Does George Kottaras have any legitimate trade value?

[JohnBriggs12]

I think it's easy to get carried away with Kottaras as an offensive player after the amazing stretch he put together recently. But his career line is still just .223/.325/.413. He's likely to revert to closer to that over time. Not bad for a backup catcher certainly, but not good enough to be in demand as a DH in the AL either.

[DHonks]

I haven't looked in a while, but I would assume his avg is around the .223, his OBP is higher because he's taking tons of walks--likely linked to more playing time--and his slg is skewed by his first few weeks.

[monty57]

With Maldonado playing as well as he has been (defensively at least) does this make it a little bit easier to shop Kottaras around to see if there is any interest out there? Although knowing Melvin and RRR, I fully expect Maldonado to be sent back to AAA once Lucroy is back.

 

What interest is there going to be out there for a backup catcher? You will be lucky to get a Cuttery Dykstra type prospect back in return for Kottaras which isn't even worth even discussing a trade with a team for a return like that.

 

What is wrong with Maldonado going back to AAA once Lucroy is healthy? Offensively Kottaras is better than Maldonado by a lot. I would rather have Kottaras on the bench and playing once every five games as the offensive drop off from Lucroy to Kottaras is not all that much compared to the offensive drop off from Lucroy to Maldonado. The only thing that you are gaining is some defense behind the plate. The offensive loss is like going from Damian Miller to Chad Moeller (with just a little bit better defense behind the plate for Maldonado). I really do not see why there would be anything bad of Maldonado going back to AAA once Lucroy is back.

 

As we just found out, it is good to have depth at a position. The only negative I see would be for the future. Are we going to offer Kottaras arbitration and potentially pay him $1MM to be a backup catcher next year? If so, then we should just send Maldonado back to AAA. If our plan is to release Kottaras after the season and go into next year with Lucroy / Maldonado, then it would be worth it to look into trading Kottaras, even if we only get a low-ceiling AA prospect back.

[TURBO]

It seems to me, that as long as Wolf is on our roster, Kottaras will remain on this roster.

 

This saddens me because I'd rather have Maldonado as our back-up catcher. As long as Randy Wolf is calling the shots, George has a job.

[monty57]

It seems to me, that as long as Wolf is on our roster, Kottaras will remain on this roster.

 

This saddens me because I'd rather have Maldonado as our back-up catcher. As long as Randy Wolf is calling the shots, George has a job.

 

Is it that Wolf likes throwing to Kottaras or just that he dislikes throwing to Lucroy? If it's the latter then Wolf should be fine with Maldonado, as he's known for his defense.

[nate82]

It seems to me, that as long as Wolf is on our roster, Kottaras will remain on this roster.

 

This saddens me because I'd rather have Maldonado as our back-up catcher. As long as Randy Wolf is calling the shots, George has a job.

 

Why do you want to have Maldonado over Kottaras? Why do you want an all defense and no offense backup catcher? Do you really want another Chad Moeller on the team again offensively?

 

I do not see why some have this fascination with Maldonado as being the primary back-up catcher for the Brewers. We have someone that can actually give us some offense off the bench when the bench is clearly lacking any kind of offensive punch. Yet some here want to get rid of that offensive punch and play a career .237/.294/.274/.568 in AAA catcher? WHY?

[TURBO]

It seems to me, that as long as Wolf is on our roster, Kottaras will remain on this roster.

 

This saddens me because I'd rather have Maldonado as our back-up catcher. As long as Randy Wolf is calling the shots, George has a job.

 

Why do you want to have Maldonado over Kottaras? Why do you want an all defense and no offense backup catcher? Do you really want another Chad Moeller on the team again offensively?

 

I do not see why some have this fascination with Maldonado as being the primary back-up catcher for the Brewers. We have someone that can actually give us some offense off the bench when the bench is clearly lacking any kind of offensive punch. Yet some here want to get rid of that offensive punch and play a career .237/.294/.274/.568 in AAA catcher? WHY?

