Yet another issue on the Yankees hot stove plate this off season is what to do with their backup catcher spot. Now, I am not a fool, I don’t see the Yankees carrying three catchers on their 25 man roster. We’ve heard it for a while now, the Yankees want to get younger and more athletic, which is understandable. Though their backup catcher situation provides quite a quandary.
The options in front of them are obvious, stick with Molina and have a far superior defensive catcher who could catch Burnett every 5 days and spell Posada. This situation obviously would force Cervelli to Scranton-Wilkes Barre.
The other option is to let Molina go and have Cervelli become the backup catcher. During his time playing in New York, Cervelli hit .298 compared to Molina’s .217.
While Molina has been lauded as a supreme defensive catcher, Cervelli can be viewed as a serviceable alternate. In Cervelli’s 241 innings behind the dish for the Yankees he had a caught stealing percentage of 43% (10 caught stealing out of 23 chances) compared to Molina’s 28% in 357 innings (9 caught stealing in 32 chances). Going even further, Cervelli and Molina’s career CERA* are both under 4.00 (as compared to Posada’s 4.44).
If the Yankees choose not to re-sign Jose Molina, they will be saving about $1.8 million and thus cutting down their payroll while getting younger and more athletic, which is their goal.
Considering all things, the Yankees might be better off without Molina next year, that is, if Elliot Johnson doesn’t fracture Cervelli’s wrist again.
* CERA: Catchers ERA; Earned-run average of club’s pitchers with a particular catcher behind the plate.
M. B. Rozell
Kevin Rozell
Go with Cervelli. Although very good defensively, Molina is about as close to an automatic out as you can get. I’ll never understand how a man that big doesn’t accidentally run into one every now and then.
He DOES accidently run into one every now and then. Remember, he hit a grand slam this year ;)
Yeah one and only one. At least he made his only long ball count big time. I’m pretty happy to see him gone though.