Tampa Bay Rays: the catcher quandary is mystifying

Small market teams have to maximize their resources to compete with the big boys. The Tampa Bay Rays are dropping the ball at the catcher position.

When are the Tampa Bay Rays going to address their situation behind the plate? I understand the economics behind it. They are a $62.5M team who doesn’t want to invest a lot in the catcher position. This team was thirty games above .500 last year and one win away from the League Championship Series, so this one position may not push them over the top, but it might.

Last year they depended on the platoon of Mike Zunino and Travis d’Arnaud to handle the catching duties. d’Arnaud was released early on by the New York Mets before being signed by the Dodgers and sold to the Rays all within a week.

More from Call to the Pen

• Philadelphia Phillies, ready for a stretch run, bomb St. Louis Cardinals
• Philadelphia Phillies: The 4 players on the franchise’s Mount Rushmore
• Boston Red Sox fans should be upset over Mookie Betts’ comment
• Analyzing the Boston Red Sox trade for Dave Henderson and Spike Owen
• 2023 MLB postseason likely to have a strange look without Yankees, Red Sox, Cardinals

The Rays caught lightning in a bottle as he hit 16 home runs in part-time play, but hit just .105 in the postseason.

Zunino hit just .165 and had the lowest OPS on the team. He’s back with the Rays on a deal paying him $4.5M this year.

At the end of the year, d’Arnaud signed a 2 year/$16M deal with the Atlanta Braves, leaving Zunino as the main option behind the plate.

The Rays have three catchers on their 40-man roster with Zunino, Michael Perez, and Ronaldo Hernandez. Perez has appeared in just 46 games over two years of action while Hernandez has not played a game above A-ball in his career.

Hernandez is the only catcher on the Top 30 Prospect List for the Rays organization, and he falls outside the Top-10.

Chris Hermann and Kevan Smith were brought in as non-roster invitees to camp, but only as organizational depth, not to compete for playing time in meaningful Major League games.

Gone are the days where catchers graded as “defensive-minded” are full-time players. In the analytically driven baseball world we live in today, giving away outs in the lineup just because a guy can block a ball in the dirt and frame a pitch well on the defensive side is very harmful.

Zunino is in the last year of his contract and the Tampa Bay Rays will ultimately be in the same position next offseason they are now. Either through a trade or free agency, they need to bring in a solid offensive catcher who can help ease Hernandez into action, if he is deemed the future behind the plate.