Rookie Bethancourt's development focusing on handling Braves' pitching staff
LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. -- Christian Bethancourt's early-morning routine became recognizable during the first week down at the Braves' spring training complex.
Right around the time the clubhouse opened to the media, the 23-year-old would stop briefly by his locker to fit into some batting gloves and grab his Marucci bat. Then it was off to the cages behind left-center at Champions Field, accompanied by non-roster invitee Jose Yepez. The extra batting practice had to be completed early: Catchers meetings were held at 8:45 a.m. Bethancourt, the long-time top catching prospect in the Braves organization who is expected to see his first full MLB season in 2015, could ill-afford to miss a meeting.
He always made it back in time.
The oft-referenced narrative for Bethancourt is the question on whether his bat will produce at the major-league level. Lauded for his defensive abilities throughout his minor-league climb, the Dominican Republic product struggled at times on the offensive end, notably in 2011 (High-A Lynchburg) and 2012 (Double-A Mississippi). Such speed bumps are to be expected, though, perhaps especially from players breaking into rookie ball at 17. Defensive wunderkinds-turned-All-Stars like Yadier Molina and Carlos Ruiz went through their own share of farm system swoons.
It's the reason why, as far as the Braves coaching staff is concerned, Bethancourt's work behind the plate -- and in the film room -- is Item A on the team's development agenda.
"There's a lot of stuff that we're doing to help him prepare to handle a major league staff. We really are. We're exposing him to a lot of stuff. Somebody asked me the other day, 'Is he going to hit?' I don't care," manager Fredi Gonzalez said. "We're preparing him to handle a major league staff and three to four years down the road, or however long it takes, for him to be running those meetings."
With last season's starting catcher Evan Gattis now in Houston, the Braves are treating spring training as a six-week crunch session for their rookie. Video preparation, scouting reports, meetings, bullpen sessions -- throw it all onto the pile. The team brought in some help along the way, but the final product depends on just how much Bethancourt can soak in before Opening Day.
The bat is still a work in progress, but if it's not ready Gonzalez & Co. can hide it at the back of an already imperfect lineup and platoon unfavorable pitching matchups. There's no hiding from your own rotation, though. If the Braves are going to finish top-10 in pitching production for the third straight season, Bethancourt will have to be on the same page with a young staff and revamped bullpen. Gonzalez, a catcher himself during his playing days, called it a "mental grind."
Bethancourt downplayed the task at hand: "Well, it's not as difficult as it seems. You've just got to get on the same page with everyone, get to know the new guys as soon as you can. Six weeks is not a lot, but you've got to make it work."
In 2004, when John Buck was 23, he was pushed into the starting lineup for a struggling Kansas City Royals team. In his major-league debut, he got the call from manager Tony Pena to start behind the plate against the Cardinals, catching for a 20-year-old fellow rookie named Zack Greinke. Things didn't always go according to plan that day or for the rest of the season: Buck bounced in and out of the lineup, hit .235/.280/.424 and never truly found a way to handle a limited staff that featured just one pitcher who would remain a regular MLB starter past the '04 campaign.
"I got thrown into the fire at Kansas City, just like, 'Here.' I just started right away and there was never that bridge to kind of platoon," said Buck, who took over the catching duties after starter Benito Santiago was traded to Pittsburgh. "In some ways I wish I would have (had that veteran presence). In some ways I'm glad I had to do it because I was forced to learn how to deal with failure but, at the same time, still run a staff and not let it affect me.
"It's one thing to say, 'Oh, I can do that.' Or even fake it."
It's easier to fake ability in the dugout. The life of a rookie catcher can feature public growing pains, particularly for defensive-minded catchers. In the past 15 years, only four rookie catchers have been better than a two-win player (2.0 wins above replacement or better, the baseline of a solid MLB starter) while posting sub-league average offensive numbers.
Unless a young backstop brings a difference-making bat -- a la Joe Mauer, Geovany Soto or Buster Posey -- the route to becoming a valuable contributor on an MLB roster is often a gradual climb. Even great catchers have stumbled out of the gate. There's such an extreme learning curve, an unseen and often under-appreciated skill of guiding 12-plus pitchers through the thousands of potential lineup combinations that 29 other teams can throw out over the course of 162 games.
And even when the bat does produce, that isn't the baseline for success.
