This is the first evaluation I will be doing for each "starter" on the team. I put starter in quotes as I will also be looking at the almost starters too.
First up is Carlos Ruiz. Carlos had an interesting year. He was originally splitting time with Barajas who then got injured and was never heard from again. Coste came up, played well at first and then was relegated to the bench. That left Ruiz, who ended up having an OK year.
Overall Line:
.259 BA .340 OBP .396 SLG .735 OPS
While a .738 OPS is nothing to write home about, it put him 9th among catchers with at least 400 PAs (a couple ticks better than IRod). VORP agreed placing him 10th at 13.0, just ahead of IRod. His EQA of .255 is certainly acceptable for a catcher (league average was 0.244). On a side note, catchers were really bad this year. It was basically 3 good hitters and everyone else with Brian McCann and Jow Mauer being with everyone else.
Carlos ended up showing some pretty good patience at the plate as far as catchers go with drawing 42 walks (batting 8th certainly helped that). Considering Kenji and Benji Molina and IRod added up to less walks combined (39 of them) I'll consider that a success.
Breaking it down a bit further, 6 homers for Carlos was a bit of a disappointment as he showed signs of a bit more power in the minors and he is already 28 years old. Of course, it is hard to hit homers when you have a GB/FB ratio of 1.32.
Home: .265 .353 .423 .776
Away: .253 .325 .365 .690
Not a huge difference there.
Vs Left: .189 .265 .311 .576
Vs Right: .282 .363 .423 .786
This is surprising to me as he hits right handed. I have to assume this is just an anomoly as he only had 90 ABs against lefties, so, I see it as an area he will improve on next year.
Pre All-Star: .272 .329 .401 .730
Post All-Star: .244 .351 .390 .741
Average and power dropped off after the all-star break, but OBP went up. This could just be due to him getting pitched around during tight spots. There isn't too much mroe to say about Ruiz. He has a pretty good arm and threw out over 30% of baserunners, but the Phillies staff was also pretty bad last year (hard to tell if that was him or not). It looks like catchers had a pretty down year, which makes Ruiz's line look better than it would have in other years.
I think we can expect a similiar year next year. Possibly a slightly lower OBP, but a higher SLG.