He didn’t get much credit for it, but Chris Iannetta turned in one heck of a season, at least offensively. He nearly beat out Mike Trout for the best OBP on the team and once again established himself as the primary catcher in the ever-changing Mike Scioscia catching depth chart.
When did Iannetta become such an offensive force?
I know, right? Iannetta ended up having a terrific offensive season with a whopping .373 OBP and a 126 wRC+ that almost nobody noticed. Why? Because even in this day and age, OBP gets looked over in favor of power. Iannetta finished with a .392 SLG, so I guess it didn’t really move the needle for some folks.
Anyway, this whole offensive outburst really started last season in the second half. It seemed like maybe things were just starting to click for him, but it also happened to coincide with him falling into a more strict platoon with Hank Conger. Why did it seem that way? Because it WAS that way. Iannetta was highly sheltered from right-handed pitchers. That worked well for him because he absolutely mashes against lefties.
This season, he started off once again. It was almost like he was being sheltered from righties again. That’s because he WAS. Yep, he was still platooning with Hank Conger. But when Conger completely forgot how to hit, Iannetta started getting more playing time, yet his offensive numbers held up.
How did he suddenly start hitting righties?
Because he BABIP’d the living hell out of them, that’s how. His .363 mark (versus .281 against LHP and .283 overall career mark) made it seem like he was a much more capable hitter than he really was. There still wasn’t much power there, as shown by his .094 ISO vs. RHP. He still struck out at an alarming rate of 29.9% against righties.
I’d like to say that it was this aberrant success that prevented Scioscia from batting Iannetta higher in the order as you’d probably want to do with a hitter with a sky high OBP like Iannetta’s. But I think we all know it is because Scioscia has some weird hang up that catchers are only allowed to bat eight or ninth with rare cameos at seventh
When did we reach the point where Iannetta was getting starts because of his defense?
Yeah, that was kind of weird. Iannetta’s defensive reputation ranges somewhere from , “yuck” to “meh.” Yet there we were in the ALDS with Scioscia insisting that Iannetta would start each game because he needed his defense behind the plate.
Part of that was just that Scioscia didn’t want to criticize Conger’s bat, but it was also that the one thing that Iannetta does remotely well is control the running game. He got run all over in 2013, but that was more a function of a pitching staff that gave exactly zero shits about holding runners. This year, however, he gunned down 30% of base stealers, a mark more in line with his career numbers. Given all the fear about the Royals running game, that got Iannetta bonus points with Sosh.
What it completely ignored was that Iannetta is average at best at blocking pitches and legitimately one of the worst pitch framers in all of baseball. Put it all together and he’s a below average defensive catcher, and that might be generous. That is going to create something of a paradox for Scioscia going forward if Iannetta’s offense regresses next season as it is likely to do.
Does Scioscia know that?
Nope, probably not. After consistently starting Mathis over Napoli due to pitch framing and game calling, he somehow just ignores that Conger is an elite pitch framer and shows a general preference for Iannetta.
Final Answer
Iannetta certainly had an underrated season in 2014, which is too bad because he isn’t likely to repeat it. That’s equally as too bad because 2015 is a contract year for Chris. His BABIP will have to outrun the regression hounds for another year if he wants to try and make one last good impression in what is likely his last chance to earn big money.
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