"You are a part of that pitching staff. You are that ERA. You are those zeroes that are going up," Buck said. "And if you just take the approach of, 'Oh, I had a good game. I was 3 for 4,' you're missing the point. (Former Royals manager) Buddy Bell, when I was with Kansas City, used to drill that into me. If I couldn't recall as soon as he said it who was coming up or what I threw him last time -- I even got benched at one point. And I just got done hitting a homer."
The Braves signed the 34-year-old Buck and fellow veteran A.J. Pierzynski in the offseason to help with the learning curve.
In pre-signing negotiations with both catchers, the Atlanta brass specifically asked if they could function in mentor roles. That was part of the bargain. Of course, Buck and Pierzynski want to play at the highest level, but it's apparent that the team's No. 1 priority is getting their young catcher up to speed.
"Between both of those guys there's 30 years of major-league experience, or close to 30 years of experience handling pitching staffs," Gonzalez said. "Hopefully some of that stuff rubs off."
Bethancourt isn't resistant to the idea of additional instruction, though his comments illustrate the experience gap between the mentors and the mentee.
"It's great to work with guys that have been in this game a lot longer than me. I think when they made their major-league debuts I was probably like 7 or 8 years old. I remember seeing A.J. and John Buck on TV when I was little," Bethancourt said. "Those are the guys you're looking for to work with. ... There's a lot I've got to learn from them, especially because they've been here for a long time. Everything I can get from them, I'm trying to get it."
Yadier Molina was already running the show by the time Shelby Miller arrived in St. Louis.
A six-time All-Star and Gold Glove winner, the Cardinals catcher was at the peak of his powers when Miller, a former first-round pick and newest staple of the Braves' young pitching corps, debuted as a September call-up in 2012. That season, while Molina batted an impressive .315/.373/.501 with 22 homers, the Cardinals pitching staff posted the third-best fielding-independent pitching (FIP) score in baseball. The catcher position was the lynchpin of a team that would eventually sneak into the postseason, knock the Braves out in a controversial one-game wildcard and push the eventual World Series champion Giants to Game 7.
"Yadier has obviously been around for a while and knows certain hitters and has a game plan going into every single start," Miller said of the role his former battery mate fills. "It's very important. At the end of the day, that's kind of how it all works, you know?
"We'd watch video and it's kinda like you'd go through the hitters in order. What do you want to do? What Yadier thinks you should do. It's more of just a mutual agreement of how you'll get the hitter out more than anything. It's not necessarily what he wants or what I want, it's a team thing. It's an idea of how to go out there and get the hitter out in the box."
For every gifted catcher with substandard offensive numbers coming up through the minors, Molina is the pipe dream.
The Puerto Rican star is, without peer, the greatest defensive catcher of his generation, evidenced by his 106 career defensive runs saved -- nearly double the next-closest catcher this century. Since his rookie season in 2004, only five players have kept more runs off the board: Adrian Beltre, Chase Utley, Albert Pujols, Scott Rolen and Mark Ellis. Couple that with the fact that he has, at times, produced at an elite level offensively, and there's a burgeoning Hall of Fame discussion there.
It's worth pointing out -- particularly in the Christian Bethancourt discussion -- that Molina got off to a similar start. After flying up through the minors with so-so numbers, he didn't hit at all for three seasons; he didn't hit at or above league average for five. It took time. For years, he hit near the bottom of the Cardinals lineup and contributed in other ways. The definition of success varies with emphasis. Buck summed up the defense- and pitching-centric approach: "I may have just punched out to lose the game, but my job is to run the staff."
Atlanta's overall mission is to develop a complete player, to mold the next Molina or Posey or McCann.
For now, the Braves simply want Bethancourt to take ownership of a difficult process.
"They have the hardest job, because in their minds they've got 14 guys they're trying to figure out what they want to do," said starter Alex Wood, who has played with Bethancourt since Double-A ball. "You have your days where you're on the same page, and we've been on the same page pretty much the whole time. ... I think a young catcher is almost like a young starting pitcher. You have to learn what works up here and what doesn't.
"Guys spend their whole careers up here trying to figure that out."
This is a notable shift for the Braves.
Dating back to the team's 1995 championship season, the team's starting catcher has, for the most part, produced high-quality offensive numbers. They hit in the heart of the order. All signs point to this not being the case this season.
