Jeff Mathis Can't Hit, but He's Good for Baseball | Baseball Bits

this episode of baseball bits is brought to you by the athletic for the best baseball coverage you can find use my link at the athletic comm slash foolish baseball for a 30-day free trial as well as 50% off your annual subscription in 2019 Jeff Mathis had a 158 batting average 209 on-base percentage and 224 slugging percentage for the Texas Rangers he made very little contact struck out 35% of the time barely walked and didn't hit for power among hitters with at least 200 plate appearances he finished with the lowest o-p-s in the league making him the least productive hitter in Major League Baseball the Rangers had brought Matheson on a two-year contract the previous offseason he was to serve as the replacement for the recently departed Robinson Chirinos who became a free agent after his option was declined Chirinos would go on to have a career year as the primary catcher for the Houston Astros while Mathis floundered at the plate so the Rangers rectified the situation by bringing Torinos back this past offseason GM John Daniels even admitted that cutting tree nose was a mistake and with fellow catcher Jose Travino also under contract it would seem that Jeff Mathis his time in Texas and possibly Major League Baseball was over not so fast at the Chirinos press conference Daniels stated that he expects Torinos and Jeff Mathis as the catching tandem on opening day Jeff Mathis has long been the worst hitter in baseball but teams still want him on their rosters when he plays in 2020 it will somehow be his 16th season in the majors this is the player that defies most analytics this is the catcher that can't hit this is the unstoppable career of Jeff Mathis in order to understand just how historically awful Jeff Mathis has been at hitting we need a stat that can compare players across different ears and run environments even the juice fall of 2019 created much different offensive stats compared to 2014 in this case I'll be using Oh PS Plus now Oh PS you should know it's simply on-base plus slugging on-base gives you the rate at which a batter reaches base and slugging gives you the rate at which a batter accrues bases combine the two and you have a solid surface level batting stat the purpose of the plus in Oh PS plus is to put everyone on an equal playing field by adjusting for the run scoring environment in Oh PS plus the league average is always a hundred so it gives you the opportunity to compare hitters in different situations right now you're looking at the five best hitters all time by career Oh PS plus looks like a good list if you ask me here's another example George Springer had a 150 Oh PS Plus last season that would imply he was 50% better than the average hitter Oh PS plus can adjust four part factors and the offensive IRRI that you played in but it can't adjust for well you know on the other side of a hundred something like an ad Oh PS plus would be quite poor and beyond that sixty Oh PS plus would be mostly unsuitable for the major league level this leads to my invention the Malthus the Malthus is simple 200 or more plate appearances and an O PS plus of 60 or lower in a single season it's a test of a baseball team's patience how often does a major-league team give extended opportunities to really bad hitters The Namesake himself Jeff Mathis has achieved the math as eight times in his career no other active player has managed to do it more than twice 16 players Mathis to 2019 but Malthus was the most mantasy of them all with an O PS plus of 11 the worst in Major League Baseball his 2019 was also record-breaking by earning his eighth Mathis he became the all-time leader in post integration Matheson's it's a beautiful site Hall of Famers who Mathis at some point in their careers include Oz Smith Carlton Fisk and Alan Trammell but those all came at the beginning or end of their careers Jeff Mathis has Mathis at all ages and for four different ball clubs even Mathis and Arizona became a free agent and earned a two-year deal with the Rangers so how does such a poor hitter keep getting these opportunities it's because catching is hard and Jeff Mathis is really good at it in terms of evaluating a player's total value to a team there exists something called the defensive spectrum the idea is that playing a difficult position like shortstop at an average level is more valuable than being an average defender and a so-called easy position like first base because of this a first baseman would be expected to shoulder the load more offensively and that tracks with the baseball of today this is probably the era with the most offensive ly talented shortstops we have ever seen but the first baseman as a whole still hit better than them according to both the FanGraphs positional adjustments and Bill James who invented the spectrum in the first place catcher is the hardest defensive position on the diamond that's also unsurprising not only is catcher physically demanding it also relies on the ability to work with a pitcher and think strategically catchers can also help their pitchers through the act of framing framing is a really nice word that really means lying to umpires through smart positioning of their glove and perhaps a click flick of the wrist Ruth a catcher can turn a ball into a strike historically Jeff Mathis has been extremely good at framing if I were you I would start getting your alibi straight because Jeff Mathis could probably frame you for murder if he wanted to tracking catcher framing is a new phenomenon in the sabermetric world but Baseball Prospectus is generally agreed upon as having the most advanced framing metrics throughout his career Jeff Mathis has saved an estimated ninety three point eight runs from scoring just from his framing alone his 2018 campaign which was the contract year in Arizona was his best framing season on record as he led all of Major League Baseball and framing runs above average despite finishing 37th and total catcher innings Jeff Mathis has organized more strikes than the labor movement planning to run on Jeff Mathis that has proven to be a tricky endeavor as well from 2013 to 2018 Mathis threw out runners at well above the league average and that's part of why the Rangers were willing to give a two-year deal to an unproductive hitter Jeff Mathis makes pitchers better let's talk about that before his time with the Diamondbacks