One of the biggest questions baseball fans and management have to decide is if some level of performance is a fluke, statistical randomness or noise compared to having real meaning.
Part of the equation has to be his relationship with the pitchers, many of who expressed how much they like to throw to Alvarez and how he calls a game. Of course we can’t blame the month of May on no Alvarez, because it seems the hitters took the month off. In addition to hoping Alvarez catches 130 games, he needs to hit between 25-30 HR. That will elevate him from the end of the order to 6th and really make the Mets lineup one to fear. We know he has the ability to do so. If he has a good year, they should lock him up for several years on a team friendly contract.
One of the things I noticed about Alvarez - or just the Mets in general- is the importance of catchers. And how the Mets have historically Neglected that position. Casey Stengel said you have a lot of passed balls if you don’t have a catcher!
Yes we’ve had Piazza and Carter. Two HOF catchers. You never think of piazzas defense in his career. And Carter had his best years in Montreal.
The Mets seem to be taking developing internally more seriously than in the past. And doing that means better catching which in turn means better pitching which in turn means…more wins.
Piazza couldn't throw. But he was excellent in every other phase of the game. If he was active in the 21st Century, he would most likely be regarded as a good defensive catcher.
"In a 2006 study, Baseball-Reference founder Sean Forman found that Piazza was a whiz at preventing passed balls and wild pitches. And in an essay for the “Hardball Times Baseball Annual 2009” (which is now available online), Craig Wright — who pushed for playing time for a young Piazza during his time as a statistical analyst for the Dodgers — showed that with Piazza behind the plate pitchers allowed an OPS 25 points lower, and an unintentional walk rate 10 percent lower, than they did while throwing to different catchers in the same seasons. Subsequent work by Baseball Prospectus analyst Max Marchi in 2012 and Baseball Info Solutions founder John Dewan in 2013 also supported the idea that Piazza’s presence improved his pitchers’ results, as Piazza was pleased to point out in his book. The more sophisticated our statistical tools become, the better Piazza appears, and the more accurate Glavine’s statement seems."
Agree with your last paragraph entirely. It seems that a few years ago they started to populate the minors with strong catching prospects at each level. A smart investment in a scarce resource that might be an asset come trading times in the coming years.
Alvarez could be a big X factor for this team offensively. If he can put up a 25-30 HR season with a solid OPS, that would be a huge boost to the lineup. Not too many teams can get that kind of production from the catchers spot. I’d love to see him hitting in the top 5-6 of the order this year.
Alvarez, at 22 last season, handled the pitching staff like an accomplished veteran. He is a field General right now . His next step it should be his hitting. We have seen his power. Once he figures out that it's a natural power and that he doesn't have to pull everything then he will become a better hitter. I am confident that he is going to improve.
For a sport with so many variables and with so many moving parts and players, I dont think you can assign any single player with “the reason why”. Im sure there is a component of his presence that matters, but the entire outcome of a game seems mathematically very hard to imagine. I guess then youd really need to say the reverse for our old friend Jacob deGrom, who was outstanding at every level, CY great, yet the Mets played poorly when he started - was deGrom to blame? I just cant see that.
Alvarez had a 101 OPs+ and a negative dWAR (bbref). It’s not like he was throwing heroic numbers up. Seems like a coincidence or spurious correlation.
Part of the equation has to be his relationship with the pitchers, many of who expressed how much they like to throw to Alvarez and how he calls a game. Of course we can’t blame the month of May on no Alvarez, because it seems the hitters took the month off. In addition to hoping Alvarez catches 130 games, he needs to hit between 25-30 HR. That will elevate him from the end of the order to 6th and really make the Mets lineup one to fear. We know he has the ability to do so. If he has a good year, they should lock him up for several years on a team friendly contract.
One of the things I noticed about Alvarez - or just the Mets in general- is the importance of catchers. And how the Mets have historically Neglected that position. Casey Stengel said you have a lot of passed balls if you don’t have a catcher!
Yes we’ve had Piazza and Carter. Two HOF catchers. You never think of piazzas defense in his career. And Carter had his best years in Montreal.
The Mets seem to be taking developing internally more seriously than in the past. And doing that means better catching which in turn means better pitching which in turn means…more wins.
Piazza couldn't throw. But he was excellent in every other phase of the game. If he was active in the 21st Century, he would most likely be regarded as a good defensive catcher.
Ya think? I feel like if DH was in NL. He’d have played a lot longer.
"In a 2006 study, Baseball-Reference founder Sean Forman found that Piazza was a whiz at preventing passed balls and wild pitches. And in an essay for the “Hardball Times Baseball Annual 2009” (which is now available online), Craig Wright — who pushed for playing time for a young Piazza during his time as a statistical analyst for the Dodgers — showed that with Piazza behind the plate pitchers allowed an OPS 25 points lower, and an unintentional walk rate 10 percent lower, than they did while throwing to different catchers in the same seasons. Subsequent work by Baseball Prospectus analyst Max Marchi in 2012 and Baseball Info Solutions founder John Dewan in 2013 also supported the idea that Piazza’s presence improved his pitchers’ results, as Piazza was pleased to point out in his book. The more sophisticated our statistical tools become, the better Piazza appears, and the more accurate Glavine’s statement seems."
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/mike-piazza-was-more-than-a-big-bat/
Well worth clicking on the link, which includes several links to these studies.
Agree with your last paragraph entirely. It seems that a few years ago they started to populate the minors with strong catching prospects at each level. A smart investment in a scarce resource that might be an asset come trading times in the coming years.
Alvarez could be a big X factor for this team offensively. If he can put up a 25-30 HR season with a solid OPS, that would be a huge boost to the lineup. Not too many teams can get that kind of production from the catchers spot. I’d love to see him hitting in the top 5-6 of the order this year.
Alvarez, at 22 last season, handled the pitching staff like an accomplished veteran. He is a field General right now . His next step it should be his hitting. We have seen his power. Once he figures out that it's a natural power and that he doesn't have to pull everything then he will become a better hitter. I am confident that he is going to improve.
For a sport with so many variables and with so many moving parts and players, I dont think you can assign any single player with “the reason why”. Im sure there is a component of his presence that matters, but the entire outcome of a game seems mathematically very hard to imagine. I guess then youd really need to say the reverse for our old friend Jacob deGrom, who was outstanding at every level, CY great, yet the Mets played poorly when he started - was deGrom to blame? I just cant see that.
Alvarez had a 101 OPs+ and a negative dWAR (bbref). It’s not like he was throwing heroic numbers up. Seems like a coincidence or spurious correlation.