So, Let's Talk About Miguel Olivo

To obliterate his career high in walks (currently 20 in 04)

here is no progress. Ever.

Process over Progress

I think that's what the plaque on Dayton's wall reads

that Olivo has improved his blocking at the plate. I don’t remember the source, though.

I think letting Buck walk was a mistake, and I thought so when they did it. Here were/are my reasons:

1) Pena isn’t going to start for this team. It just wasn’t going to happen.
2) There weren’t any FA that we were likely to go after that were any good.
3) Catcher wasn’t a pressing need.

Olivo, Coors Field, 2010: 22 for 52, 6 HR, 3 Doubles, 423/439/827
Olivo, on the Road, 2010: 7 for 54, 2 HR, 130/242/241

C’mon Will, 7 paragraphs and no sign that you checked the home/road splits? Coors Field might have a humidor, but it’s still a huge field at a high elevation, making good hitters out of anybody (Neifi Neftali Perez).

Olivo’s home numbers will likely fall, his road numbers will improve, the fall will surpass the improvement. Olivo was gonna outhit Kendall no matter what, but he’s helped by the fact that he plays in Denver.

And to complete the story

Jason Kendall, Kauffman Stadium, 2010: 13 for 54, 2 doubles, 241/359/278
Jason Kendall, on the Road, 2010: 28 for 90, 3 doubles, 311/340/367

Kendall -2.5, 159 PA
Olivo +3.3, 119 PA
Buck +7.1, 122 PA

The only thing I would take is Olivo’s power. Olivio strikes out around 25% of the time which means he can’t on a consistant basis move runners by hitting to the right side, you sure as hell can’t hit and run with the guy, he let’s more balls get to the backstop then I have ever seen.

Olivo has a lousy series, but that he hits a HR this weekend. Off of Zack Greinke

The other thing interesting is the games played / ABs of the 3. Kendall is by far and away the leader because other teams understand the value of giving the catcher days off.

I know – all stolen bases are not entirely the fault of the catcher. The pitchers have to try to hold runners close, then get the ball to the plate quickly. On the other end of the play, the middle infielders have to catch the ball and apply the tag. Still here are the numbers, including Buck’s (note: I looked these up on my lunch break, so I don’t guarantee that they are correct).

Kendall – 346.1 innings – 0 PB – 45 SB allowed – 16 CS (that seems high?)
Olivo – 262.0 innings – 2 PB – 11 SB allowed – 13 CS
Buck – 271.1 innings – 0 PB – 24 SB allowed – 3 CS (ouch)

I also threw in passed balls as you can see. Since “PB” is a somewhat objective scorer’s decision, I should include wild pitches – in theory, a “good” catcher should be able to “prevent” WP like a good 1st baseman can save throwing errors. Here are the number of wild pitches thrown by each team (I didn’t have time to break this down by catcher):

KCR – 15 WP
COL – 19 WP
TOR – 24 WP (13 by Ricky Romero!)

Obviously, most of our WP will have happened when Kendall was catching.

I know that it was

universally

appreciated

Without getting into every detail, here are the number I have so far for 2010. Remember, these are crude, don’t (can’t) take pitchers into account, it’s a small sample. Etc. It takes into account stolen bases/caught stealing (excluding pitcher pickoffs, wild pitches and passed balls, throwing errors, and fielding errors, and is based on runs above/below average.There are 78 catcher in the current rankings. I’ve rounded it to one decimal place, although it really isn’t even that precise.

Overall:

1. Yaider Molina, +5.3 runs
2. Miguel Olivo: 2.5 runs (4.4 steals, already =1.3 pitch blocking, a bit below on errors)
3. Jason Kendall: -0.1 runs. What a master.
4. John Buck: -2.9 runs, avoids errors, but yeah, he gets run on. But notice that it’s a 3 run difference between Kendall and Buck… and the offense difference is about 10 runs so far in Buck’s favor.

Didn’t he adopt like 11 unfortunate kids from his neighborhood?