After JP’s masterful performance with Diaz at the dish, I decided to take a closer look at how each of our starting pitchers were performing based on who their battery-mate was. Given our injury bug and Dusty’s preference for Maldy, there are some small sample size warnings here, but I was surprised to see that aside from Bielak, every single starting pitcher we’ve used has had an ERA under 3.00 when caught by Diaz.
France has done well with both Diaz and Maldy, though slightly better with Diaz, while Brown, Blanco and Urquidy have been significantly better with Diaz behind the plate. Bielak, currently in AAA, is the only pitcher who performed better with Maldy.
It’s clear that Diaz is the better hitter, better runner, better at throwing out base runners, and better at blocking balls in the dirt. Based on these stats, it also appears that he’s better at managing games. This division is ours. We just need to play the right guys.
https://imgur.com/7Bz6BCp
3 comments
“Maldy just has this ‘it factor’ about him. He’s a coach behind the plate and all the tape he studies gives this club the best advantage. The intangibles outweigh the metrics here.”
– Dusty probably
Stats nerd data point question, that I think it needs to be looked at or at least worth considering. Do we know the opponents Diaz has caught for? I.e. if Diaz is catching all last in their division teams… I’m not sure we can take as much from the data as I’d like.
EDIT Looked it up: StL, LAD, CIN, TOR x2, LAA x2, MIN * x2, MIL*, OAK*, CHC*, SFG, SEA*, TBR, ATL, TEX, PIT*, CHW*, DET*
*denotes bottom 1/2 of the league team OPS
I think the reason Diaz has been so successful and will be in the future is precisely because they’re easing him into it. The young man still has a lot to learn and prove. He’s been great for us so far but who knows how he’d react to being handed the keys and thrown in the fire? It’s possible for him to fall off and loose confidence that could set back his development and our situation isn’t exactly dire. Our guys know what they’re doing, we have seen it time and time again and we are in position to take the lead in the West this weekend if we have a good series vs the rags. Even if we don’t there’s plenty of baseball left and we will be in a good position when it really starts to matter I have no doubt. Y’all just try to enjoy the baseball, good and bad. Go Astros!