The Jason Kendall thread

[TooLiveBrew]

Well if your target is low & away quite frequently, that'd play a role, wouldn't it?

[TheBrewer]

Love Kendall. Excellent at the plate, really a vet type player, works the count, shows discpline everything, and his defense is great also, and it appears hes doing better with his throws to 2nd compared to last season. Who knows but maybe he put up numbers similar to his days with the Pirates-not to the full extent with the power and spped? Maybe a .310-.315BA/5-8HR/10SB/.810OPS I don't think is out of the question.

[rluzinski]

As in, the catcher calling for a ball out of the zone? I suppose, although, in the end, the pitcher has the final word on what and where he throws.

 

I'm sure a good catcher can help a pitcher. I just don't think it's nearly as dramatic as some suggest. You'd see significantly different K and walk rates, depending on who was catching, if it did. You don't.

 

I watched Sheets shake off more than a few of Kendalls's calls today. Kendall may have given him some nice suggestions but it was Sheets who had the final vote.

[jason21nl]

I watched Sheets shake off more than a few of Kendalls's calls today. Kendall may have given him some nice suggestions but it was Sheets who had the final vote.

he did call him off, then said in the interview that he wished he didn't

[Fatter than Joey]

The biggest different I've noticed is that there is no nibbling this year

 

Vargas got DFA'd

[TooLiveBrew]

FtJ, are you still feeling comfortable with your comparison of Kendall to Counsell?

[Blancofan1]

Can anyone lead me as to where to find the catcher's ERA stat? I know I've seen it used in posts on here before and would be really interested in seeing the difference in Kendall's compared to others around the league. I would like to believe that Kendall's has to look pretty good over his career.

 

Admittedly, I am a big fan of Kendall's and always have been, but even I am surprised at how well he has performed so far. I am also a huge believer of 'calling a good game'. I caught for many years and the relationship between the pitcher and catcher is very important when game planning. Also, I wouldn't be surprised if some of the shake offs that you see on TV aren't actually pitchers shaking off a pitch. I know that with some of the better pitchers that I caught for, we would be on the same page that in a fairly predictable count I would call for a pitch once, knowing they would shake it off, then go through a few other signs, only to go back to the first pitch that I called for. It makes a hitter really think when the pitcher shakes off a few times before settling in on what to throw.

[Fatter than Joey]

FtJ, are you still feeling comfortable with your comparison of Kendall to Counsell?

 

Yep. From 2004-06 Kendall's OBP was higher than his SLG -- that's Counsellesque. I think at the end of the year they will be closer than further apart

 

Although Kendall's OPS is 1.350 while Counsell's is 1.100

[logan82]

The biggest different I've noticed is that there is no nibbling this year

Sheets has his curve this year and he didn't last year. Vargas and Capuano were 2 of the biggest nibblers last year and neither is on the pitching staff right now. Overall it is hard to tell if it is the game calling or the pitchers yet. I will say that I like Kendall's hustle and grittiness over Estrada. Seriously though, he looks like he is fundamentally sound behind the plate. Suppan and Bush are the guys who will look like they are nibbling. I do agree that he looks like he works with the pitchers more.

[tigerbrew]

Kendall is the anti-Estrada, and I'm loving it.

[pmg4]

I read the first part of this thread. I want to hear from the people who hated the Kendall signing. Yeah, we're six games in. No, I'm not starting a fight. The question here is simple: have opinions changed? And if not, what do you still dislike about your catcher, and who would be a good replacement (reasonable offers only)?

[PrestigeWorldwide]

I don't know if they do this in the majors, but in high school we used to have the pitchers shake off the catcher a couple of times on purpose just to keep the batter guessing. That is probably a rather simplistic strategy for them to be using at the highest level, but you never know.

[bork]

I'm also a big believer in the importance of game calling. I've always felt that one of the Brewers biggest mistakes was moving Surhoff from behind the and putting Nilsson there. The pitching staff was largely the same between 1992 and 1993, but the ERA was a full point apart. Losing Bosio and Wegman getting hurt was part of that, but pitchers were pretty much worse across the board.

[Invader3K]

I'm also a big believer in the importance of game calling. I've always felt that one of the Brewers biggest mistakes was moving Surhoff from behind the and putting Nilsson there. The pitching staff was largely the same between 1992 and 1993, but the ERA was a full point apart. Losing Bosio and Wegman getting hurt was part of that, but pitchers were pretty much worse across the board.

Well, there were plenty of changes between those two years that signaled the end of the "good" Brewers and the start of the "mediocre" Brewers, IMO. But you're right, I think that was a pretty big catching downgrade, too.

 

[TauPentaRei]

I think the biggest thing a catcher brings to the plate - or to the catcher's box as the case may be - is an encyclopedic knowledge of batters' tendencies, strengths and weaknesses. I think we owe the Cubs a big favor for breaking him into the NL Central for 57 games last year (with mixed results) to expose him to the players and to at least allow him to get his practical research / notebook started in earnest.

 

But no, sadly, this is not quantifiable by statistics... unless you consider glowing testimonials by the likes of Suppan et al similar to "4 out of 5 dentists agree..."

