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John Denton (MLB.com) sees the race this way:
Cardinals manager Oli Marmol said he has raised his expectations for the backup job behind Contreras, and thus he has thrown open the competition at the position. Andrew Knizner is the incumbent at the position, and he is a favorite among several pitchers on staff with his in-depth preparation and verbal skills, but newcomer Tres Barrera has opened eyes with his bat and his ability to handle the staff.
Knizner is not a slam dunk, and with Barrera is certainly in the mix…. good competition for Andy. The thing is if Kiz loses out what is his future in the organization? We’ll find out in a couple of weeks. Herrera and Pages are not quite MLB ready according to Denton but they could be by mid-season.
Thanks for bringing this up Ny. This is obviously a huge camp for Knizner. He is going to have to prove that he can hit more.
With Yadier Molina retired & more opportunities available behind starter Willson Contreras, #STLCards manager Oli Marmol is demanding more from the backup catcher position. He wants to see Andrew Knizner or newcomer Tres Barrera definitively win the job.https://t.co/Z21LQrjI7r
— John Denton (@JohnDenton555) March 7, 2023
Kniz got almost 300 PAs last year so they’re probably confident they know what they have. They are hoping to find an upgrade that doesn’t cost anything. Seems unlikely.
I think Knizner is a better hitter than he showed last year, although he would need regular work to prove that.
Back in the days of 10 man pitching staffs teams could carry three catchers. That is not the reality today though. Good to see that there is a little depth. Where does this leave Herrera? At one time he was thought of as Yadi’s heir apparent. With the signing of Contreras and now two seemingly competent backups, Herrera must be well down the chain of command.
The C position is different from all the others in that teams need to have 2 healthy Cs at all times. That is also true for all the affiliates. The FO probably takes extra time to provide each team with a primary starter and a backup. Its complicated.
Let’s say Knizner wins the backup role for STL. Barrera has more MLB experience than our other C prospects which would give him some value for an emergency call-up. But it looks like…. and correct me if I’m wrong…. but it appears that he out of option years so he would have to become available to the other 29 teams before he can be placed at Memphis to split time with Herrera and Pages. Either that or he is outrighted.
Herrera must be well down the chain of command. Herrera is 22 and still has a high ceiling and maybe the first up if Barrera is gone. The organization is still high on Herrera since his monster rookie league season. After he and Pages you would need to go down to Bernal and Crooks to find C prospects with MLB potential.
So maybe it appears right now that he has been stepped over but that isn’t necessarily the case. Presently, he is being blocked by Contreras/Knizner but like I said he is only 22…. still a young age for a catcher and he is valuable being at MEM and next C up. As usual time will tell.
ps… he will have to work on is SB rate which has been declining. (only 11 of 51 in ’22 at AAA.)
You could do a whole lot worse than Knizner and I’m entirley comfortable with him as a back-up for Contreras. In fact, he may be the best back-up Cardinal catcher since…well, Knizner…Haha! At any rate, I think the Redbirds are in real good shape at the C position.
Herrera hit pretty good in AAA last year. I’m interested to see what he looks like by later in the year.
I sort of think Knizner’s offense is light for what I understand the role to be going forward. Prior to last season, the backup catcher role was extremely limited in St. Louis for a long time, but it will be a larger role now.
This is how Josh Jacobs (Redbird Rants 3-9-23) sees the catching situation for ’23:
Catchers
(2) – Willson Contreras and Tres Barrera
We are only one position group in and there is already a change from the 1.0 predictions. While Willson Contreras’ role as the primary catcher is obviously intact, the backup catcher position has become even more of a competition than we originally had thought, and the early favorite to make the roster appears to be Tres Barrera.Our own J.T. Buchheit broke down the competition recently, as incumbent Andrew Knizner appears to have a very real chance of missing the roster out of camp. There have been a number of questions raised about Knizner’s long-term role with the club this offseason, but I think most would have assumed he got another shot on the roster to begin the year.
Barrera, 28, has come in and impressed both the coaching and pitching staffs enough to invoke praise from manager Oli Marmol, and with Knizner’s struggles at the plate to begin the spring, this could be a sign of some changes at the position coming. Knizner will still compete with Barrera throughout the spring, but at this point, it feels like Barrera has the inside track.
Just missed: Andrew Knizner
It feels to me like they are trying to light a fire under Knizner. Barrera has just six at-bats to date this spring. Not enough has happened to win anything.
It’s just a hunch, but I had the feeling Knizner was acting like he had the roster made, while every other open position is highly competitive this spring. So Oli, as you say, tried lighting a fire under him. I think Knizner is a little underrated. On the other hand, if he doesn’t wake up and smell the coffee, I could see Oli taking Barrera north with the team.