Go back through the timeline: Bethancourt steps into the shoes of Gattis, the power-hitting fan favorite that provided 43 home runs in his first two professional seasons. Before Gattis took over the starting job, Brian McCann was a middle-of-the-lineup staple, logging more than 1,000 games and winning five Silver Slugger awards. In 2005, McCann took the job from Johnny Estrada, who enjoyed a career year the season prior, winning his own Silver Slugger after hitting .314/.378/.450. And before Estrada, three-time All-Star Javy Lopez held the everyday job for the better part of nine years.
The only catcher to log significant time and not put up anywhere close to league-average numbers? Eddie Perez, the team's current bullpen coach who primarily served as Hall of Famer Greg Maddux's personal battery mate.
Bethancourt's role will not be so singular. And though Gonzalez and his staff insist -- much like they have in the past with Gold Glove shortstop Andrelton Simmons -- that the bat is the least of their concerns, Bethancourt's contributions will be worth tracking on an offense that finished 29th in runs scored and features a few too many position players that have historically struggled against right-handed pitching. The 23-year-old righty is a member of that group, boasting much better numbers against southpaws in his brief MLB tenure.
He's expecting much more of himself this time around.
"This has been the work I've been doing for the past -- it's not for two days or two weeks, it's been the work that I've put in for the last four or five years," Bethancourt said. "Like I said, it's been showing up the past two years in the minors. I'm happy with the seasons I've had the past two years in the minor leagues. I've still got to improve myself on the major-league level and try to get the same approach and the same mentality again when I was at the minor leagues and at home plate, try to get the same focus every single pitch."
Some of his minor-league numbers are troubling, though. He rarely walked and his strikeout numbers at certain stops were high. As a result, his career .300 on-base percentage is a concern. However, the past three seasons have yielded improving results:
In his first 118 career plate appearances in the majors, he's hitting .246/.271/.272 with 26 strikeouts. Many of his struggles have come against right-handed pitching, and if that trend continues it could set Gonzalez up to give the rookie more rest in such matchups -- turning to Pierzynski or Buck in a "soft platoon" scenario.
"There's a lot of ways to develop young players," Braves president of baseball operations John Hart said. "You don't have to run them out there 158 games. You can spot them. You can look at matchups and what they have. You can look at the body language of guys. Are they getting a little run down? Is the game moving a little fast for them?
" ... But an honest answer is we would prefer to take a guy that we think has a chance to be a big player in our future, that has a lot of talent and a lot of ability. At some point, you've got to break these guys in. At some point, you've got to give them that opportunity to go to the next step in their career."
Half of Atlanta's 40-man roster is under the age of 25. That includes the catcher, the shortstop, the first baseman, the most impressive second baseman in camp (Jace Peterson), multiple outfielders vying for playing time and (at least) three-fifths of the rotation. The Braves are rebuilding on the fly, but if the young guys are ahead of schedule it's going to change the dynamic of the 2015 season.
So what are realistic expectations for an under-25 rookie with limited experience, one that claims every defensive tool in the shed but improved-yet-still-underwhelming offensive numbers? Steamer projections see Bethancourt hitting .237/.264/.346 with mid-tier fielding metrics. ZiPs projections like him even more, calling for Bethancourt to be a two-win player with decent hitting numbers (86 wRC+) and a defensive WAR that would have placed him among the league's top-15 catchers last season. Reality will like rest somewhere in that mix. If the Braves are getting a one- or two-win player in 2015, especially one in his first full season that could occasionally split some time behind the plate, that's more than acceptable -- it's a huge leap forward in Bethancourt's progression.
It would fit the hype that has followed him for years.
Bethancourt isn't much for the chatter, but he has presented an air of confidence since being called up last season. The Braves want him to master the basics of handling a pitching staff before upping the ante, but he seems to have higher aspirations.
Placing one foot in front of the other makes for slow going. Bethancourt wants to broad jump. He firmly believes in the offensive work he's put in, those early Florida mornings rushing in to grab his gear and rushing out to take another step in the right direction.
"As a player, you've got to trust yourself always," Bethancourt said. "Even if you've got the talent, even if you don't have the talent, you gotta work every day. You've got to trust yourself. You've got to have confidence every day in the field."
