The Guardians need more help at catcher than Austin Hedges provides

The Guardians need more than Austin Hedges catching.

The era of catchers being bad defensively has long been over. In today’s modern baseball world if a catcher is bad defensively, he’s quickly shuffled to the outfield if he has wheels or to first base if he’s a sloth. Largely, there’s not a lot of separation between good catchers and great catchers when it comes down to defense. So finding catchers who can provide offense is generally speaking the way to go. That leads me to the issue with Austin Hedges being the heir apparent at the position for the Guardians.

Roberto Perez was not retained and has hit the free-agent market. His club option was declined after another season of poor hitting and injuries piled up. Wilson Ramos was brought in to help compete for the spot-mid season but injuries kept that from being a real possibility, and while Joe Noga of Cleveland.com said that Hedges more than held his own in 2021, there was a reason why the team marched out five different men behind the plate last year.

Now, Noga’s write-up mostly focused on the defensive aspects of Hedges, which is fine. He’s a good defensive player. The problem is the Indians offense isn’t very good in its current state and needs as much help offensively from every regular starter as possible. Being good just at defense is not something this club can afford to allow.

The Guardians need someone who can hit playing catcher

Hedges was acquired with the hope that he’d stabilize the catching position after not having a real starter following the departure of Yan Gomes. Hedges hasn’t been able to live up to that idea, hitting just .174 in Cleveland since his arrival in the summer of 2020. His on-base is even worse, at .220.

As good as Hedges is defensive, he’s equally as bad offensively. If the team needs production from the position, the Guardians aren’t going to be able to rely on Hedges. Prospects like Bryan Lavastida are a year or two away at least, though he is the shining beacon on the hill, so to speak. He’s a career .305 hitter in the minors so far, and that’s awesome. After all, if you can’t hit at that level, then you won’t be able to in the Majors.

For Bo Naylor, he’s ranged from being ok to flat-out bad offensively; often being over-powered in Akron for much of last year.

Both guys could be studs for the club in the future but we’re looking at least at two years as Hedges as the primary catcher. The team needs to consider making a move to upgrade the position.

Perhaps the new hitting coach will unlock something in Hedges that wasn’t there previously. It’s certainly possible. Crazier things have happened.