I’d like to know the basis that has seemingly led to Contreras being judged to be a below average defensive catcher. I’ve seen quite a bit of him behind HP in games against the Cardinals and he’s always looked good to me. What am I missing?
In the 2020 SABR Defensive Index for catchers, Contreras was no. 3 in the NL, one spot ahead of Molina. In 2021, Contreras Was fifth (Molina was third). Contreras’ SDI were 2.2 and 2.9, respectively.
For some reason that I do not understand, neither of them are listed for 2022.
Like I mentioned BW, I’m just going by the times I’ve seen him play against the Cardinals. Obviously someone who has watched him behind HP for the majority of a season has a better perspective, but I can recall a handful of times during Cardinal/Cubs games when the situation strongly suggested a possible SB attempt or starting the baserunner and I experienced some apprehension to do so with Contreras behind HP. This was based on seeing him catch Redbird baserunners in the act of SB attempts in prior games. Bottom line was that he frightened be a little bit…Haha! In any event, even though I don’t know how they formulate the SABR ratings, it makes sense to me that he places well above average defensively. It’s also odd that there’s no info on ’22. Maybe they were too busy trying to figure out how to formulate the new utility IF’er ratings…
Just want to mention that when Yadier Molina was behind the plate most managers were very reluctant to allow their players to attempt a stolen base. And then there were those runners picked off first base by Yadi throwing from the crouch. I highly doubt that there’s a stat that shows how many rallies Yadi stopped that way.
No question about it, Mudville. Yadier Molina effectively reduced the running game of the opposition to nonexistent and when he’d rifle the baseball to Pujols behind the baserunner to nail him dead after he’d strayed was always something to behold as those two had that play precisely timed and perfected to a thing of genuine beauty. I also feel that if both of them don’t enter Cooperstown on the same day that the BBWAA are doing the game and it’s fans an injustice.
Has anyone seen a number thrown around on how many games they hope or expect Contreras to start behind the plate?
I think they know what they’ve got with Knizner. He will hit .200-.220 with a low OBP and no power. I think they also know they don’t have a better option right now. A question to be asked is what the running game is going to look like when he’s back there. If he can contain that, I think we can live with the automatic out 40 or so games.
I am not an analytic guru but Contreras has always seemed like a fine defensive catcher to me. He is big, athletic, and has a very strong arm. Perhaps he gets dinged for pitch framing and how he calls a game. I don’t know. From what I have read Molina endorsed Contreras for the job and Yadi knows a little bit about the position.
As for Knizner, it makes sense that they are just trying to light a fire under him. Thus far his career has been a bit underwhelming. He has gone from heir apparent to trying to hang on to the backup job. He is fine for starting once a week but I wonder who the Cardinals would go with if Contreras happened to sustain a long term injury?
Good question, but I’d guess it would be Knizner. He counted 293 PA’s in almost 100 games last season and even though his performane was lackluster he actually contributed a bit more offensive production than did the obviously worn and spent HOF catcher Yadier Molina. In any event, other than the 5 man, the catcher position may be the most difficult for the Cardinals to mitigate the unfortunate event of the type of injury that would require Contreras to be out of action for an extended period of time.
Based on name, I would go with Barrera. With just a little rearranging of the letters, and dropping a couple, you get “Berra”, who is one of the 2 or 3 top all-time catchers in the history of MLB. 🙂
But again, based on Knizner’s work at AAA I think he is a better hitter than he has shown so far at the top level. He seems to call a good game and take charge pretty well out there as well. He had a great mentor in Yadi.
It is one of those “nice problems to have”, with two guys who can handle the backup duties.
Haha! Based on name, Berrera may never fall victim to the K…One of, if not the single most amazing set of numbers that I’ve ever contemplated, are .322/28/124 totals in 656 PA’s which are Yogi’s numbers from his 1950 season in which he fell victim to the K a total of TWELVE times…Furthermore, in a 5 year period from ’47 to ’51 he amassed just a hair under 2500 PA’s and K’d just 93 times. And although Berra was way before my time, I was led to understand by both my dad and uncle that he was the type of hitter who would let it rip and take a swing at anything that was within shouting distance of the strike zone and still make solid contact. Although I never saw him play, based on 3 MVP awards, rings for all 10 fingers and his career hitting totals, my choice for the greatest backstop of all-time is undoubtedly Yogi Berra. Heck, he qualifies for that title on name alone…
IMO, Barrera has to be clearly better than Knizner to win the job as he does not have a 40-man spot.
I never saw Yogi much either, and if I did it would have been his last couple of years on a grainy black & white television. But as 1TD states, from what I have read he would swing at pitches out of the zone and make contact.
Also from what I have read, Yogi had extremely strong and quick wrists. He derived a lot of power from his wrists, similar to how Hank Aaron hit. A latter day guy similar to that, sort of the “poor man’s Hank Aaron” if you will, was our own Silent George Hendrick.
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