Yahoo.com’s Jeff Passan put together a rather interesting article about 10 dubious MLB starts that may or may not continue. Using his very scientific Bud Selig face rating scale, Passan predicts which hot starts will continue and which won’t.
He gave Carlos Ruiz a score of five Selig faces, which means Passan thinks Chooch is destined to come back down to Earth.
Carlos Ruiz going to mash 21.9 percent of his out of the park. Chooch is playing out of his mind, keeping the Philadelphia Phillies' offense afloat, and there is absolutely no way it's going to continue to happen.
Career years almost never come in age-33 seasons – especially the age-33 seasons of catchers, none of whom in history have cracked a 1.000 OPS (Ruiz is at .999) and only six of whom have gone over .900.
Ruiz this year has swung at more pitches outside of the strike zone and made contact with a lower percentage, which doesn't bode well. No, he doesn't miss balls in the strike zone and rarely strikes out, but the hard contact he's making now is likelier a small-sample-size mirage than a fundamental overhaul in his offensive fortunes.
A Phillies fan on Twitter suggested Ruiz is the best catcher in baseball today. He's not even the best in his own division – that would be Brian McCann – nor the best in his league this season. That honor belongs to A.J. Ellis.
Chooch couldn’t be reached for comment, but he did respond with a gesture:
Thanks, Chooch.
[Reminder: You can vote for Ruiz as an All-Star here]
17 Responses
Passan = pussy
It would be hard for Carlos to keep up this pace, and to be somewhat fair to passan hes got a point there but what gets me is how he cant even five Chooch the credit of being the best catcher in the league so far. A.J. Ellis really? he leads Chooch in walks and OBP thats it. Thats an awful statement especially since Chooch is in the top three as far as defensive and receiving games.
Chooch is hardly a top 3 defensive catcher, he’s had his worst season defensively this year if you look at the stats.
Braves Neo-nazi fans will look for anything ….or falsify it.
Who would you rather have at catcher if not Chooch? Nobody. Good enough for me.
Brian McCann, Matt Weiters, Carlos Santana, Alex Avila, Chris Iannetta, Joe Mauer, and JP Arencibia all grade out better defensively than Ruiz (not taking into account throwing out baserunners)
Ruiz was better than Yadier Molina last year though.
@Todd
I love Chooch, but to answer your question
Mauer, McCann, Weiters, Molina, and Napoli.
Not in that order.
Chooch will probably regress, but at this point there was another analysis that was done that showed how players who had a huge spring (i.e. Chooch) also tend to have huge years as well.
I’m not going to comment about what I think Chooch will do all year, but I’ll tell you this. Yahoo Sports Writers…..are a fucking JOKE, they are Clueless DOPES, MORONS and NITWITS.
Kyle, you sound like your bothered that Jeff Passan stole your idea with the faces. That is something that you would do. Were you going to use multiple Cole Hamel’s faces to show your dislike of bryce harper?
Well he is correct. Ruiz will more than likely regress to his normal career average. But won’t we all be totally ga ga over him if he doesn’t?
I can understand your knee-jerk reaction to want to defend a beloved Phillies player. But does anyone really expect him to carry on like this the entire season? I read on a sabermetric (I know you don’t like those guys, and I’m luke warm on them) oriented Phillies blog that something like 20% of his fly balls are going for home runs. That’s nuts. That won’t keep happening.
i stand by top three defensive and receiving catcher because I’m talking about calling a game as well. None better than him. You can bring out whatever stats you want but the pitchers have better numbers because of him and he is very good at blocking balls. his stolen base percentage has struggled more so bc the pitchers dont help him holding on runners. but you can put whatever facts you think are straight but read that i put defensive and receiving games
Sorry Ricky – didn’t realize that you watch every team in the league on a regular basis & evaluate their catchers receiving & game-calling skills. You know more than baseball prospectus, right? At least if we don’t make the playoffs we’ll be rid of bandwagon fans like yourself. Chooch is great, but don’t be rediculous. Your eyes don’t know more than the people who do this for a living & actually do watch & evaluate every player b/c it’s their job.
Hey Ricky, those pitchers like him b/c he lets them throw whatever the fuck they want!
bandwagon is a great word for me. still have my mickey morandini jersey in my closet and have all of my rico brogna cards but yeah bandwagoner is what i am. and its funny that you bring up baseball prospectus because their guys have a weekly radio show that they are on on the mlb radio network in which they were talking about chooch’s start and when they were talking they said specifically that the one part that is underrated among baseball writers is calling the game which they say he is definately one of the best. and yes i do watch a ton of baseball in fact probably a little too much. but go ahead continue to troll on a site about all philly sports you’re doing a great job of not knowing what you are talking about. And joe namath if he let them throw whatever they want they would be shaking him off constantly.
and I’d take Ruiz over any of those guys – Mauer, Weiters, Santana, etc. I’d rather have Carlos in our lineup right now than Albert Pujols.
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