Just How Bad is Carlos Ruiz?

Posted by Bill Baer on Saturday, August 23, 2008 at 2:25 pm

Most non-Phillies fans may only vaguely recognize the name. That’s because this catcher hasn’t done much at the Major League level. In nearly 700 career at-bats, he has a OBP/SLG line of .330/.362 (77 OPS+). This season, he has a .321 OBP/.292 SLG. The average MLB catcher has a .330 OBP and .391 SLG, which means that Ruiz is more than 100 points of OPS behind a league-average offensive catcher!

Despite Ruiz, the Phillies still have a MLB rank of 19 in catcher OPS (.697), but that’s only because of Chris Coste (.332 OBP/.469 SLG). Coste is 15th among all catchers in VORP.

69 catchers have had at least 50 plate appearances at the Major League level this season. Ruiz comes in at #61 in VORP (-6.0). The only catchers who are worse and had a comparable amount of plate appearances are Jose Molina, Paul Bako, and Kenji Johjima.

“But Bill,” you call, “Catchers aren’t there just for their offense. Defense and their ability to handle a pitching staff and call a game are arguably more important.”

That is absolutely a valid point. Unfortunately, there’s no great way to measure a catcher’s ability to handle a pitching staff and call a game. There is a statistic called “Catcher ERA” which is basically the ERA of the pitchers when a specific catcher is behind the plate. It’s not a great indicator of an ability to call a game because catchers on teams with bad pitching will naturally be slighted by it.

Regardless, Ruiz has a CERA of 3.90 according to The Hardball Times. If he had enough defensive innings to qualify, that would tie for eighth in the Majors. Not bad, but the Phillies’ pitching staff has been decent and Coste’s CERA is 3.91.

In terms of throwing out runners, Ruiz is near the bottom at 19.7%. If he had enough defensive innings to qualify, that would rank 14th out of 18. However, according to Chris Dial’s DRS, Ruiz’s overall defense is second-best in the National League behind only Brian McCann of the Atlanta Braves. The metric says that Ruiz is worth an additional 0.7 runs defensively (about one-tenth of a win).

Counting both offense and defense, where does Ruiz rank? Out of 29 MLB catchers with 250 or more plate appearances this season, Ruiz ranks 27th at 2.3 Wins Above Replacement Player. Only Yorvit Torrealba (1.9) and Paul Bako (1.6) are worse.

What can the Phillies do to get more production out of the catching position? The obvious answer is simply to give Chris Coste more playing time, as they currently have about an even split in at-bats, Ruiz’s 250 to Coste’s 224. Coste is slightly above-average both offensively and defensively (0.2 in Dial’s DRS), so more playing time would really boost the offense without hampering the defense.

With the trading deadline long gone and David Ross recently signed by the Boston Red Sox, the Phillies aren’t going to be able to look outside the organization until after the season is over. As September 1 nears (when MLB rosters expand), they can look at their two catching prospects: Jason Jaramillo (AAA) and Lou Marson (AA). Last November, Baseball America ranked them as the Phillies’ 10th- and 8th-best prospects, respectively.

Jaramillo may provide a slight offensive boost over Ruiz but it wouldn’t be that significant. He only has a .701 OPS for the Lehigh Valley Iron Pigs, and we wouldn’t expect that number to go up immediately at the MLB level. His walk rate is down 2.5% from last season but his isolated power (ISO) is up 20 points from .090 to .110. Jaramillo’s defense has always been highly-touted, and it’s shown in his 36.1 CS%.

Marson doesn’t have quite as much power as Jaramillo but appears to be much more adept overall as a hitter. He has an .857 OPS in AA currently and that includes a .434 OBP. His walk rate has jumped from 12.3% in 2006 and 11.7% in ‘07 to 17.0% in ‘08. Like Jaramillo, Marson has also thrown out more than 36% of base-stealers.

Marson would appear to be the Phillies’ best bet for a significant upgrade at catcher, but he’s only in AA and the lower you go in the Minor Leagues, the less accurate your predictions and projections will be. No one really knows if his AA numbers will translate well in the Majors, but his walk rate and ISO (.109, .120, .104 from ‘06-08) are appealing.

Ruiz, meanwhile, is on a bit of a hot streak, as he’s 6 for his last 20 with a .917 OPS. In that span, he’s raised his OPS seven points, from .606 to .613! The Phillies are getting out the congratulatory balloons and streamers. And Chris Coste wonders what more he has to do to get a little respect.