Will Cubs' New Catcher Be a Big Enough Upgrade to Matter?

[RandallPnkFloyd]

After too long a time with too little offensive production and too little control of the running game on the part of their catching corps, the Cubs took action Wednesday. Will it be a sufficient change?

Image courtesy of © Gregory Fisher-USA TODAY Sports

We’re inside of six weeks until the MLB trade deadline, and social media is abuzz with all the theoretical names the Chicago Cubs could pursue before then. Danny Jansen & Elias Díaz have been heavily mentioned in that discussion, given the absence of any offensive contributions from behind the plate. While something like that could come to fruition before Jul. 31 (even with teams’ general apprehension for trading for catchers in-season), the organization has at least made a move in the interim.

It was announced Wednesday that the team designated veteran catcher Yan Gomes for assignment and signed former New York Mets catcher Tomás Nido to a major-league deal. Nido will step in to serve as backup to Miguel Amaya.

While it’s an unfortunate end in the organization for a player who was (by all accounts) well-respected in the clubhouse, it’s hard to argue against any justification for the Gomes DFA. Already a light-hitting player at the position, Gomes was in the midst of his worst offensive season. Approaching 100 plate appearances, he had posted a wRC+ of only 17, while slashing only .154/.179/.242 and striking out almost 38 percent of the time. Those are eye-poppingly bad numbers, obviously.

Not that we should expect Nido to come in and right the ship in matters of offensive production at the position. He sports a career wRC+ of 56, a career ISO of .099, and he probably doesn’t walk enough (4.2 career BB%) to compensate for how much he strikes out (25.7%). In matters of the stick, he’s essentially a wash with Gomes (and 2024 Miguel Amaya, for that matter).

But what Nido brings to the table is a defensive boost behind the plate. The typically steady glove of Gomes was experiencing a fairly notable decline on the defensive end, too. Baseball Prospectus had his comprehensive Catcher Defensive Adjustment at a -5.8 for the year. That ranked 81st among 82 catchers. His Deserved Runs Prevented sat at an identical figure, ranking 82 out of 82. That’s a product both of framing issues – wherein Gomes also sat at the bottom of the leaderboard (-0.018 Called Strikes Above Average) – and problems controlling the run game, where Gomes was 57th in Swipe Rate Above Average.

Nido isn’t elite by really any standard. But at the very least, you’re getting a steady dose of mid, as opposed to one of bad. His -0.2 CDA ranks 49th among that group and the same number in DRP is 50th. While he doesn’t have the control over the running game in outright preventing attempts (below average Takeoff Rate Above Average), he’s at least adept at stopping them with an above average SRAA. He does that while being almost exactly average in the framing game. 

It's also worth noting in all of this that in addition to being a significant upgrade over Gomes – on probably both sides of the ball at this point – Nido is also a rather sizeable upgrade over what we’ve seen from Miguel Amaya on the defensive side. It’ll be interesting to see if Nido starts to creep into the starter’s time, given the stability he appears to offer from a defensive perspective. 

Again, we’re not talking about a massive shakeup. It’s not a Jansen or Díaz type of move that could yield genuine impact. But it was a necessary one. Gomes was providing so much negative value in multiple facets that something like this became necessity. That steady dose of mid I mentioned earlier does sound pretty nice at this point, after all.

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[CandidCubs]

This has a real "Hosmer" feel to it, as in the production was so below Major League average that there really is only up to go. I like the defensive talent and hope that bat does...well anything. The bar is pretty low to out produce their current numbers.