Mathis spent four seasons with the Miami Marlins where he developed a bond with the young phenom Jose Fernandez after throwing eight shutout innings against the Padres in 2013 Fernandez pointed out that he only shook off matheson suggested pitch once in the entire game and that's only because he wanted to throw a changeup before it was over that telepathic connection proved to be valuable to young Fernandez who put up unbelievable rookie numbers with Mathis as his battery mate Fernandez would later go on to pitch very well with another talented catcher and JT Realmuto but it was Mathis who first unlocked Fernandez his potential in his legendary 2013 rookie campaign that expertise didn't just apply to young pitchers Mathis became the preferred catcher for Zack Greinke during his time in Arizona the pairing made sense as Greinke could actually help make up for Mathis his production in the lineup this isn't even an exaggeration sad cranky is a better hitter than Jeff Mathis then it was on to Texas a disaster of a season right maybe you just look at the offensive numbers but the Rangers also produced two top ten song finishes from ready Lance Lynn and Mike miner seriously no offense but those guys math is played in 86 games as a ranger just over half of the total 162 but he caught 50 of the 65 combined starts from Lynn and minor who put up career years with Mathis as their battery made looking at catcher er a isn't always the best tool but the fact of the matter is that wherever Jeff Mathis goes good pitching performances follow make Jose Fernandez great fine he was over talented make Zack Greinke great Zack Greinke just is great but make Mike minor and Lance Lynn great those guys aren't scrubs but I still think Jeff Mathis might be working some sort of black magic to pull this off this skill has always been valued by ball clubs and that's perhaps best illustrated by the Napoli mathis convergence [Music] this is the Napoli Malthus convergence it's a story within a story the year was 2010 Mike Trout was in the process of becoming one of the top prospects in baseball but this story isn't about him it's about two catchers two catchers by the names of Mike Napoli and Jeff Mathis they were teammates on the 2010 angels and they were polar opposites while Jeff Mathis was Mantha Singh Mike Napoli could seriously hit among catchers in Major League Baseball he finished with the highest isolated power and most homeruns Jeff Mathis meanwhile finished with the lowest o-p-s as you can imagine it was a different story defensively Napoli was never a natural behind the plate and angels pitchers had an ER a over five pitching to him Jeff Mathis however worked some of that sweet Jeff Mathis black magic with the exact same pitching staff this left the angels with a question that wasn't just practical it was also philosophical keep the sure bat of Mike Napoli or keep the wizardry of Jeff Mathis war at least FanGraphs and baseball reference's versions would tell you that this question was a no-brainer as Napoli appeared the superior player according to that particular metric so while sabermetric wisdom said it was better to tolerate Napoli's defensive shortcomings rather than mattis's bat the angels chose the opposite napoli was shipped out of town to acquire Vernon Wells it ended up being a really bad trade for the Angels Napoli ended up being traded to the Rangers and he put together some good seasons for them and he was even able to transition into a first baseman designated hitter type because his bat was really good he even won a World Series as the Red Sox primary first baseman in 2013 Mathis stayed in Los Angeles for another year but Mathis also remains a catcher at age 37 while Napoli stopped catching at age 30 and was out of the league at age 35 was trading Napoli the right move certainly not for Vernon Wells but it did show that Jeff Mathis has hard to measure skills the team's value and that still goes on to this day nine years after the napoli Mathis convergence the two are even close friends with the Napoli describing Mathis as a great teammate who teaches young guys how to play the game correctly perhaps this quote just confirms what we knew about Matt all along he's far more than numbers on a baseball reference page can we really understand Jeff Mathis I don't think Jeff Mathis can be assessed by basic sabermetrics baseball-reference has a mat below replacement level for his entire career while FanGraphs and prospectus with their framing metrics heaven is above replacement level but not a particularly impactful player yet he's entering the 16th year of his MLB career if he plays in 2020 that will tie him with Henry Blanco for the most seasons by a sub replacement level catcher post integration those numbers are driven by his generally unproductive hitting in the integration era he has the worst Oh ps+ among players with as many plate appearances as he does meaning that he's the worst modern hitter with his longevity but more than those negative numbers Jeff Mathis is good for baseball he makes the players around him better and he has inspired some of the best player analysis you can read on the Internet his career encouraged new statistics for catcher framing but also serves as a reminder that not everything in baseball can be measured and he's unstoppable seriously a 200 on-base percentage in 2019 can't stop him he's still set up for a role in 2020 and I'm sure Lance Lynn and Mike miner are very thankful for that Jeff Mathis his day of reckoning will come it comes for all the greats but even the end of Jeff Mathis his playing days won't be the end of his baseball career if he wants to stick around I imagine he'll become quite the attractive candidate for coaching jobs he just probably won't be a hitting coach this episode of baseball bits was brought to you by the athletic the athletic provides its readers with the best baseball coverage and storytelling available they employ a world-class team of writers that cover all your favorite organizations at the local level as well as at the league level and that goes for almost any sport you can imagine on top of this the website and app are completely at free so no more annoying pop-ups you can use my link at the athletic comm a small for 50% off your yearly subscription as well as a 30-day free trial once again thank you to the athletic for sponsoring this episode of baseball bats [Music] [Music]

