Mike Petriello notes the Diamondbacks catchers may represent the worst team-position in baseball:
It’s one of the worst situations of any position in the game, and it’s not at the bottom mainly (though not exclusively) because the Phillies exist at a few spots, and because we’re looking at tenths of a point of WAR that far down.
The more I see Dave Stewart work, the more I’m convinced he has no clue as to the idea of freely available talent. There is some team somewhere with a AA or AAA catcher that is probably better than anyone currently on the Arizona roster. The DBacks can pay him close to the minimum and get 0 WAR, not negative WAR. The Diamondbacks don’t need a good catcher right now, but there’s no excuse to have awful ones.
Update: The Diamondbacks sign Gerald Laird. If he bounces back from a very poor 2014, he could be that replacement level player.
2014 wasn’t his only very poor year. Selectively cutting off his stats from his last truly good year (2009), since the start of the 2010 season he’s played in 289 games and accumulated -0.6 b-ref WAR. I guess there’s a chance he rebounds and becomes replacement level, but there’s a stronger probability he gets even worse. He’ll be 35 this year. His positive WAR in 2013 is almost exclusively driven by a BABIP 50 points higher than his career average.
He’s done.
zeppelinkm » I suspect you are correct.