Astros have a deal in place with free agent catcher Robinson Chirinos

Seems like Luhnow uses the off season to build for the division, then tries to use the trade deadline to build for the playoffs.

 

Can he keep the ball from getting pass him?

 

Does it matter when there was 59 stealing attempts and he only threw out 6?

 

Depends on the situation. If it's the ALCS and he let's a ball pass and gives up a game tying run it would matter.

 

but is this guy better than Maldonado?
And how much $ Maldonado is looking for anyway?

 

They’re different players. Maldonado is a defensive specialist whose main weapon is his arm; he is a terrible hitter, but can run into s HR every once in awhile.

Chirinos came up as a defensive specialist but the last few years his defense has been questionable; his value comes from the fact that he is a league average bat at a position where those are few and far between.

My guess is Maldonado gets more than the $6M Chirinos got; I have seen estimates well over $10M and some people predicting he gets a multi year deal. Given the choice of only those 2 players at their expected costs, I would much rather have Chirinos than Maldonado. But I am still holding out hope they add one of Realmuto, Grandal, or Ramos, forcing Chirinos into a backup role.

 

If Maldonado gets close to that somebody is getting screwed hard. Watching him try to block balls in the postseason was a joke.

If he hit at all you can tolerate it, but for an all glove catcher no thank you.

 

Last year Maldonado was an all-arm catcher.

 

Except for the part of the arm that reaches for pitches

 

Can't say I didn't warn yall.

Astros trade for Martin Maldonado

 

I'll reserve judgment until I see Chirinos play here. Astros bats were down all over the place last year. If they figure out how to fix that, then maybe he'll benefit as well. I mean, he's already not worse at the plate than any of our other catchers.

That said, it's a pretty big accomplishment for Martin Maldonado lowering the bar so much for the catcher position that simply being able to catch the ball is considered an upgrade.

 

Yeah, and as much as various people like to use that as some sort of balancing weight, even that electric arm wasn't always a positive. He was always itching to use it. I remember at least one, if not multiple occasions, where he was so eager to throw the ball somewhere that he wasn't even aware of what was going on around him in the bigger picture of the play and wasn't where he should have been. From what I saw, the arm was as much a distraction as it was a boon. So, ultimately a wash on the arm, pitiful with a glove, and unpredictable but generally disappointing at the plate.

 

Fangraphs various projections for Chirinos/Realmuto:

BA: .200 - .226/ .268-.286
OBp: .297-.328/.323-.344
SLG: .380-.432/.436-.476
OPS: .677-.760/.759-.820
wOBA: .298-.331/.327-.351
wRC+: 90-113/109-125
WAR: 1.1-1.4/3.8-5.1
HR: 11-18/17-21

Chirinos is projected for more RBI because he is on a much better team; Realmuto won’t come up with guys on base very often.

Whether Realmuto is worth the cost is debatable, but Realmuto is a FAR superior player to Chirinos. Chirinos is a roughly average everyday catcher. Realmuto is a star catcher who may be a superstar.

I think Atlanta or Boston should be the ones offering the most for Realmuto, since for them he could be the difference between winning the division and missing the playoffs.

 

If Chirinos CS% rebounds to his previous levels, I really do not see a huge gulf between them.

Realmuto is better, won't argue that. But if I were a betting man I would say their OPS will be pretty close this season.

 

C h i r i n o s is slow (not McCann slow, though). He loses nearly half the value of his hitting based on his base running. Realmuto's baserunning gives his hitting nearly a 33% boost in value. In other words, even if their OPS values are the same, Realmuto is still likely a vastly superior offensive player. This does not count defense where Realmuto is also the vastly superior player.

 

Screw y'all for bumping this. All I saw on the main page was "Astros have deal in place for..."

 

Right!!

 

I like the optimism with Chirinos, however, Realmuto will have better AVG and OBP, is much faster, better at throwing out runners, is younger, and comes with a lower injury risk. Also, Realmuto is one tremendous athlete, I like his mechanics for throwing out runners, he's extremely fast (especially by catcher standards) so that eliminates the need to pinch run, and in high school he was a tremendous athlete who stared in every sport. Just saying.

 

Well, sure.

In a vacuum, I don't think we'll find a single person that prefers Chirinos the baseball player over JT Realmuto. And you're the first person the mention the age difference, and that Realmuto is seemingly in his prime.

But it's the cost for each that makes me lean Chirinos. It just took $5.75 in cold hard cash to acquire Chirinos. Acquiring Realmuto would cost us some talented prospects, let's assume JBB, Yordan Alvarez, in addition to a few others (and his salary would be higher, but for Realmuto, you don't blink to pay him $10-$12M). So is an additional year of Realmuto (who is controlled for this season and the next, while Chirinos is only sign for this upcoming year) worth the future value of prospects that can have an impact at the major league level? 6 years of Yordan Alvarez at relative peanuts is already worth more to me that the improvement that Realmuto provides for the next 2 years. It also appears our front office has made their choice, and I hope they stick to their valuations and do not overpay.