Washington Nationals: The Matt Wieters option conundrum
By Ron Juckett
Once considered a lock to leave after the season, Washington Nationals catcher Matt Wieters faces a hard decision after slumping hard at the plate.
After a strong start for Washington Nationals catcher Matt Wieters, the season has not been kind. With an option for next season, you wonder if he will stay instead of opting out of his two-year deal.
Continuing a trend from last year, Wieters production is down in all aspects. His slash line of .241/.293/.380 are either career lows or near with slugging percentage. He has thrown out nine of 37 potential base stealers for a 24 percent success rate, four below league average.
Yet his overall defense is a positive 0.4 d-WAR according to Baseball Reference and his catcher’s ERA is over a run lower than Jose Lobaton at 3.82 compared with 4.84. Given the difficult task of replacing the popular Wilson Ramos, Wieters is playing well.
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But, not to the standards to earn a fat contract.
In 2016 with the Baltimore Orioles, Wieters made $15.8 million. In Washington, the money dips to $10.5 this year. He settled for the same money in 2018, but worked a player option into the deal. The Nats figured they had a bridge year for Pedro Severino to prepare while Wieters hoped he could bounce into a bigger deal elsewhere.
Severino battled injuries and a cold bat with Triple-A Syracuse as Wieters future value drops. The Nats, by luck, might solve their catching problem next year without changing a thing.
There are concerns to watch though.
With a .301 batting average through April, the number plummeted to .247 for May and a .207 mark in June. Not good. Although Wieters crushed three home runs while driving in 14, he stopped drawing walks. In April, he drew 11. Since then, six.
Even when Wieters made contact in June, the BAbip was a stunning .209. He cut the strikeouts down from May’s 20 to 14 last month with six more plate appearances. The good contact over the first two months disappeared the last four weeks.
Liked by his pitchers, Wieters made the difficult change from the American to National League with limited playing time in the Grapefruit League. He barely needs to hold meetings in-game to roll through signs and calm his staff. Not a pitch-framer, he calls a good game and rarely beats himself.
It is the offense that will make teams sour on more money.
Few figured Wieters would stay past 2018. Whatever he did benefited both sides. Now, the Nats may overpay for next year. They get stability and possibly another year to figure out the long-term plan.
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Although not ideal for Wieters, stability never hurts.