Author: /u/andycannolis

Note: this is a semi far ahead look into the future so things might change as Garrett Stubbs might become a good enough hitter to play catcher every day, the Astros sign another catcher or Yang might not play as well/get injured, that said I hope this piques your curiosity as much as this idea does for mine. I would say that we’re pretty confident that the Astros won’t re-sign Jason Castro again and that Martin Maldonado is turning into Jeff Mathis 2.0 so it’s time for him to go be a backup catcher somewhere else. It would also be safe to say that Garrett Stubbs probably will not be the every day catcher but he could certainly get more playing time than he currently will be receiving. To help mitigate his lackluster offense the best course of action would attempting to sign Eui Ji Yang of the NC Dinos out of the KBO. I know he’ll be 35 going on 36 after the 2022 season but having someone who can play a very good catcher while also having a 1.000 ops or better in each of the last four seasons he has played in the KBO is definitely helpful. Other options would include Gary Sanchez, Christian Vasquez, Mike Zunino, old friend Max Stassi, Willson Contreras, Omar Narváez, and if Buster Posey’s 2022 club option is picked up like it might at this rate then Buster Posey could also be an option.

What Yang does well is that his career strikeout rate is at just 11.1% and he has cut down on his strikeout rate to 8.8% since 2018. His career strikeout rate is considerably better than Ha-Seong Kim’s 13.7% in his KBO career and Jung-Ho Kang’s 16.9%. His career walk rate is at 9.6%, with a 10.3% since 2018 which is good but not great and slightly worse than Kim (10.4%) and Kang (10.9%). Therefore we can reasonably expect a 8% walk rate and a 16% strikeout rate if he comes to the MLB which would better than all options listed above (the walks wouldn’t be better though). He should be able to provide approximately league average power as he has a career .193 ISO with a .309 career average (.316 babip) and a .345 average (.337 babip) and .241 ISO since 2018. He has a 5.8% HR/AB rate and a 6.3% 2B/AB rate. With regression in 130 games and 520 plate appearances (470 at bats) we can expect him to hit 19 home runs and pick up 24 doubles with 132 hits, four sacrifice flys, 8 hbp and draw 42 walks vs 78 strikeouts with a .281, .347 .457 .804 slash line which is good for .346 wOBA and would translate to a 123 ops+ 126 wrc+ which would be the third best mark for all qualified catchers by Baseball Reference and second by Fangraphs. We could reasonably expect his playing time to be similar to that of Buster Posey of the Giants in that he gets most of his time at catcher (80~ games as the catcher with the other 50 mixed between 1B and DH to keep him healthy and in the lineup more often. We can expect him to be a league average defensive catcher with solid framing numbers.

Other teams that might be interested in Yang after the 2022 season are the San Diego Padres as he’d be a good complement to Austin Nola at Catcher (he’d likely be the best fit for the Padres if the NL DH was a guarantee for the 2023. The Yankees, Red Sox, Angels and Nationals all would likely be in the mix for his services. And he would be a great option for say $5 million dollars on a one year deal with a team option for 2024 for $6 million with a $1 million buyout. That should be enough to entice Yang to come over if he’s willing to give the MLB a shot. He would be a good option for almost any team aiming on contending in 2023 and the Astros are currently the best place for Yang right now.

Thanks so much for reading as I hope you enjoyed it, please comment your own thoughts on how he would do as a part of the Astros, whether you feel he should sign with another team I mentioned in article or even stay with the Dinos. Let me know if there’s anything else I should add about Yang.