The Padres Have A TOUGH Choice To Make...

The Padres have a tough decision to make as they currently have three catchers on the active roster. Who should they get rid of? Should they get rid of someone? Who's the best? Who's the worst? Let's talk about it. Hi, welcome back to another episode of Padres Digest with your host Andrew. Today we're talking catcher log jams as we have a lot of catchers. Like I said, what should we do with them? Because we don't technically need three catchers, but I wouldn't be opposed to three catchers depending on what we do with them. And we'll discuss all that in the video today so before we get too deep into it please subscribe as always follow us on X Instagram Facebook Padres Digest we're getting close to 6,000 subs so get us there and we'll do something special i don't know what but we'll think about it but yeah let's start with our little log jam firstly we have your boy Ethan Salas who joins Padres catcher log jam so as AJ Preller says best uh it's a good position to be in to have three catchers that are serviceable capable i don't know if you want to call Fermin capable he's a great catcher catcher but he's not a great hitter but i think he can be a fine hitter and a really good catcher catcher you know what i mean but they're all capable right so what did the log jam timeline look like so obviously we acquired Freddy Fermin for two pitchers who we sorely miss even though they're uh out with TJ uh but we're we're missing them right and then we called up Ethan Salas September 1st and then we kept them in the playoffs so we had Campusano we had Fermin and we had Salas in the playoff roster so yeah we saw how it worked and it wasn't bad right so if we look at the catcher savant pages they're all unqualified because they didn't have enough plate appearances especially salas obviously but hitting wise camposano is definitely the best but ethan salas has a much higher ceiling and freddie fermin was okay right got a little unlucky expected woba was 270 same thing with camposano but you know still could be better uh but catching wise freddie fermin is the best catcher by far on this team right caught stealing above average luis camposano was really good at getting people out but overall fermin just had a better catching ability salas can be a good catcher but i still think he needs to get more used to the mlb role uh but overall camposano salas very capable hitters salas could be one of the best catchers in the league hitting wise fermin can be good catcher hit a good hitter but he probably won't be a good hitter he'll be an okay hitter at best probably right so let's take a look at freddie fermin in general freddie fermin post career high defensive year so like i said freddie fermin's whole stick is that he's a very good catcher catcher so i made a video about this a while ago but it says the yankees are expected to keep austin wells at catcher next season and it lists a whole bunch of different names including freddie fermin and Luis Campusano but a name I want you guys to remember is Austin Hedges, Austin Hedges was a former Padre, horrible bat but a great great great catcher, fantastic defense and that's why he still has a job because he can catch better than anyone, probably better than anyone I don't have the data to back it up but he's a really good defensive catcher right so if we compare someone like Federman to Hedges whose value is more in catching you'll find that Federman does have value, trade value or just regular value in general as a catcher because catching is the most probably the most difficult position you can play right so if you look at catching runs by season catching runs equals runs saved by an average catcher or versus an average catcher framing plus throwing plus blocking zero equals average so obviously Hedges has been around for a long time so he's been here for a while but in 2019 he had a 24 catching runs by season which is insane right but then you get to the Freddie Federman era and he's still very good, Austin Hedges but last year he was negative two while Freddie Federman this year was nine which is uh I guess an average Austin Hedges defensive season since 2023 so he's a very good defensive catcher while Austin Hedges is kind of falling off which is expected he's getting old there is still lots of value in Freddie Federman as a catcher so yes he can't hit as well but the value for him is that he can call a good game if he's the one calling it the pitcher sometimes called a game but he can call a good game he can catch a good game he can frame a good game he's a very good catcher so do you want to get rid of Fedmine even though he's our best catcher or option number two Luis Camposano could shift to Padres DH role so if this loads it's not loading but if we were to keep Camposano he's probably the worst defensive catcher i think Salas can be a better catcher than he can uh but Camposano is the best bat so far out of those three so if we just make Luis Camposano a full-time DH we could keep three catchers and not lose his bat that or if you want to be super extreme and desperate and crazy you can make Camposano a first baseman and replace Ty France that's probably not going to happen but i know he's had reps at first base so it's a possibility uh not going to happen but it's a possibility right so if we were to keep him as a full-time DH you can compare the numbers uh with him uh and Fedmine Fedmine obviously keep pressing wrong buttons don't mind me much better glove plus nine catching runs plus three framing plus four throwing plus two blocking uh versus Camposano who's at negative three negative four good thrower right we saw him throw a lot of people out on base last year uh the blocking is zero pop time he is in the 86th percentile Fedmine with 1.88 while Camposano is in the 40th percentile with 1.95 so Fedmine much better catcher catcher but a bat Federman is not a good batter negative eight batting run value versus plus seven for Camposano OPS huge difference expected wOBA expected weighted on base average a barrel a hundred difference right barrel rate much better hard hit percentage much better so Camposano is infinitely a better hitter and uh I don't want to say significantly worse catcher but a not as good catcher right so if you keep Federman in for his glove but not his bat you can keep Camposano in for his bat as a DH does that make sense and the other big thing I want to talk about too is having three catchers keeps the injury problem we had last year at bay so we had to call up Rodolfo Duran and uh what's his face like Tom Hunt or whatever he's irrelevant I like Rodolfo Duran but he wasn't great as a hitter so remember when we had Camposano out on the IL for 58 days with a toe injury I think he broke his toe uh and then Freddy Fermin got demolished behind the plate last year with foul balls hitting him in the face constantly and he was on the IL for about a month we'll call it a concussion and a head bruise so if we were to keep Salas, Camposano, and Federman we don't have to call anyone else up right we'll have a backup catcher already on the roster so it'll work out fine but again it's three catchers which means you're losing a skill position like a backup infielder backup outfielder but it does solve our injury problem i don't know i don't hate the idea but it all depends right so let's take a look at this basically the Padres catching decision comes down to Freddy Fermin what do we do with Freddie Fermin, so the way I think about it before I ask these questions I think I'm okay with trading Freddie Fermin but it has to be a good enough return that it warrants getting rid of him because I don't think we need to get rid of him I'm not opposed to getting rid of him if it's a good return if the Yankees want to give us someone good for him bye bye bye bye thank you bye bye but I'm not opposed to having three catchers if we can use Compusano as a full-time DH right so let me know what you guys think should we trade him for a real return keep all three and Campy at DH or trade Compusano instead if you want to be crazy like that let me know what you guys think in the comments down below and as always please subscribe follow us on X Instagram Facebook Padres Digest thank you so much for watching thank you to our channel members and join membership for awesome bonus features have a fantastic rest of your day everybody uh Brewers are probably going to win the World Series so shout out to you guys uh but who do you guys want to win the World Series let me know in comments down below and yeah bye