The Torch is Being Passed (Slowly) from One Cubs Catcher to the Other

If you rewind the time continuum to the offseason, the catcher spot is not one you will find among the Cubs' uncertainties. From the end of the 2023 season until Opening Day 2024, we knew that the tandem of Yan Gomes & Miguel Amaya would be behind the plate--barring any unforeseen circumstances, of course.

Gomes did a fine job, by all accounts, in each of the last two years. He provided stability for a precision-based pitching staff, while contributing only occasionally on offense. Amaya got his first taste of the bigs in '23, after several years of “catcher of the future" hype. While the pair didn’t offer a ton of long-term clarity – given Gomes’s age and Amaya’s inexperience – the organization knew they’d at least have stability at the spot heading into the new season.

Through 30 games, Amaya has appeared 19 times (17 starts) to Gomes’s 16 (13 starts). A weighty distribution? Not particularly. It is, however, extremely intriguing, and might have more to say about the tandem moving forward than we’d expect in April. The reality is that there’s an option here that very obviously represents the superior catcher, and it’s a gap that only appears to be widening.

That gap exists on both sides of the ball. It’s not as if one is exceeding the other on defense, even if the other option might offer a bit more offensively--or vice-versa--in the types of situations you tend to see around the league. In the case of Gomes & Amaya – or is it Amaya & Gomes? – it’s very clear in each facet.

Let’s dive into the offense first. It’s a bit easier to digest as an appetizer, before the main course of catching metrics still in their relative infancy.

Neither offers a ton at the plate, in a big-picture sense. Amaya is running a 71 OPS+ as of this writing; Gomes, though, is at 42. In other words, both are below-average bats, but Amaya is, at least, showing some upside. He’s making contact (76-ish percent) and striking out (25-ish percent) at roughly the same rates as last year, despite losing all sense of plate discipline. If he can rein that in, there’s an opportunity to realize his occasional power on a more consistent basis--especially given that his HardHit% is notably up (31.0 percent vs. 26.9 last year). With the higher end of his potential on the defensive side, such a trend would only solidify his status as an emerging higher-end player at the position.

In contrast, Gomes has provided virtually nothing with the bat. His plate discipline has soured, as he’s made significantly less contact in each of his three seasons with the team than in the season before. His quality of contact is down, and Gomes has not taken a single walk in 2024. Given his 35% strikeout rate, that's nearly unfathomable.

Not that any of this is a surprise. Gomes was always a defense-first type behind the plate, favored because of his unquantifiable ability to handle the staff. Amaya was going to have more to offer on offense. I think the expectation was that the playing time distribution for the full season could reflect that, even if Amaya gradually stepped into a larger capacity as it wore on.

But as the calendar page flips to May, that distribution – whose expected presence was initially wrought by the defensive “superiority” of the veteran – appears to be getting turned on its head by the younger of the two.

Matt Trueblood wrote a fantastic piece about Miguel Amaya’s growth at the beginning of the month. Therein, he focused most heavily on the defensive strides made by Amaya, particularly in regard to framing and Amaya’s setup behind the plate. Now, a handful of weeks removed from that piece, the numbers are really starting to take shape between the two.

Here’s where the two stack up against one another, courtesy of Baseball Prospectus’s catching metrics: 

The only spot where Amaya doesn’t maintain a significant advantage over his counterpart is in blocking pitches in the dirt. Pitch framing and the arm behind the plate each favor Amaya heavily. In both Called Strikes Above Average & Framing Runs, Amaya not only far exceeds the performance of Gomes, but is outstanding among all backstops with at least 100 innings (of which there are 40 names). Amaya’s CSAA ranks eighth among that group, while his FrmR sits ninth. Gomes is 40th in the former and 39th in the latter.

The blocking situation is marginal, given that the league leader in Errant Pitches Above Average is the Mets’ Francisco Alvarez at 0.002. Don’t get me wrong, it’s an important component, given the verticality of approach of the Cubs’ staff. But 38 of the 40 catchers on that list fall at either end of the Amaya-Gomes pairing. Then we flip to the arm, where Amaya’s Swipe Rate Above Average sits 11th (Gomes is 15th). Really, though, we don’t need to look too much farther than the comprehensive Catcher Defensive Adjustment. Amaya is eighth there. Gomes is 39th.

This shouldn’t come as a shock. Amaya’s output far exceeded that of his veteran running mate even last year. His CDA was 2.3, to Gomes’s -7.2. But as Amaya continues to show growth reflected in the metrics, in addition to growing in comfort with the collective staff, this is a gap that is only going to get wider.

Amaya still has improvements to make, mind you. On both sides of the ball. We know what Yan Gomes is at this point. And while he served admirably while the Cubs (presumably) waited for Amaya to reach this level, it’s high time he makes himself comfortable in the back seat.