5 Robinson Chirinos, Houston Astros, $2.849 million value; $5.75 million salary
For all but the final day of the season, Chirinos looked likely to be the catcher on the World Series winning team. Catching the Astros’ staff will do that for you. His defensive skills were actually only modest. Chirinos produced +4 defensive runs saved, basically mid-range and justifying $153,000 in salary.
Offensively he was solid. Chirinos’s 3.8 WAR tied for fourth among all MLB catchers, and valued out at $2.943 million. His .238 average, 17 home runs and 58 RBIs don’t sound all that hot, but across 4237 plate appearances, they morphed into a 105 OPS+ that puts him on the positive side of average.
The bugaboo was framing, a job requirement that occasionally baffled Chirinos. His -6 runs saved via framing ranked just 32nd among 37 and equated to -$247,000 in salary.
In time, the Astros moved some of their catching responsibility to Martin Maldonado, himself no great shakes as a pitch-framer but better than Chirinos and a front-rank defender. It was the bat that kept Maldonado from threatening anything higher than his overall 16th place standing among the 37.
Overall, then, Chirinos was the Astros’ more productive answer behind the plate. Like Vazquez, though, Chirinos is moving – and may already have moved – into that payroll realm where the Astros are wondering whether valued received equals value paid. That’s probably why they made him a free agent at season’s end.