 

When is the last time Kottaras gave us so much offense? He had a few games at the beginning of the season where he was out of his head. What has he done since? Have you been watching Maldanado catch? He is so superior to Kottaras defensively that it isn't even funny. Offensively he has been fine.

 

Kottaras has been nothing special offensively his entire career.

 

I do not see why some have the fascination with Kottaras as being the primary back-up catcher for the Brewers.

[Baldkin]

Well, for one, since the start of May he still has a .405 OBP. No matter how you put it, that is darn good offensively.

[Oldcity]

On what planet is Kottaras struggling? He has a .421 OBP over the last month.

 

And for the guy who said Lucroy is clearly the better offensive player?

 

Lucroy career OPS: .722

 

Kottaras career OPS: .743

 

Nobody's arguing Kottaras should have been starting over Lucroy, but Kottaras is clearly a good hitting catcher.

[JohnBriggs12]

Well, for one, since the start of May he still has a .405 OBP. No matter how you put it, that is darn good offensively.

 

 

Since the start of May his line is .200/.379/.244 and he has 1 RBI. Yes he's got an amazing eye at the plate, but it's produced 4 runs since May 1st (3 RS, and 1 RBI). All the walks are great but he needs to hit the ball occasionally too. When he's going well, he does both, but those stretches are fairly rare. Maldanado's driven in 15 runs in just 16 more AB's over that time.

 

I'd be looking to package Kottaras and Wolf together in a deal. I don't think the return would be great but a team reluctant to take on the rest of Wolf's salary might if you included Kottaras.

[jerichoholicninja]

Well, for one, since the start of May he still has a .405 OBP. No matter how you put it, that is darn good offensively.

 

 

Since the start of May his line is .200/.379/.244 and he has 1 RBI. Yes he's got an amazing eye at the plate, but it's produced 4 runs since May 1st (3 RS, and 1 RBI). All the walks are great but he needs to hit the ball occasionally too. When he's going well, he does both, but those stretches are fairly rare. Maldanado's driven in 15 runs in just 16 more AB's over that time.

 

I'd be looking to package Kottaras and Wolf together in a deal. I don't think the return would be great but a team reluctant to take on the rest of Wolf's salary might if you included Kottaras.

 

A .379 on base is pretty darn good for a part time catcher. The amount of runs he's scored and driven in are beyond irrelevant.

[CheezWizHed]

Yet some here want to get rid of that offensive punch and play a career .237/.294/.274/.568 in AAA catcher?

 

Where did you get those numbers? Looking at milb.com, he had AAA OPSes of:

2009: 738

2010: 735

2011: 948

2012: 617

 

I didn't go through the effort of calculate his total AAA numbers, but I'm pretty sure that with an OPS greater than 568 every year, adding them all together won't come up with 568...

[nate82]

Yet some here want to get rid of that offensive punch and play a career .237/.294/.274/.568 in AAA catcher?

 

Where did you get those numbers? Looking at milb.com, he had AAA OPSes of:

2009: 738

2010: 735

2011: 948

2012: 617

 

I didn't go through the effort of calculate his total AAA numbers, but I'm pretty sure that with an OPS greater than 568 every year, adding them all together won't come up with 568...

 

Oooops copied the wrong stats but the point still remains the same.

 

.236/.313/.333/.646

 

This is still bad.

[jmeks23]

He's fallen off the map with the lack of PT. I don't think he's really a starter anyways, so now his stock is sort of in limbo. He can take some pitches and draw a walk, but he K's and generally swings and misses a lot too. All of his power/most of his RBI came in the first two weeks of the season. I just think his value ship has sailed.

[monty57]

He's fallen off the map with the lack of PT. I don't think he's really a starter anyways, so now his stock is sort of in limbo. He can take some pitches and draw a walk, but he K's and generally swings and misses a lot too. All of his power/most of his RBI came in the first two weeks of the season. I just think his value ship has sailed.

 

It'll be interesting to see what the future holds. I'd imagine that Maldonado will go back to AAA when Lucroy's back, but what do we do this offseason? Kottaras will be arby-eligible so he'll probably make $1MM or so next year. Do we just release him for nothing after this year or do we offer him arby?