NEWSLETTER
The Chicago Cubs have their new back-up catcher, at least until Austin Romine gets right. As reported earlier, it’s former Rockies catcher Tony Wolters.
To open up a 40-man roster spot for Wolters, the Cubs designated reliever James Norwood for assignment.
Norwood, 27, has long been a tantalizing relief prospect, pairing a 99 mph fastball with a devastating splitter. Command has been the issue, as he’s not been able to consistently locate his pitches to maximize effect. Up and down for the last few years, he was in his final option year, and it’s almost impossible to imagine that no rebuilding clubs out there won’t take a shot at the raw stuff. Maybe a change of scenery will help him put it together. The Cubs will have seven days to trade, waive, or release Norwood. If he clears waivers, the Cubs could outright him to Iowa and keep him for another year.
Interesting that the Cubs elected to risk losing Norwood rather than, for example, putting Romine on the 60-day IL. That suggests that, despite his limited activities this spring, his knee injury must not be viewed as likely to be a long-term thing.
As for Wolters, I wrote earlier:
Wolters, 28, was never much of a hitter in his time with the Rockies, sporting a 57 wRC+ (though the slash line looks a lot better because of the Coors adjustment (.238/.323/.319)). He has intermittently been an exceptional catcher, though, with mostly great defensive years and a couple superlative framing years, too. His metrics were way down in 2020, but it’s so hard to know what to do with so few appearances. It seems unlikely that he lost it at 27, so the hope is he’s still a great defender/framer this year at age 28.
You’re probably wondering how the Cubs are landing on a guy who couldn’t make the Pirates, but it’s pretty easy to explain. For one thing, again, this isn’t true free agency – the guys who are available right now are not going to be your tip-top choice back-up catcher, so you kinda take what you can get. But for the other thing, the Pirates have a good young starter in Jacob Stallings, and then they were choosing between Wolters and Michael Perez for the back-up spot. If they chose Wolters, it would cost them $1.4 million in the big leagues. If they chose Perez, it would cost them the big league minimum. So, yeah. It was close enough – Perez is the same age as Wolters but comes with much more offensive upside (the glove is questionable) – that it’s not weird that the Pirates would choose Perez to save the money.
As for Wolters, your hope is that the glove is what it has been, in which case the drop-off from Romine might not be all that significant overall. Romine can be a much better bat if he’s healthy, but Wolters doesn’t strike out a lot, takes a lot of walks, and has a not-brutal career line against righties: .240/.322/.325. Like all Rockies hitters, he has perverse home/road splits (.273/.357/.369 at Coors, .203/.289/.268 away from Coors), but as we’ve seen with hitters who leave Colorado, that doesn’t always tell you exactly what’s going to happen. Wolters definitely benefited from the artificially inflated BABIP you get at Coors, but you don’t know to what extent he got hammered by the Coors hangover effect when going on the road.
