Milwaukee Brewers Reportedly Land a Very Good Bat at Catcher
By Paul Bretl
The Milwaukee Brewers have reportedly made a trade with the Seattle Mariners for Omar Narvaez who gives them a solid bat at catcher.
After losing Yasmani Grandal to free agency, the Milwaukee Brewers had another big hole to fill on this team at catcher. With just Manny Pina and Jacob Nottingham as the only viable options on the roster, they needed to make an addition from outside of the organization, however, the free agent market is already pretty thin at that position.
Given what Grandal brings both offensively and defensively, he’s not replaceable, the Brewers are just hoping to fill that void as much as possible. And with the latest addition of Omar Narvaez from the Seattle Mariners, they are adding a solid bat to this lineup.
The #Brewers have found their primary replacement for Yasmani Grandal. They are close to acquiring catcher Omar Narváez from the #Mariners, a source tells The Athletic. M’s would receive at least one minor leaguer in return.
— Ken Rosenthal (@Ken_Rosenthal) December 5, 2019
While at this time it is unknown who the Milwaukee Brewers are sending to Seattle, as Ken Rosenthal put it, they have found their primary replacement for Grandal. Narvaez spent the first three seasons of his big league career with the Chicago White Sox before ending up in Seattle in 2019.
While there he would post a slash line of .278/.353/.460, totaling an .813 OPS with 22 home runs and a wRC+ of 119. Certainly not bad at all. Over his short career, Narvaez has a .276 batting average, a .772 OPS, he draws a lot of walks at 11.3 percent of the time, strikes out just 17.8 percent of the time, and has a wRC+ of 113.
However, a big contributor to his success last season was that he primarily faced right-handed pitching and only had 95 plate appearances against lefties. This is basically what Craig Counsell did with Eric Thames this past season who struggles against lefties as well. When facing righties, Narvaez has a career average of .287 with a .790 OPS, but against lefties those numbers plummet to .224 and .668, respectively.
Although his offensive production has been very solid and he will hopefully negate the absence of Grandal a bit, defensively Narvaez isn’t in the same stratosphere. In 2019 he was well below average defensively as a catcher with -20 DRS and the Milwaukee Brewers will be going from one of the best pitch framers in baseball to one of the worst as Narvaez finished at -10.5 in framing runs. This of course, is going to effect the pitching staff, but as we’ve seen in recent seasons the Brewers will sacrifice defense for offensive production.
His poor defense coupled with his issues against left-handers means that we will see a lot more of Manny Pina this season. With Narvaez’ issues, he just isn’t an everyday catcher at this point in his career and he may never become one.
dark. Next. Money Has Been Saved, Now It's Time To Spend
Like most David Stearns acquisitions, Narvaez comes with team control – three years – and he is inexpensive as he’s projected to make just $2.9 million next season. Certainly not the $18.25 million that Yaz is making. In terms of offense at the catcher position, Narvaez was the best, realistic option out there and after losing Grandal and Mike Moustakas, the Milwaukee Brewers really need to focus on adding some quality bats to this lineup if they hope to contend once again.