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It’s no surprise that the Astros were a horrible offensive
team last year with first base being one of the biggest voids on the team. Let’s be honest: It was a rotating door, with Brett Wallace
and Chris Carter getting the majority of at-bats. Both players did provide some amount of
offense, but neither were solid defenders, meaning they negated some (or all)
of the positive offensive value they created.
The Astros front office recognized the issue, and targeted multiple free
agent first basemen during the offseason, but due to bad luck—or just a lack of
desire to play for the worst team in baseball—they missed out on every player
targeted.
Throw spaghetti at the wall and hope some of it sticks. Houston
traded for Jesus Guzman and invited a host of other players to spring camp
(including Japhet Amador, Jon Singleton, Marc Krauss, and Brett Wallace) with
the hopes that one of them would grab at the opportunity. But nobody has really emerged as a clear
front runner and, just this week, ESPN columnist Jayson Stark announced that Houston was looking
outside the organization to potentially fill the position.
There have been a number of names floated as potential trade
candidates—Ike Davis, John Mayberry, Tyler Moore, and even Mike Carp (who I
made a pitch for back in December). But none of these are great options, just
warm bodies until Jon Singleton is ready at some point this year. So why even bother? Instead, what if we take a different approach
and not acquire anyone at all? Houston is in an
interesting position in that they’ve got two big league catchers already in
Jason Castro and Carlos Corporan, plus an intriguing prospect who’s near MLB
ready in Max Stassi.
Could the Astros move their best offensive player last year,
Jason Castro, to first base for some—or part—of the 2014 season? In 2013, with a slash line of .276/.350/.485
and 18 home runs, Castro proved that he could be a supreme offensive
catcher. How would he do if moved to
first? Surprisingly, Castro’s wRC+ of
130, and total fWAR of 4.3 in 2013, would’ve put placed him 7th best
(between Brandon Belt and Mike Napoli) among all MLB first basemen in
2013. (We don’t know how Castro would be
defensively at first, since the data doesn’t exist, so I’m assuming he would be
an average defender.)
Of course, this creates some new issues. The biggest:
Who takes over as the new starting catcher?
Carlos Corporan, who hit a career best in home runs with
seven, seems no more than back-up at this point. Oliver
projections, which tend to be optimistic, think Corporan would be no better
than a .4 fWAR player (essentially, around the replacement level mark) over 600
at-bats in 2014.
Max Stassi, on the other hand, appears to have much more
potential. Both ZiPS and Oliver think
that Stassi could be a decent offensive player in 2014, somewhat in the mold of
John Buck, with 11-23 home runs, a 280-ish OBP, and an fWAR of 1.8-2.1. Solid production, yes, but questions also
emerge.
Namely, can Stassi, who had his 2013 season ended by a
concussion and has been bitten by injuries over his young career, be healthy
enough to be an everyday player? Also,
what’s the adjustment period going to be like for him to be a successful Major
Leaguer? We’d like to imagine he’d be
able to shoot out of a cannon and start being productive, but he has a grand
total of three MLB games under his belt (plus 76 games at Double-A). He has zero experience at the Triple-A level.
Another issue: Can
Corporan or Stassi be good enough, defensively and with the pitching staff, to
be a decent replacement option for Castro?
This is a bit harder to determine, since the things like
game calling are a bit harder to quantify.
We do know that Castro is a slightly above-average defensive catcher and
Corporan is about average. Stassi,
though, is an unknown. We think, based
on some of the projection data, that he’ll be as good defensively as Castro but
we simply don’t have enough hard data to really know one way or the other.
If you’re saying this is a bit risky, you’re right. But if there’s any perfect time for the
Astros to find out what they have in Stassi, this might be it. Houston’s
2014 squad is projected to be an improvement over the 2013 version, but this is
still a potential 100 loss team. With
such low expectations, now is the time to take that chance and see what the
options are. (One side benefit is that
it might help the organization determine whether Castro should be a long-term
investment or someone worth trading before he gets too expensive.) Even 300 at-bats at the Major League level could
be quite valuable. And who knows? Maybe Singleton is ready by then and Castro
goes back to his natural position. There
are other first base options available (both internally and externally), but
this could prove to be a worthwhile experiment in another year where experience
and growth trumps the win-loss column.
Why not give it a try?
