Martin Maldonado Appreciation Thread

I think he means to bring him back as a pitcher...

 

Maldy helped develop guys.

 

no he didn’t

 

Alright then enjoy the 10 run games you are seeing

 

Thank you Mr Carlin.

 

"if he can stop the pitchers from giving up runs"?

WTF?

 

I feel bad for Maldy as he was a great catcher for the Astros but sorely overused his last few years. If they would have split time with him and Diaz last year we'd all be singing his praises still.

 

We miss Strom….that’s who we missed the last cpl
Seasons

 

You’re still wrong

 

Maldonado-led White Sox are now 2-11 with a team ERA of 4.81

 

If his playing time was cut he would not be back-to-back passed ball champion

 

Man, who would have thought the White Sox would be as good as the Astros!!

 

They're still beating us for the #1 draft slot

 

There’s a 6 team lottery now.

 

Baseball Prospectus on Maldy...
https://www.baseballprospectus.com/player/48082/martin-maldonado/

2023:
Find someone who believes in you like the Astros believe in Maldonado. The latest exhibit in Houston's commitment to the backstop's skills that don't involve the bat: The aftermath of a deadline trade for Red Sox catcher Christian Vázquez, owner of at least as prominent a share of playing time behind the dish and a batting average that Maldonado could only dream of. Would Houston move to a more equitable timeshare, or finally tire of their sub-Mendoza line production behind the plate and relegate him to second catcher duty? Of course not. Oh, Vázquez got a look-in more often than Jason Castro or Korey Lee had, but Maldonado outpaced him in starts 36-24 over those final 60 games, and when the business end of the season rolled around, it was Maldonado calling the shots behind the plate, starting 11 of the 13 games in Houston's triumphant postseason run. Perhaps before his career is over, his production at the plate will finally drop to a point that the Astros will no longer rely on him behind it, but at this stage it's very hard to imagine that there's any level of performance that would precipitate such an unthinkable event.

2022:
"The play's the thing," Hamlet said, and the continued employment of backstops like Maldonado proves he must have been speaking about catcher defense. If his bat showed one final twitch of life in 2020, that hope was irretrievably dimmed in the complete season that followed, during which Maldonado had the third-worst OPS and fourth-worst DRC+ among all players reaching 400 plate appearances. The Astros transparently didn't care, giving a mid-30s backstop an extension for 2022 featuring a 2023 vesting option whose threshold (90 games) he blew past. They consider him a singular defender, and with Maldonado having been present for four straight postseason runs, who's to argue with the results?

2021:
Ahead of Game 7 of the ALCS, Lance McCullers praised Maldonado's "will to win" and "grit." That might sound like Hawk Harrelson excusing a poor offensive performance with intangibles, but Maldonado three-true-outcomed his way to an average offensive season while also carrying out an impressive feat of pitcher management that is somewhat unquantifiable. Let's try anyway. Fifteen rookies pitched for the Astros in 2020, a number only matched by the COVID-depleted Marlins. Those rookies ended up pitching more than half of Houston's innings, leading the league. Maldonado guided the newcomers through the vast majority, handling almost three-quarters of the time behind the plate. He then started all but one of the team's playoff games—entering the other for the final four innings—to shepherd this rookie-reliant pitching staff within one game of the World Series. The Astros believed in Maldonado enough to not only bring him back to the team for the third time in three years but also to entrust him with almost all of their catching work. While his statistical résumé as a framer appears to be getting less impressive as he ages, his colleagues will tell you he excels at practically everything else.

2020:
It's like the old saying goes: If you love someone, let them go ... and just trade for them again next year. Maldonado left in free agency after the Astros acquired him for the 2018 stretch run. When they were again in need of a backup in 2019, they went back to the well, sending a DFA'd Tony Kemp to the Cubs in exchange for "El Machete." In a testament to just how juiced the 2019 baseball was, Maldonado somehow hit 12 home runs in 374 plate appearances. An owner of a 36 percent career caught stealing rate, runners have poorly donated outs to Maldonado.

2019:
Comedian Lewis Black had a joke long ago regarding being a weather reporter in San Diego, California, and how it was easily the best job in the country since all one had to do every day was proclaim "It's going to be nice. Back to you." While writing about Martin Maldonado full time would not put even the meagerest portion of bread on a table, the temptation is hard to resist: "Martin Maldonado is a solid defensive catcher who struggles to hit his weight. Back to you." Except that, entering his age-32 season, there's legitimate concern that the solid defense may be slipping away; framing may seem invisible, but it requires flexibility, and at some point a man can't just pluck those low strikes up with the same level of grace. I guess the point is that even in Southern California, the weather reporter is wrong once in a while.

 

The White Sox are one of the few teams that the Astros can point at the scoreboard and laugh at.

 

Maldonado: Clearly his bat was abysmal, and I mean historically abysmal. Clearly the pitching staff requested his services despite his batting futility. Get the impression from afar that he was one of, if not the, team leader(s), and a pretty good argument could be made that the 2024 Astros are lacking in the leadership department post Correa and Maldy. Offensively, Diaz over Maldonado is a no-brainer. From a game-calling/leadership perspective, I think it’s fair to wonder if the 2024 Astros have taken a step back in these departments.

 

Then why aren't the White Sox taking a step forward? I wouldn't have minded keeping Maldonado in a coaching role... but... he still insisted in starting. A true leader is cognizant of their limitations.

 

Defensively, Maldonado was also one of the worst catchers in baseball last year.
-10 DRS
-15 FRM
Opponents were successful 86% of the time stealing bases last year.
Lead the league in PBs

His FRV value which takes into account all of the above was -16. Of all the catchers that caught at least 500 innings last year, Maldonado was only better than Keibert Ruiz defensively accoring to the FRV value. Only Elias Diaz was worse in pitch framing. His Def rating was 3rd worst. His DRS was 7th worst. Add to that his abysmal excuse for offense, and the Astros were smart to let him walk.