2024 Astros Projected Starters: C Yainer Diaz

Good day, y'all! I wanted to kill some time before Opening Day and thought looking at our projected position starters would be a fun way to do so. And what better way to kick this off than with the biggest change on the field: new starting catcher Yainer Diaz.

DISCLAIMER: this isn't meant to be a deep-dive but more a snorkeling-dive, to get the conversation going on how we feel about the position/player and what we expect out of them. Please feel free to comment on formatting, stats presented, etc. I love putting these types of things together but sometimes I can be disorganized.

2023 Stats

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Stat	Value	Ranking Among Catchers\*
Games Played	104	25
Plate Appearances	377	21
AVG	.282	3
HR	23	3 (tied)
RBI	60	15
R	51	14
OBP	.308	18 (tied)
SLG	.538	1
OPS	.846	3
OPS+	128	3
wRC+	127	3 (tied)
K%	19.6	8
BB%	2.9	31
fWAR	3.2	NA
bWAR	2.0	13 (tied)

*Based on catchers w/ at least 300 PA in 2023; out of 31 in this case (BONUS: can you guess which catcher ranked 31st in bWAR at -1.2?)

I had trouble sorting WAR by position on baseball reference which is why I put NA on the rankings. If anyone can help me out with that, I'd be happy to update the chart.

Baseball Savant Page

What to Look Forward to

Maldy no longer starting; spoiler alert for the bonus question above, but Maldy was dead last in bWAR among catchers in 2023, behind the next worst by 0.5 WAR. Love you Maldy, Godspeed in Chicago, but personally I'm ecstatic that Diaz is now the primary catcher.

Diaz' 23 HRs is an Astros record for catchers in a single season. And if you want to argue "Oh, well he was a DH half the time", Diaz actually hit MUCH better when playing the field over just being DH (OPS well over 1.000 at C/1B vs ~.600 at DH). The guy mashes, evident by his .538 SLG and OPS+ of 128.

Worried about his defense? Well you shouldn't be. Even with his limited innings at catcher, his DRS of 4 is good for 19th (out of 57) among catchers with at least 350 innings caught. His blocks and caught stealing above AVG, along with his pop up time, rank in the 80 percentile or better in MLB. If you aren't familiar with what that means, Diaz is better in those categories than 80% of catchers or he's in the top 20%, whichever you prefer.

What to Be Concerned About

You don't need advanced stats to know that Yainer has no plate discipline. A chase and walk rate in the bottom 1 percent in MLB; what more could I say? We can only hope that was worked on during the off-season and will be focal point for him in Spring Training.

Defensively, the area he struggles in is framing. However, with his limited sample size, it's easy to assume that'll get better with experience. And it may not even matter to you if you think framing is overrated. On a similar topic, can Diaz call good games? Is his relationship with the pitching staff strong? This was the biggest defense for playing Maldy last year. And you are either rolling your eyes hard or legitimately worried about this area of Diaz' game. Regardless of how you feel, we can all hope Diaz picked up good habits from Maldy.

Conclusion

I'm very excited to see a full season of Diaz behind the plate, as I believe most of us are. Caratini fills the role of backup veteran catcher well and no doubt will prove important in giving additional guidance for Diaz. I predict Diaz will be an All-Star in 2024.

What do y'all think? Any important stats I left out, good or bad? What are your expectations for Diaz? Where would you like him to bat in the lineup? I hope you gained something from this post.