laxtonto

Here is my question. If the Sox signed Tex, would they not in the long term solved their SS problem for this season? If the team is dealing Lowell, he was going to go to a team that would be needed a 3B and would be sending a player with some monetary cost back to the Sox. I would not have been surprised to see a Lowell and Bowden for Young and Teagarden deal at that point with Texas kicking in some money to balance the deal. That would not have solved the WDH problem, but it would have left Lowrie as the Util INF and one less hole in the lineup.

AVG OBP SLG OPS April .250 .348 .533 .881 May .208 .273 .354 .627 My major concern would be that his entire OPS in April was based upon his 6 XBH in his first 10 starts. His current slide is a major concern at this point and his inability to throw out runners (below 20%) has lead to a huge jump in the amount of base runners that attempt to steal on him. He has gone from .507 attempts per game for his career to 1.55 per game. That is normally a sign that other teams have scouted enough to say that if a pitcher is even remotely slow to the plate to run on Tek.

Salty received decent to good reviews from the Dominican Winter League while Clement has had the whole not being able to say behind the plate question for a few years now. I would equate Clement behind the plate to Max Ramirez, but I think Ramirez has the better bat. To many people look at his error totals last season and fail to take into context that he was trying to pay through a severe groin injury. With Laird already hurt with the same injury, Teagarden at the Olympics, the original MLB backup out for the season and Max Ramirez fighting through a hip flexor injury, Salty got left holding the bag. In hindsight trying to protect a 40 man spot probably caused Salty to finish his season early with forearm soreness due to having to make all his throws with his footwork lagging behind, but at the time he was all they had. I am less worried about Salty being a league average C defensively and more worried about his total inability to hit Lefties. It would be great to see him as a platoon guy, but he has even more value if you don't have to sit him when somebody brings in a lefty reliever to face him late in a game.

It looks like Clement is less likely to stay behind the Dish than Salty, so I am not entirely sure why an older Clement is ranked in front of Salty. Truthfully these guys are all just a function of cost. If you are looking at them all at the same price the 2 Texas catchers, then Montero, then Clement. The problem is you are not looking at then at a static price. Is Teagarden for Buchholz a better deal than say Salty for Bowden and Hagadone, or Montero or Clement for Bowden and a low tier high potential guy? That would be the true question. Teams will continue to ask for a premium, especially if the Sox start off slow and Tek is as bad behind the plate as last year. Best case scenario is Tek is serviceable league average catcher and the team can wait till the best possible offer and get a young catcher or hopefully one of the young guys show some development.

The problem with your argument that Tek will always get the benefit of the doubt becasue in the last 11 season the Sox has had a team ERA and league rankings of: 2008 4.01 (9th) 2007 3.87 (2nd) 2006 4.83 (26th) 2005 4.74 (24th) 2004 4.18 (11th) 2003 4.48 (17th) 2002 3.75 (7th) 2001 4.15 (9th) 2000 4.23 (5th) 1999 4.00 (5th) 1998 4.19 (9th) Even if he does get one or two poor starters, the overall team ERA will drag down those numbers. It falls right back to a sample size issue that you keep thinking you are using in the right context. Timlin (35.1) and Buchholz (67.2) pitched a combined 103 innings of the 1041 inning that Tek caught last year. For less than 10% of his innings caught to make a major difference to really sway his CERA for even .25 of a point would require both to have an ERA 2.46 points higher than the staff ERA. The problem is the inverse is true as well. The team has 950 inning pitched that fell below the team's ERA. So Tek should get credit for the great starts of very good pitchers, but does not get blamed for the bad ones by medicore pitchers? How do you explain Buchholz from 2007 and 2008? He was great in 07 and horrible in 08. Did Tek just forget how to call a game fir him all of the sudden? If not and Buchholz poor year last year the pitchers failling, then Tek's game calling had to effect on the game. You can't have it both ways. Either those poor pitcher's that Tek got stuck with were not any good and therefore they had a high ERA and therefore Tek has no impact with calling the game, or Tek failed at game calling with them but didn't with other members of the staff. As far as the beliefs of former players promoting Tek's good virtues, why wouldn't they. They are his friends and teams mates. Of course they are going to want Tek get paid in his last few years before retirement, especially after his divorce. If Tek's game calling was such a superior skill why did the Sox wait till 2 weeks before ST starts to offer him a new deal? If Tek game calling skills where such a big deal why did he have no other offers? If Tek had a direct control on the ERA of team becasue of his extreme ability to call a game, why would the normalized ERA not be even more in his favor. If it is a definable skill that he is superior at, that would lead to a measurable difference, normalized data would still skew heavily towards Tek. All normalization does is help overcome the sample size error becasue Tek is the primary catcher that catches roughly 130 games a year.

Well it seems like you never read the underlying study. This is every pitcher that Tek has caught 5 times or more that also has pitched elsewhere. That way good or bad that does not matter. Your problem is your lazy. Actually read the information before instantly complaining about it becasue it goes against what ever you think is correct. After reading it try to make and intelligent argument. Until you can do that, you just sound like a child that is unwilling to believe in something becasue it goes against what you think is right.

You guys are missing the point, this covers ALL pitchers to EVER pitch to Tek wearing a Red Sox uniform. Not just last season, for the past 11 years The problem is to many people want to give Tek credit for catching guys that already are very good pitchers. If you normalize the data you find out that this really isn't true (which also gets rid of the sample size issue for the most part).

For all of those people that keep saying that the reason to keep Tek was his ability to call a game, please read Rob Neyer's latest blog entry on ESPN. Since I don't have enough posts some one will have to post the link latter. In a nut shell, So once again why did the Sox just sign him to a 2 year deal, with the fist year starting at 5M? If he was such a factor behind the plate by calling a game, the pitchers that he caught at least 5 times had and ERA higher than the minimum 5 times he didn't catch them. If he was such a significant upgrade there should be a huge shift here in the other direction, not a slight shift towards having a better ERA without Tek.

