With Miguel Amaya having to take a day off at SOME point, Christian Bethancourt did an incredible job of playing the part of “Hottest Hitter on the Cubs” for the series finale against the Pirates.
But about that hottest hitter, how about a little bit of history:
That’s pretty fun right there, and Amaya will go for a sixth straight game tomorrow night in DC. He’s now up to a .243/.299/.371/89 wRC+ on the season, which is juuuuust shy of a league-average line for a catcher. He’s at .347/.392/.579/171 since those swing changes the first week of July.
To the extent you were wondering whether Amaya’s outburst – and, more importantly, the fact that it is tied to tangible changes at the plate – has changed the Cubs’ thinking for the offseason, the answer is and should be no. The Cubs still need to find ways to impact the offense, and even in a world where Amaya is an outstanding hitter, you’d obviously still need another catcher to pair him with, leaving an opportunity to upgrade the offense 80+ times per year.
From a recent piece at The Athletic about Amaya’s breakout success:
“It was barely a month ago that the Cubs front office was targeting catchers at the trade deadline. When they didn’t come away with one, the plan was that it would be one of their main areas to look to upgrade in the winter. That thought process hasn’t shifted dramatically as of yet.
“You’ve got hot stretches, you’ve got cold stretches,” Counsell said. “You try to evaluate the season as a whole. You understand that young players, you hope there’s some positive trend. As they’re young, they’re probably changing more than someone farther along in their career. Players can change. That’s the evaluators’ job to figure out, ‘What does this mean?’”
Amaya has certainly given them more to think about, though. At a minimum, he’s strengthened the organization’s belief that he can be a really good backup or part of a timeshare. As of now, upgrading at catcher will still be a priority. It’s simply too risky to rely on a few months of information. But Amaya seems to be building a case to be a part of the team’s future. And he’s got another month to continue to build his case.”
There are actually a relatively large number of theoretically-available catcher targets for the Cubs this offseason, ranging from obvious starters to obvious back-ups. We’ll see how the next month plays out, but as I sit here today, it sure feels like if you could get someone like Carson Kelly on a two-ish-year deal, that’d be the right approach. He’s good enough overall to be an average starter, but is probably better suited to the kind of 1-A/1-B approach the Cubs had envisioned for this season
Hopefully Miguel Amaya’s future with the Cubs burns a little more brightly than Tyler Houston’s, by the way.
Although Houston had a breakout with the Cubs in the second half of 1996, like Amaya at age-25, Houston hit just .257/.290/.373/69 wRC+ total the following two years. He actually had a good bit more success after departing the Cubs (.270/.316/.452/95 wRC+), though he was all done by age-32. All in all, Houston had a nice career for a 1-B type catcher (a very good back-up), and that may very well wind up where Amaya lands. But, hey, I’d love to root for more than that.