When the Red Sox acquired Jarrod Saltalamacchia from the Rangers, they were taking a chance on the former top prospect delivering on his promise that looked so plentiful in the Braves system. After being a major piece in the Mark Teixeira trade, Salty couldn’t get his career off the ground in Texas, so he saw himself moving on. Boston, with a gaping hole at catcher of the future, was all too happy to grab him.
In Boston, Saltalamacchia was virtually anointed the catcher of the future from the start and received the bulk of the duties behind the plate in 2011 while being mentored by Jason Varitek. He had a fairly solid season with some pop in his bat. His plate discipline was wanting, though, and he just didn’t make enough contact to be considered anything beyond a solid player behind the dish.
This year, things have changed. Now 27, a comfortable Salty has been ripping apart pitchers en route to being one of the best catchers in the game. Most of his value is tied up in his powerful bat, as his .298 isolated power (simply slugging percentage minus singles) is tied for eighth in the major leagues among batters with at least 130 plate appearances. Yep, he’s been a better power hitter than Giancarlo Stanton (.281) or Big Papi (.276) or… well, I could keep going. Bottom line, Salty’s been hitting the ball hard. While he probably can’t keep up a 21.4 percent home run-to-fly ball ratio (although it’s not impossible), his other batted ball data points to hitting the ball with more authority. His line drive percentage is at a solid 25.3 percent, which is above the accepted league average of 20 percent, and he’s also been hitting slightly more flyballs than he did last season.
The only knock right now to his game is plate discipline, which has never been a a significant part of his game in the major leagues. Obviously, it’s not holding him back from his power display, but it does limit his value. The backstop has always swung at more pitches outside of the zone than league average, which obviously impacts his chances of taking a walk. What may be contributing to the issue is he’s connecting more often on pitches inside the zone, which is giving him less opportunity to eventually draw a walk. If he wants to hit a homer instead of draw a walk, though, I think everyone’s OK with that. But how long can he keep up his .274 batting average and power display, especially once pitchers start shying away from challenging him? There’s a reason he hit .235 with a .288 on-base percentage last year.
What I find fascinating about his numbers, though, is that he’s taken a major nosedive when it comes to his ability to hit cutters, which is kind of a problem given baseball’s increasing fascination with the pitch. But it’s OK, because Salty’s hammering sinkers and sliders like there’s no tomorrow, all the more interesting given these are the kind of pitches one would expect to beat into the ground for an out. With no noticeable difference in his approach at the plate, it’s tough to figure out why. He might have adjusted his stance, he might be going up with a different plan in his mind to attack the pitcher, he might simply be getting more and more comfortable now that he’s playing full time and playing well … or it might just be luck. Whatever it is, he has yet to meet a breaking pitch this year he can’t do anything with.
Where Saltalamacchia is left wanting is defensively. It’s very difficult to qualify actual defense — range, sure handedness, his ability to call a game — so I won’t try, but let’s at least mention one stat. .160 percent. That’s how many runners Saltalamacchia has thrown out trying to steal, which is unsurprisingly second-worst in the game among qualified catchers. He was, however, much better last season — if he had a .308 percentage just like last year, he’d be fifth in baseball. So while it’s a bit too early to judge Salty’s defense, the early going doesn’t seem to be very good. He has given up less passed balls and wild pitches as compared to last year, but how much of that is due to his improvement as a catcher and how much due to not having to catch Tim Wakefield anymore is debatable.
Let’s not underscore how good Saltalamacchia has been overall, especially given he’s a catcher. Compared to all other catchers this season with at least 100 plate appearances (he has 132), he’s the fifth best hitter according to wOBA, which is essentially OPS but engineered to tell a more accurate picture than OPS. (And by the way, walks carry more weight in wOBA than OPS for a reason.) Getting elite offensive performances out of a catcher is a rarity, which is why when you find one, you hang onto it. Witness the spiking salaries for backstops as Yadier Molina and Miguel Montero have ushered in a new market for catchers, which Salty will benefit from enormously when he becomes a free agent following the 2013 season.