Braves Acquire Ryan Doumit (For Some Strange Reason)

Reports are the Ryan Doumit will suit up for the Atlanta Braves next season after a trade was struck today.  The deal sends Doumit from Minnesota to Atlanta for left handed starting pitching prospect Sean Gilmartin.  I’m a Braves fan and consider myself knowledgeable, level headed, and understanding about my team’s moves–but this I just do not understand.  Not even a little bit.

First, about Doumit.  Ryan is a catcher/rightfielder who has averaged around 1.0 WAR each of the past four years.  He consistently provides home run totals in the teens and a respectable batting average when given somewhere north of 400 plate appearances.  He is, by all accounts, a respectable catcher, a decent left handed bat and certainly belongs on a Major League roster.  I’m just not sure that he belongs on the Atlanta Braves roster.

Following the departure of All-Star Brian McCann, the Braves catching situation is, admittedly, a bit cloudy.  They’ve clearly decided to throw everything at the wall in 2014 and hope something sticks. Let’s look at the options the Braves have at catcher:

1. Evan Gattis is a powerful lumberjack who straps on the catching equipment and does a decent job of calling a game.  He averaged a home run every 17 at bats in 2013, but managed just a .291 OBP. For context, David Ortiz also averaged a home run every 17 at bats in 2013 (OBP .395).
2. Gerald Laird is a career back up catcher.  Not that there’s anything wrong with a good backup catcher (David Ross has made a great career of it), but Laird has never hit more than 10 homers in a season.  He’s very good at what he does, but shouldn’t be handed the everyday job.
3. Christian Bethancourt is the defensive whiz kid that Braves fans have been hearing about for many seasons now.  He’s 22 and managed a .305 OBP while repeating AA last year.  There are doubts about whether he will ever hit, but there’s few doubts regarding Bethancourt’s impact defensively.

Now the Braves have added Ryan Doumit to the mix and I simply do not get it.  He’s a slightly better option than Gerald Laird to take over everyday duties from Gattis.  I suppose that he provides a left-handed compliment to the triumvirate, but it seems to come at too high of a prospect cost.

Simply looking at Sean Gilmartin’s 2013 season does the now-Twins’ prospect an injustice.  Gilmartin was injured for much of the beginning of the year and posted a 5.74 ERA across 17 starts thereafter.  Yes, I’m standing behind a guy who had a 5.74 ERA last year in AAA and here’s why: before his breakout season in 2013 for the Atlanta Braves, Julio Teheran had a 5.08 ERA in AAA.

I’m mad to see Gilmartin go because I still liked him as a prospect.  He managed a 3.84 ERA at age 22 across AA and AAA.  When he was drafted in the 1st round of the 2011 draft, Gilmartin drew comparisons to current Braves left hander Mike Minor.  Minor was also a college pitcher drafted in the first round and threw 120 innings at age 22 across AA and AAA with a 3.44 ERA.  Gilmartin did not display the same strikeout flare that Minor possesses, but they’re still comparable pitchers and the Twins should be happy to take a flyer on somebody who at the very worst will prove to be a decent option in the rotation should injuries set in.

Trading a 2011 first round pick who has shown some potential for a left handed amalgamation of Gerald Laird and Evan Gattis–when you already have Evan Gattis and Gerald Laird–makes very little sense.  Neither catcher’s splits suggest that a straight platoon will provide much more value than simply handing the job to one or the other.  That is, Gattis doesn’t struggle versus RHP as a right handed batter and Doumit holds his own as a left handed batter against LHP.

I defended the Braves move to acquire depth in the form of Gavin Floyd in this same space on Monday, but putting Doumit on this roster seems to muddy the catching situation rather than provide a real solution.  Four catchers with pronounced problems does not equal one Brian McCann.

-Sean Morash

Stat of the Day: I’m 90% certain that this is the first time that I’ve disagreed with a Braves move since OTBB started in February 2011.