He needs a lot of work, but has shown decent progression since he was traded from Cleveland to Texas. Supposedly his mechanics behind the plate are improving and Melhuse was brought in to teach more of the mental side of the game and refine his footwork and throws. I don't know what they do down there, but they have one hell of a Catching program. Texas has legit Catching prospects in the MLB level (2 actually) AAA, AA, A+ not sure in A ball, and should have 1 in SS if they bring their "next" Latin American stud from the DSL to Short Season ball. Texas goes after athletic players, mostly Latin American signees, and turns them into C. I know at least 1 is a converted SS. Hell, they moved one guy, Christian Santana, permanently from C to CF last year becasue of health concerns. He is considered to be a plus defender in CF. Texas is doing something right in their minor league affiliates with their catching prospects, thats for sure.

Melhuse was signed to be the personnel instructor for Max Ramirez. He is known as a very good defensive teacher and will be a minor league instructor after his professional career is over if he wishes to. If Melhuse can teach Ramirez enough to be an everyday catcher with average defense, his bat will make his top 5 at the position. Currently his bat is thought to be good enough that Texas initially considered to not use the option on Blalock and let Ramirez DH, but the team ultimately decided that he has infinately more long term value at C. 1 extra year in the minors will not hurt his abilty to DH longterm but can only help his chances of being a long term starter at C.

Ok, let put something to rest right now. The myth that certain guys call a better game than other's is just that a myth. Individual Catcher's no longer call the game, they no longer position players, and they no longer have a large influence on a pitcher/hitter match up. Those days are long past. With the jumps in technology, especially in the digital medium, every player is covered in multiple angels on every pitch. The success rate is charted, scouted, and reviewed by the pitching staff, pitching coach and advanced scouts. This is then matched up for each starter in a series and in general the bullpen and distributed at the appropriate time. At some point, several days, or the day before the game the pitching coach and starter and catcher get together and review all of the data and review a game plan for each opposing batter depending on situation, count and times through the line up. These match ups are determined well in advance and are constantly changing and updating by the scouting department and video group. The Catcher no longer calls the game. The sequence of pitches and are all based off of previous data gained via video and scouting. It is no longer about personal experience, feel for the game and out thinking a hitter. All the Catcher does now is execute that game plan. If you get player "X" in "Y" situation in "Z" count, you throw "1". That is not calling a game in the Yogi Berra sense of the word. It is dramatically more successful in the long term becasue assumptions made a Catcher can be wrong. A Catcher migtht remember that a player struck out on "X" pitch, but the video and scouting evidence will point to a longterm trend stating otherwise. The Catcher no longer positions the infield. Those calls are already determined by a statical breakdown of a player's spray chart and are distributed before each series. The only direct influence a Catcher alone has on the game is a slowly fading art of framing a pitch. That is one skill that a Catcher can still use to gain several extra calls a game. There is a reason why Colorado's introduction of the IPod Video as a medium several years ago won them the technology award at the GM meetings. Teams now have video of every batter and pitcher digitally loaded from both side and front view on all pitches. This helps pitchers prepare by understanding visually the weakness of a hitter, and hitters prepare by seeing several shots of arm slots, release points, trajectory and spin of a specific pitchers pitches. How far off the plate, how far up and in, how much tail, how much break are all thing you can see visually as well as graph. If you are a reliever on a fight to Toronto, you can spend a few minutes brushing up on what pitch locations are needed for specific players. You can review previous at bats you succeed or failed against that player. If your a hitter instead, you can see how tomorrow's starter has pitch you before. What location he has thrown to you, at what counts. It is an excellent tool that can be easily updated and distributed at a player's fingertips. Technology is changing the face of the MLB landscape. Advancements in statistical analysis, pitch fx data, and coming soon hit fx data, are all leading the charge for better use of the scouting data teams have had for years.

The problem I have with this entire Tek problem is that he has 0 leverage at this point. Once he declined arbitration and had FA compensation attached to his signing a new contract, he lost all leverage. No team is going to sign him at the cost of their 1st round pick or early 2nd rounder. That leaves teams that have already signed a Class A FA. The problem is that NYY will not sign him, not becasue they would lose a 4th rounder but because the Sox would gain a Supplemental 1st with his loss. The Angels, Philly, Atlanta and Mets have no need for Tek. Without a market Tek has 3 options. Take whatever deal the Sox offer, wait until after the draft and his attached compensation expires and sign elsewhere, or beg the team to sign him and trade him. That are the only possible outcomes, with none very plausible for the Sox at his initial reported price. Tek's best bet would be to take a deal very similar to Greg Zaun's :1.5M for 09 with a team option for 2M in 10 with a 500K buyout. The second major flaw I see in this is that the only way team will recieve any FA compensation after the 2009 season is to replicate his his 2007 numbers. He was the second to last in the class A Catcher group. Truthfully it would probably serve the team and Tek better to have a year just slightly less than his 07 year and qualify for class B status. That way he does not cost other teams a 1st round pick and yet build value to get a new contract. The best possible scenario would include a clause that says he will not accept arbitration in 09 or 10 to guarantee his making the FA market. My proposed deal would be to offer Tek 1.75 for 09 and 2.25 for 10 with a 750K buyout with a clause that would prohibit Tek and his agent from accepting arbitration in 09 or 10. That lets Boras and Tek save some face because it is a multi year deal making more than Zaun, while the team maintains enough flexibility to still make a deal for a younger Catcher.