Milwaukee Brewers Trade for Not 1 but 2 Catchers Before Opening Day
By Paul Bretl
With the 80 game suspension of catcher Pedro Severino taking place just days before Opening Day, the Milwaukee Brewers found themselves in a bind at the catcher position.
While they have Omar Narvaez, without Severino, there was little in terms of experienced depth on the roster. The only other options on the 40-man roster were Brett Sullivan and Mario Feliciano–combined, the two have one career plate appearance at the big league level.
With all of the responsibilities that come with this position, from calling a game, to defense, while still trying to be productive at the plate, among many other things, catcher is a difficult position to play, and finding a reliable option with experience can be a tall task at any point throughout the year, let alone just two days before the regular season begins.
After learning of Severino’s suspension, David Stearns did say that the Milwaukee Brewers would be active, exploring both the trade market as well as free agency — although free agency is quite thin — for a backup option. And on the eve of Opening Day, according to Robert Murray, the Brewers made a trade with the San Diego Padres for Victor Caratini.
In order to land Caratini, along with some cash considerations, the Milwaukee Brewers traded away outfielder Korry Howell and catcher Brett Sullivan.
The switch-hitting Caratini spent his first four seasons in the big leagues with the Chicago Cubs, with Stearns mentioning that the familiarity with him and also the familiarity that Caratini has with the division were reasons why trading for him made sense. Following his time in Chicago, Caratini then spent the 2021 season in San Diego after being part of the Yu Darvish trade.
For his career, Caratini has a career slash line against righties of .239/.313./3.58 with 19 home runs and an OPS+ of 96–the league average is 100. Versus lefties is where he has had more success, slashing .253/.351/342, but with only three home runs; however, he has an OPS+ of 106.
With Omar Narvaez being a lefty, I would guess that we will see more of Caratini against left-handed pitching to provide Narvaez with some days off, but Caratini has also had more success on that side of the plate as well. It’s also worth mentioning that he has had quite a bit of success at American Family Field, with a .327 average and a .935 OPS with three home runs in 58 plate appearances.
Caratini draws a decent amount of walks, about 9% of the time, according to Fangraphs, while striking out 22% of the time over his career. Defensively, he had been around a league-average defender by Defensive Runs Saved (DRS) but had a below-average year behind the plate in 2021–although Narvaez is a prime example of the Brewers being able to turn a player around defensively.
So by acquiring Caratini, the Milwaukee Brewers filled the void at catcher at the big league level. However, because they had to trade away Sullivan, they now had a hole at catcher to fill at Triple-A–which is why the team also traded for Alex Jackson from Miami in exchange for Hayden Cantrelle and Alexis Ramirez. The Brewers would tweet out that Jackson will report to Triple-A Nashville.
Jackson has 61 games of big-league experience with Atlanta and Miami, along with 123 plate appearances. He is slashing .132/.243/.225 with three home runs and five doubles during that three-year span.
With minimal time, the Milwaukee Brewers were able to address their huge need for depth at the catching position. But as MLB.com’s Adam McCalvy points out, in order to do so, it required the Brewers to part ways with the No. 15 and 26 ranked prospects within the organization.
Although Severino can return after 80 games, McCalvy would also add that he is ineligible for the postseason. So Caratini is going to play a fairly significant role on this Milwaukee Brewers team over the course of the entire year–not only the first half of the season.