 

More than anything, the "wise old sage" of a catcher allows a pitcher to not have to overthink, to be able to relax and - with trust - just "throw". I think that as a pitcher not having to worry about the batter and instead focus on your own mechanics would be a luxury. What with batters gaining an advantage by leaving the dugout after "reading the book" on you or having watched their last at-bat frame-by-frame against you, a catcher's ability to level the playing field is not to be disqualified.

 

How about being able to read a batter in the box like a poker player from across the table? Is that real or not? Knowing that an overly anxious hitter (aka hot-headed fastball hitter on tilt) is especially susceptible to a change-up at that moment. That might be a valuable skill.

 

Is it me (here's one we can get from stat-heads) or is there a disproportionate amount of old catchers? Like why did Benito Santiago get to play until he was 62?

 

To be fair, this goes against the logic of starting Rivera with Parra because of the "comfort level"

[Tbadder]

Implementing a pitching strategy for each batter, and helping that strategy come to fruition, would seem to me to be a valuable commodity. Modifying that strategy based on game conditions (previous at bats, pitcher's stuff) would seem even more valuable. The alternative would be a random set of sequences, which...well, I don't really know to be honest, if that would be good or not.

[Fatter than Joey]

I assume that the pitcher and catcher go over the lineup with a coach before the game starts so both the pitcher and the catcher have an idea how they are going to pitch each batter before the game starts. I suspect if there is a fielding alignment that is not traditional the manager will tell the pitcher to pitch to the teeth of the defenders through the catcher.

 

I think the game has trended towards more control coming from the dugout, and there are probably managers that would love to call every single pitch.

 

Either way there is no doubt in my mind that a guy like Kendall who has been exposed to professional baseball his entire life, has a few tricks up his sleeve that a young AAA player does not.

[TheCrew07]

Rluz,

Absolutely the pitcher has to hit his spot, but how many times would a pitcher be up in the count and then spike 2 balls in the dirt? That's wasting pitches, and the hitters were good enough to know that they were going to waste a couple of pitches, so the bat rarely left the shoulder. It really got me going when Schoeder would chime in about how spiking pitches is good strategy... making someone chase and spiking pitches in the dirt that aren't anywhere near the strike zone are 2 different things. I got so mad last year during the collapse that I started watching the games without sound so I didn't have to listen to Bill.

 

I believe the staff as a whole will pitch better because they have better talent this year, however I think the holdovers will pitch better, some will say that they simply bounced back, some will believe it was the game calling. It doesn't matter to me either way as long as the Crew wins, I just think that in baseball it's very easy to use large statistical samples to overlook the little things like a single pitch in a single at bat that effects the outcome of the game.

[rluzinski]

I don't completely dismiss that a good catcher helps the performance of his pitcher. I just don't think the effect can be nearly as dramatic as some seem to think. If it was dramatic, it could be easily quantified, afterall. The fact that it can't be (or hasn't yet, at least as far as I know) suggests that if there is an effect, it's probably subtle (subtle does not necessarily insignificant). But to insist that the effect is both obvious and significant is hard for me to understand.

 

I read the first part of this thread. I want to hear from the people who hated the Kendall signing. Yeah, we're six games in. No, I'm not starting a fight. The question here is simple: have opinions changed? And if not, what do you still dislike about your catcher, and who would be a good replacement (reasonable offers only)?

 

First of all, any analysis of the aquisition should pretty much ignore what Kendall has done in the first 6 games. He has undeniably looked great offensively so far but that doesn't mean much or anything yet. Ask me again in July.

 

I didn't like the signing because it was a 2 year deal to a 33 year old catcher who had hit very poorly overall the year before. I was also concerned about whether Kendall's arm would be a liability. Was there a better option? I don't know. Nothing obvious, which is why I haven't lost any sleep over the aquisition.

[JohnBriggs12]

The thing about Kendall is that except for 80 games last year with Oakland, he's been a really, really good hitting catcher. And for most of his career he's been fine defensively too. He took a lot of criticism because the Pirates gave him a contract that was tough to live up to and which became a burden and because he'd didn't have big time power. But you can't blame him for that.

 

Melvin deserves credit for this signing. He looked beyond his pedestrian 2007 and saw a guy who can provide this offense with more ability to score runs without the HR. And he got him at a discounted rate for two years. It could turn out to be the best sign in Melvin's tenure.

[TooLiveBrew]

He took a lot of criticism because the Pirates gave him a contract that was tough to live up to and which became a burden and because he'd didn't have big time power. But you can't blame him for that.

Oakland was the team that gave him the huge contract, right?

[billyhallfan]

no it was PIT, he ended up getting booed in PIT, it was sad because he wasn't doing that bad, was one of the best catchers in baseball...

[TuesdaysWithRillo]

I think we're all just in awe of Kendall because of how bad our #1 catcher was last year. All Kendall has to be is average and I will be satisfied.

[OOOverbay]

I agree with Tuesdays. I hated Estrada's laziness and seemingly apathetic/bad attitude. Kendall could be hitting .200 with .300 OBP right now and I'd still be thrilled because you can see he's driven and cares about the team.

[BrewCrewForever]

Yeah Kendall got a very bad rap for that contract just because he wasn't a power hitting catcher. He never has been I dunno what the Pirates fans expected? I mean he is a guy who can hit .300 give a you a good OBP and quality AB's has good speed for a catcher and plays very solid defense. I think he is actually quite underrated. Just doesn't hit the long ball.