Your 2020 Pittsburgh Pirates MVP: Jacob Stallings

Pittsburgh Pirates’ Jacob Stallings quietly had a great season in 2019, and could build on that and become the team MVP in more ways than one in 2020.

One of the worst positions in 2019 for the Pittsburgh Pirates was catcher. The position recorded -2.1 bWAR, with the primary catcher, Elias Diaz, posting -1.3 bWAR and a 61 OPS+. The Pirates will enter 2020 with a not-so-flashy player behind the plate in Jacob Stallings, and I think he could be the team MVP by the end of the season.

This is far from a popular opinion, but hear me out. Stallings can impact the team in multiple ways. We obviously know about his defense. He recorded a +13 DRS, caught 40% of the runners trying to steal on him (26% was average), and was worth 8.7 pitch framing runs saved. That was good for 11th in the Majors.

Having Stallings consistently behind the plate is going to get the Bucs many more strike calls. While Stallings was a top-tier framer, Diaz was the complete opposite. He finished dead last in framing runs at -14.4. The next closest was Wellington Castillo at -10.5. Despite him catching only 463.1 innings, he was just 1.4 runs saved behind the Giants’ Buster Posey, who caught 846.1 innings last year. Also, don’t forget about how good he was at blocking pitches. He ranked 6th in blocking runs at 3.6. This will definitely help the team with pitches in preventing balls from going to the backstop. Last year, the team had 100 wild pitches. In comparison, Diaz was worth just 0.1 blocking runs.

Now, on the surface, Stallings isn’t that big of a hitter, having a .262/.325/.382 line, and 82 wRC+. But that’s a line many catchers would kill for. Last season, the average catcher at the major league level posted a .236/.308/.405 line with an 85 wRC+. Stallings also strikes out much less than the average catcher, having a 19% strikeout rate in 2019 with the average being 24%.

The Pirates’ backstop was great against left-handed pitching too, having a .340/.367/.596 line vs southpaws. Among catchers with at least 210 plate appearances (exactly as many as Stallings had), Stallings’ 1.3 fWAR ranked 21st. Now that might not be too impressive, but he wasn’t too far behind guys who had a good amount more plate appearances like Posey (1.8 fWAR in 445 PA’s), and Jason Castro (1.6 fWAR in 275 PA’s). He even had more fWAR than Yadier Molina (1.2 in 452 plate appearances).

Speaking of Molina, Stallings was very comparable offensively to the future Hall Of Famer in 2019. Molina batted .270/.312/.399 through 452 plate appearances, and finished with an 85 OPS+/87 wRC+. But was miles ahead of Yadi defensively, as Molina had just a +2 DRS, caught 26% of the runners trying to take an extra base on the veteran. As for framing, of course Stallings was better (0.3 framing runs for Yadi).

Stallings behind the plate clearly helps the pitching staff. When he started games, the Pirates went 28-25, resulting in a .528 win percentage. In comparison, the Pirates went 24-48 (.333 winning percentage) when Diaz started as catcher. Many of the pitchers also were better when they were tossing the ball to Stallings:

(Opponent OPS with Diaz/Stallings behind the plate)

Joe Musgrove: .787/.743

Chris Archer: .815/.793

Trevor Williams: 1.081/.781

Steven Brault: .746/.693

Kyle Crick: .932/.673

Clay Holmes: .812/.542

Francisco Liriano: .782/.611

A full season of Stallings behind the plate could really help the Pirates. Clearly, most of the pitchers are more confident with him behind the plate, and his pitch framing will more than help the Bucs get some of those borderline calls that Diaz was unable to get for the team. Plus speaking that you can find a lot worse offensive catchers who can do just as good as Stallings defensively, and not too many upgrades even available to the Bucs to even consider, the Pirates had a good reason to keep him as the team’s primary catcher.