Hector Sanchez and the Playoffs

Hector Sanchez, one of the few Giants that can walk without looking at the ground.             

The division is wrapped up. This in turn means the Dodgers are no longer eligible to win the division. This means you may now proceed with playoff discussion without having to constantly look over your shoulder at the Jynx Fairy. And for the first time since 2003, we have a 2 week grace period before the playoffs where we can prepare ourselves for the torture that’s sure to ensue in October. Or I could analyze the defensive merits of a Ryan Theriot-Emmanuel Burriss double play combo. Yeah.

The first order of business to get to in this sudo-playoff preview, is Hector Sanchez. This year he became something of a classic “Bochy controversy” that the internet set fire to. For a good stretch of the season, Sanchez became the personal catcher for both Barry Zito and Tim Lincecum, which in turn meant that Hector Sanchez appeared in 40% of Giants games. And of course, than meant Buster Posey played first those days, meaning noted controversial athlete Brandon Belt found himself on the bench 40% of Giants games. This did not appeal to the internet folk.

As the season approached the stretch run, Sanchez returned to his regular 1 start per week regimen, and Belt, in an emperor like fashion, found his new groove. All was calm between the fans and Bruce Bochy. It was peaceful, simple time. Then Buster Posey dropped this on Tim Kawakami earlier this week:

“I would assume… this is just me speculating… I would think I would not catch Timmy. Zito I could see it going either way. I think Timmy and Sanch-y have kind of found a groove and want to keep that going.”

Sanchez has been catching most Zito starts recently, but almost all Lincecum starts. Posey has not caught Lincecum since August 15^th. And for the regular season, I’m completely okay with that. Posey needs a rest at least once every 5 days, sometimes twice, and throwing Sanchez out there for Lincecum to protect Posey from the beating Lincecum gives catchers makes a lot of sense. For it to happen in the playoffs, is another story.

And even though it’s just speculation, when the starting catcher is saying Sanchez will catch Lincecum, there’s usually underlying fire in that smoke. You can understand Bochy’s reasoning: Posey needs a catching break, and Lincecum performs better with Sanchez catching than Posey. Keeping the duo together is as much about performance as it is about comfort. Here are Lincecum’s splits:

With Posey: 85.2 innings, 5.46 ERA, 2.24 K/BB

With Sanchez: 78.2 innings, 4.23 ERA, 2.03 K/BB

During Lincecum’s recent stretch, his best pitching of the season by far, he’s been throwing to Sanchez. The thinking is that if it ain’t broke don’t fix it. Lincecum has been throwing well when Sanchez is receiving, but pitches poorly when Posey is receiving. That makes the decision seem pretty obvious.

Good good, that all sounds just dapper. The only quarrel I have with it all is that Hector Sanchez sucks.

Whenever I criticize Sanchez, it seems like I always have to qualify it: I like Hector Sanchez as a prospect, and think he could be a nice catcher in the big leagues, sometime in 2014 or something. I’m grateful for the big hits he’s gotten this season, and for a guy that’s only 22, he’s shown flashes of decency.

But, in 2012, Hector Sanchez is a backup catcher with limited defensive ability. That last part is probably a little kind. Backup catchers in general are terrible baseball players, relative to their peers. Here is a blind comparison:

Player A: 206 PA, .276/.286/.372, 87 OPS+

Player B: 125 PA .241/.336/.361, 84 OPS+

Take a minute to look at those numbers. Hopefully not an actual minute because think about how silly that would be if you just stared mindlessly at something on your computer screen for a minute. Think about how foolish you would look. I should probably have restated that like “take a hypothetical, non binding minute to look at those numbers, which realistically should take around 5 to 7 seconds to process.” There it is. That’s solid. Take a hypothetical second to think about what we have done. We have created a problem that needed solving and solved it. Give yourself a hand. You’ve accomplished at least one thing today. Be proud. Anyways, the purpose of this paragraph is to ramble on enough so as to create a barrier between the mystery players and the actual players, so that you don’t inadvertently see the names of the players when it’s supposed to be a mystery. If mysteries were always ruined, Scooby Doo would be a worthless show. Think about the kids. Furthermore, here who those two players are:

Hector Sanchez: 206 PA, .276/.286/.372,  87 OPS+

Steve Holm career: 125 PA, .241/.336/.361, 84 OPS+

The numbers speak for themselves. Sanchez has been exactly what most backup, replacement level catchers are, with an inflated batting average but with an almost non existant walk rate. Sanchez has a .283 weight on base percentage. Here are other players with similar wOBA’s: Jose Molina (.281), Jack Hanahan (.281), and Jonathan Herrera (.286).

Here’s what would likely happen if Hector Sanchez started:

Sanchez at catcher à Posey to first à Brandon Belt to left field à Gregor Blanco/Xavier Nady to bench

First of all, there are defensive downgrades all over the map. Sanchez is much worse defensively than Posey, who is worse defensively at first than Belt, who is worse in significantly worse than Blanco in the outfield. Belt covers more range than Nady, but has less awareness at the position, so we’ll give a slight edge to Belt in that case. But even if Nady played, the other two positions would suffer defensively, in order to get an awful bat in the lineup.

Blanco is at least slightly better than Sanchez offensively, and provides monumentally more defensive value in left field. There is that, along with the defensive mismatches that are created by Sanchez playing on other parts of the diamond for a guy who, again, is a well below average hitter. All things considered, the team gets significantly worse when Sanchez is playing than when Posey is playing. This is the case when most backup catchers play. There's a reason most backup catchers never play in the playoffs. 

As for the supposed cohesiveness between Lincecum and Posey, I’m not buying it. I’ll be the first to admit, I know nothing of what a personal catcher means to a pitcher. Contrary to what I’ve led numerous college girls to believe, I have not played Major League Baseball. There are no tangible measurements for intangibles. That sentence makes me look like an idiot. All that said, you can’t tell me over the second half of the season, Lincecum and Posey have lost all their report and Sanchez works that much better with Lincecum. I’m pretty sure Posey caught Lincecum in 2010, when the Giants played in those games, and then played in more, and there were strike outs and then they won stuff. Lincecum was a top tier pitcher the last 2 years, the years Posey caught Lincecum. This belief that suddenly in 2012 Posey can’t catch Lincecum is very farfetched. The more plausible reasons for Lincecums latest successes probably have to do with mechanics and luck rather than pitching partner.

The playoffs are a time to field your absolute best lineups every single day. Posey will get ample rest given the amount of rest in between games, and if the Giants are fortunate enough to proceed deep into the NLCS, that best team theory is even more emphasized. Do everything you can to give your team the best chance of winning. Of course, chances are Sanchez would only be in there one or two games, and it’s very possible none of the aforementioned downgrades make a difference (See Baseball, Goofy). But I’m not willing to take that chance. The Giants have a chance to win the World Series, and playing bench players similar to Edgar Renteria won't help accomplish that. Nope, those players are pretty useless.