Washington Nationals: Grading the offensive players

Catcher – Pedro Severino

Now we come to the interesting case of Pedro Severino. The Washington Nationals catcher has had two different personas. The one behind the plate, and the one in the batter’s box.

In the batter’s box, despite a nice start, he’s been largely a non-threat. He currently sports a pitiful .172 batting average and is only slugging .223, showing minimal power.

It looked like it was Severino’s time to shine when Matt Wieters was injured, and he delivered for a bit. On May 15th he was hitting .270 and had a .382 OBP, showing an impressive eye. But since then, he’s merely 7 for 83, which is good for a .084 average.

Although he won’t be that bad with the bat in the long-term, he won’t be as good as his fast start. Throughout his minor league career, he was a .244 hitter with a .294 OBP, so he can certainly do a job.

On the other side of the ball, Severino has flashed some elite defense. He currently possesses a 3.6 Defensive Rating according to FanGraphs, highest of all Nats catchers this year. He also has the fifth highest caught stealing percentage, among qualifiers, in the National League.

However, no matter how good your defense at a premium position is, you have to offer some threat with the bat. If Severino can improve his hitting, then he’ll be a fine backup catcher moving forward. However, in 2018 so far, he must improve quickly. D