookie of the Year Geovany Soto to Texas for righty Jake Brigham (Who? Thought you'd never ask). Castillo finally had a chance to show what he could do.
And show he did. Well, kind of. Actually, Castillo was essentially the definition of league-average in every facet of the game, posting an OPS+ of 103 (or 3% better than league average, on a park-adjusted basis) and throwing in half a win in defensive value to boot.
Ok, admittedly, this doesn't exactly sound like the pedigree of someone who's been touted as the heir apparent to one of the best catchers we've ever seen. But it gets better. I think. Over the course of the next summer, in fact, bored baseball writers and bloggers finally begin to take notice. Which is good. I think.
To start 2013, the third year of highly, ahem, sought after GM Theo Epstein's stint with the Cubs, the team had plenty of question marks. Coming off 91- and 101-loss seasons to start his tenure, there's little doubt there was much to think about in terms of his current roster and the talent the team had on hand.
So Epstein wanted to see what he had in Castillo, granting him the opening day nod behind the plate. The catcher would go on to have another solid, if not spectacular, offensive year, adding a couple wins and posting a 104 OPS+. Shoot, the guy had a higher OPS than star first baseman Anthony Rizzo (!).
Where Castillo really seemed to shine, however, was on defense. But it is here where things also become a little muddy in terms of player valuation. At least, that's what the stats were saying. Take the following:
Below you will see two different statistical sets, advanced and contemporary, both from Castillo's 2013 season in which he played 113 games at catcher for the Cubs:
Advanced:
Led MLB catchers with a 2.8 dWAR (defense-independent Wins Above Replacement) and Defensive Runs Saved with 19. He also led all catchers in good fielding plays (whatever that means) by a long margin, with 10.
So while it's easy to look at that gobbeldy gook and think you're reading about a good defensive player, take a second look at what the old fashioned box scores are saying about Castillo's glovework:
Contemporary:
Tied for the lead in errors committed for NL catchers (10) and finished fourth in passed balls (8), just one behind a three-way tie for first among those same backstops. He also permitted 67 stolen bases, good for third-most in the NL, on his way to throwing out just 29% of the steals attempted against him. And he did all this while finishing outside the top five in games played.
This brings us to a fork in the road for Mr. Castillo's future hopes, as well as the much bigger question of which stats are more accurate in measuring a players' actual value, both current and future. Do advanced stats, though inherently flawed, trump more traditional measures due to their fancy ballpark adjustments and position-independent formulas? Or can we still come away from a day at the yard with a good idea of a player's capabilities by using our trained fans' eye?
The answer, like most, more than likely lies somewhere in between. Is it great that Castillo led the league in all of those advanced defensive metrics? I can tell you with at least some degree of confidence that it sure doesn't hurt.
And is it such a bad thing that he committed all those errors while allowing more than two-thirds of attempted base stealers to move 90 feet closer to scoring while merely dirtying up the ol' uniform? Well, yes, but maybe not as bad as it might seem.
What I come away with after a little context is a picture of a very busy player with not much help in terms of talent around him. Despite all the errors, Castillo still comfortably had the second most assists among NL catchers last year, ending 85 baserunners' trips with an out in some way, shape or form. To me, and to most reasonable followers, you're going to make errors here and there if you're getting that many opportunities with the ball in your hands. Especially with a young player like Castillo. And with other youngsters like Rizzo and Starlin Castro on the receiving end of some of said opportunities. (Hey, not everyone can be Andrelton Simmons.)
As for the runners, not all of that is on Castillo. The (Bad News) Cubs haven't exactly been known to offer up too much assistance to their catcher in this regard, either.
So, the bottom line is that what the Cubs have on their hands is an interesting player once he's all healed up from a knee procedure that ended his 2013 prematurely. For Theo Epstein, interesting is much better than what he's looking at elsewhere on the diamond.
In fact, Epstein's got a player he knows will be able to handle the rigors of catching every afternoon in Wrigley Field, who will give him reliable offensive contributions, and who has the upside to improve as he enters his age-27 season, when ballplayers typically hit their peak. He's got the guy who was his team's most valuable player in 2013, if not its most marquee name.
At the very least, he's got a familiar name for new Cubs manager Rick Renteria to pencil in behind the plate. How many teams can say that?
But as of today, I'm tempering my expectations that he's ready to join the elite and become the Cubs' catcher of the future. While his play to date has certainly been a welcome surprise for a fan of a league in need of more star catchers, his relatively blah (scientific term) offensive pedigree and the general shakiness of the defensive advanced metrics argument leave me wanting more in a cornerstone backstop. In other words, I want to see it before I can believe it.
For now, it would seem, the tangibles win out.
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