Anferny discussed this earlier and I think it warrants some elaboration. After all, catcher is one of the most important positions out there. There is the chubby, high potential kid (Chris Iannetta) and the sprite Venezuelan (Yorvit Torrealba). Both have their merits, but one is more meritorious than the other. One’s meritivty is more meritified than the meritations of the other meriter.
Neither has hit very well in their major league careers. Actually, both have been well below average. Their career OPS+ is exactly identical (80). The problem is, Yorvit has had 1078 more at-bats than Christobald. Jorvy is 29 and passed his prime years (26-28). Chances are he ain’t getting any better. Christoph, on the other hand, is in his younger and more vulnerable years at 25. Add to this how he got jiggy wid it in the minor leagues (OBP: .409, SLG: 509) and there’s a good chance Ian will hit better than Tory over the long term. Obviously, minor league numbers don’t equal major league numbers, but there is a relative correlation. Yorvit’s are pretty similar, if slightly better in the majors. So far this year, in a very small sample size, Iannetta is OPSing 971 (nah, nah, nah, nah, na-nah, nah, getting’ jiggy wid it). The Duke of Torrealba, meanwhile, is OPSing 641 (nah, nah… no). Then again, perennial all-star and first ballot hall of famer Gabe Kapler is OPSing 1410 so far. So… conclusion? Iannetta and Torrealba have hit about the same so far in their careers, but Iannetta is younger and has a much bigger upside. Advantage: Iannetta
Defense is hard to judge. The stats are slippery and you can’t watch every single play. It seems like just about everyone who covers the
The other advantage that Torrealba supporters claim he has is that he’s clutch. He reeks clutch. If he had a cologne, like Jeter, it would be called Clutch. The problem is that if you look at all his “clutch” stats (2 outs w/ RISP, late and close, within 1 run) he is worse than normal. In fact, the only time he hits better than his career average is with a margin of more than 4 runs, where his OPS is 28 points higher. As for late and close games, when you would think it matters most, his OPS is significantly lower (134 points lower!). So, if you believe in clutch hitting, which I personally don’t, you cannot say truthfully that Yorvit is “clutch.” Just because he hit a homer in the playoffs, it doesn’t mean he’s clutch (ahem… JETER!). Iannetta also doesn’t eat, breathe and shit clutchness; so this category is a wash, as the mystical attribute of clutchbat should be.
There are other arguments that could be brought up: Yorvit is good with the young latin pitchers (so just start him for Morales and Jimenez) and that Torrealba costs 7,575.75 times (not dollars) more than Iannetta (ok, there is no point in arguing that). So, I suppose the question comes down to: Is Iannetta’s bat and potential worth more than Torrealba’s defense? I think the answer is unequivocally, yes. Instead of wasting $3 mil on Torrealba, we could have had a capable catching tandem of Iannetta and Edwin Bellorin. But wasting money is what Dan O’ Dowd is good at—Hampton, Neagle. So unless his royal clutchness starts to hit well for the first time in his career,
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