Carlos Ruiz vs. Brian McCann

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The current catcher for the Phillies, Carlos Ruiz, is on the last year of his contract right now. There won’t be too many options in free agency this offseason, but there will be Brian McCann. Should the Phillies go after McCann, or should they stick with Carlos Ruiz?

Brian McCann: Brian McCann has had a pretty good season for the Braves this year; he is currently hitting .258 with 20 home runs. It’s not often that you see a catcher produce like McCann has over the course of his career. McCann also has an OBP of .338, which is pretty good. He has a slugging percentage of .472 which is also very good. Another thing I like about him is that he walks a lot. He walks 9.9% of the time, which is good. McCann is a great hitter, but we all know that defense is just as important for catchers. McCann has thrown out about 22% of the runners that have attempted to steal against him in 2013. That is not good, pretty far below average. McCann does not let a lot of balls get passed him though, so that’s good. McCann really has talent with the bat, but he is struggling to throw out base runners, and that is definitely an issue. He is 29 years old at the moment, and he is a pretty heavy guy. A heavy catcher is not going to age well. That is something I worry about, but he is one of the only options for the Phillies. The Phillies biggest concern right now is hitting, so I would still consider McCann a good option. McCann has been a Phillie-killer for a long time too, so that would make signing him even better. 

Carlos Ruiz: Carlos Ruiz has had an up and down 2013 season. In the first half of the 2013 season, Ruiz hit .268. In the second half of the 2013 season, Ruiz is hitting .294. Ruiz is hitting .283 on the year, so he is definitely a good hitter. He does only have 5 home runs this year, I would like that to be up a little bit. Ruiz has an OBP of .333, and a slugging percentage of .390. This means that he reaches base a lot, but doesn’t get a lot of extra base hits. Ruiz is not a bad hitter at all, definitely a good option for the Phillies. Now it’s time to look at his defense. In 2013, Ruiz has thrown out about 27% of the runners that have tried to steal against him. That’s a little bit above average. He doesn’t give up many passed balls at all; he is pretty good at defense. My main concern with Ruiz is that he is 34 years old, and for a catcher, that’s very old.

Both of these guys are pretty good options. McCann is beating Ruiz in multiple categories, such as home runs, RBI, slugging percentage, BB%, and OBP. These are important statistics. Ruiz is beating McCann in a couple of categories as well, such as batting average, caught stealing percentage, and he strikes out less than McCann. If I had to choose one of these guys (which I do), it would be Brian McCann. He is a guy who gets on base a lot, and drives runs in. He is also not too bad at fielding. He is 5 years younger than Ruiz, which I also like a lot. McCann has been crushing the Phillies for years, it would definitely be really nice to have him.