Channel: Foolish Baseball

Views: 726,951

Keywords: jeff mathis, jeff mathis rangers, rangers catcher, jeff mathis defense, catcher framing, catcher defense, analytics, sabermetrics, jeff mathis diamondbacks, jose fernandez, zack greinke, mike minor, lance lynn, robinson chirinos, mike napoli, mlb, baseball, baseball bits, foolish baseball

Id: DNHrxRC1bBA

Length: 13min 0sec (780 seconds)

Published: Sat Feb 15 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/foolishbaseball]

<3

[u/macula_transfer]

Mathis is allowed the garbage can.

[u/MisterKap]

I’m a simple man, I see Foolish Baseball and I upvote

Edit: and watch, of course

[u/FermatsLastAccount]

The 2018 Diamondbacks actually had 4 Mathises, tied for 2nd most since 1900. But they still stayed above .500.

[u/julias-the-crusader]

Remind me of the padres catcher Austin Hedges Absolute shit hitting but amazing behind the dish.

[u/throwaway80599]

One of the nicest guys I have meet. Been to his house once also. As redneck as they come but in his workout room he has a picture of him tagging out Arod at home during he playoffs when he was playing for the Angels. It’s still one of the coolest picture I have seen!

[u/captainsweaters]

Great vid. On one hand, it's a shame that the value and nuance of pitch framing will be lost once robot umps come around, but on the other hand, a strike is a strike and a ball is a ball. He'll probably be the last to make a career out of making pitchers look better.

[u/ct73193]

“Analytics hate him” is the kind of caption you’d see for a link to a bogus ad on the bottom of a webpage.

[u/obvison]

Please let Mathis steal signs, he needs the help