As the week closed for Valencia and the boxscores were poured over, the name at the top of the leaderboard in batting average was backup catcher Bradley Russel with an average of .714. Included with that average was a homer and two RBI in his seven at bats for the week.
Looking at the top batting average for the season, the name at the top of the list is one and the same. Bradley is hitting .299 with an on-base percentage of .372 and 10 homers in his 244 at bats. That .299 average will not put him on any BBA leaderboards by any stretch but it is the best that is on the Valencia roster.
Starting catcher Bernd Helwich is not too far behind batting .285 with an on-base percentage of .338. While he is listed as the starter and has a slight majority of the at bats (333 about 90 more than Russel) both catchers are used regularly. Helwich has a little more in the home run department with 15 round-trippers but when you do homers per At-bat the each come in between going yard every 22 to 24 at bats.
From a WAR percentage Helwich holds a slight edge of 1.9 compared to Russel's 1.6. Each of them throw out about 15% of would be base stealers give or take so one could almost say they are interchangeable and putting up a cumulative WAR of 3.5 for a combined $1M. Both of the catchers are in their rookie season and relatively young (Helwich is 22 and Russel is 23).
Where the dilemma comes in if you can call it that is a 19 year-old catcher selected in the second round of the 2062 draft it waiting in the wings in AAA. After a successful AA stint, Daniel de la Rosa moved to AAA in the last month of 2063. While is AA numbers (.320/.413) says he would ready for the next level, his numbers in AAA were not as impressive (.245/.302) but he did only play in 13 games. One would figure that a year of AAA development would have him ready to go as well. His overall potential and upside could eclipse that of Helwich and Russel though it is yet to be seen how 2064 plays out.
Meanwhile backup AAA catcher Tomas Gutierrez is not showing to be any slouch either. The best defensive catcher of them all (threw out 44.2% of runners In his first AAA season) does not do quite as well at the plate as the other three as he hit .258/.320.
Will one of these guys be on the trade block this off-season? Only time will tell.
