Because we are in trouble if they don’t. The fact they cut Thaiss (career 84 wRC+) for Travis only for him and our “catcher of the future” to be worse than that is embarrassing.
But I’m concerned that the both these guys are trending the wrong way. Travis is on the wrong side of 30. His bat speed has been declining year to year and his exit velos with it. His strikeout rate also took a huge jump since coming here but that could just be the fault of our hitting coach’s philosophy.
Then there’s Logan who’s this years LVP as far as fWAR is concerned. O’Hoppe has seen his wRC+ drop year to year. His strikeout rates have steadily increased and his walk rates have continued to drop. That is not an encouraging trend at all. People chalked his second half slump last year to cumulative fatigue but getting more days off did not help. He just got worse. Defense also took a nose dive to make matters worse.
Do you think either one of these guys, particularly O’Hoppe, can rebound? Because this is a pretty big blow to the so called “young core” if he can’t. And makes the Marsh trade look like a fleece. He’s put up a 116 wRC+ and 8.9 fWAR with the Phillies compared to 92 wRC+ and 1.6 fWAR for Logan. Ouch.
6 comments
I think Travis is cooked, he’s a catcher now in his upper 30s with poor underlying metrics.
O’Hoppe has been brutal with the Ks and poor defense, but he’s young, the power and leadership is there, and has a great work ethic. Hard to predict if he breaks out next year, several years down the road (like Adell) or is just a bust.
O’Hoppe is broken and needs to be fixed. I don’t know what happen between the All-Star break last year to all of this season, but (at least in my untrained eyes) he doesn’t look like the same player that we all thought was the catcher of the team’s present and future.
When was the last time we had a great catcher? Miss the days of the Molinas, Mathis, and Napoli.
I’m absolutely banking on Logan to take a leap. Rough year for him but if he works his ass off and our new manager gives him all the tools, he can get better.
The problem with the team, generally IMO, is they look primarily at offense, and what they’re really looking at is power.
O’Hoppe had some nice power numbers for a young catcher. So, of course he opened some eyes and they try and develop that at the cost of contact or working on defense.
They want all their hitters to be one dimensional. To me eyes, our hitters approach a 2 strike pitch the same as a 2 – 0 pitch. So, we end up with the strikeout problem.
They should get James McCann for next year as a sort of Jeff Mathis-type catcher. Pitcher whisperer.