The Cubs' catch 22
Keeping their catchers together seems like a good idea, but is it?
The Cubs may have had an overrated offense last year (let's face it, they did), and their excellent defense was overrated in left and at first, but one thing that may have actually been underrated about them was just how good their catching was.
There is a large segment of Cubs' fan social media that seems to think that Carson Kelly was really good last year and Miguel Amaya was really bad, when the reality is that they've become basically the same player.
They split the catching duties last year with Kelly getting more starts (99) than Amaya (63), but their offensive output was comparable. Kelly slashed .258/.336/.376/.713 and Amaya .237/.340/.377/.717. Kelly was worth 1.9 WAR and Amaya was worth 1.4. Defensively, Kelly was worth -1 fielding run value, Amaya was +1. Kelly was better at blocks above average (89th percentile compared to Amaya's 40th), and Amaya was better at throwing out baserunners (49th to Kelly's eighth). They both were worth +1 framing.
Boog always acted like nobody was nearly as good as Kelly at ABS challenges, when the reality was Kelly was really good with a 69% success rate, but so was Amaya at 64%. Among catchers with more than 20 challenges, Kelly ranked seventh in baseball and Amaya was 16th.
In effect, they're the same guy. And so, the Cubs should clearly want to keep that together. They are likely the best catching combo in baseball.
Here's the problem.
