Yainer Diaz hot streak could provide Astros with flexible offseason opportunity

The coming job of general manager will be a difficult one for whoever takes the job. Fans and pundits alike are fond of saying "this is the most important offseason for the franchise." Rest assured they will say it again next offseason. That kind of hyperbole sells ad space, but it is not necessarily completely wrong in the Astros case.

Simply put, they have a number of players approaching free agency (Jeremy Pena and Hunter Brown) and others that are destined for pay raises if they keep them in the fold. Yainer Diaz is one of those players. He is caught in one of those unenviable positions of likely being too good to non-tender, but not quite good enough to get an extension. Furthermore, Christian Vazquez is likely one and done as a backup catcher. So, what should the Astros do moving forward?

As I have said before, I like WAR as a quick bench resource, but the components of WAR are so much more valuable for peeling the layers off the onion. We can look at two separate tables for Diaz that end up saying something particularly similar. Yes, we can look at the standard slash (AVG/OBP/SLG) statistics, but we can add in numbers like real offensive value (ROV) and secondary average (SEC) to show what has been happening to Diaz offensively since he became a semi-regular player in 2023.

These numbers do not include the opener of the Rays series where Diaz continued his hot streak. In particular, ROV (as I have called it) takes the midpoint between batting average and secondary average. Secondary average is an old Bill James stat that calculates everything a player does that does not include batting average. The bulk of that is isolated power and patience. We know Diaz is not particularly patient and we have seen that pitchers have steadily learned that they don't have to give Diaz much to hit.

His numbers demonstrate that he can make consistent contact, but it won't necessarily be good contact. ROV can be interpreted the same way as batting average. Depending on the season, the league average will fluctuate between .230 and .250. As you can see, he hasn't seen league average numbers since 2024. Sometimes we have to dig deeper and Diaz is one of the reasons why I am not a huge fan of OPS. OPS counts batting average twice, so a player like Diaz that hits for a healthy average will look better offensively than what they really are.

Of course, a subpar offensive catcher can still be valuable if he is solid defensively. We can look at three numbers for Diaz to evaluate the quality of his defense. Most fans are familiar with defensive runs saved (the Fielding Bible). It is the basis for baseball-reference.com's Rfield and it is normally accurate for most positions, but it misses the element of pitch framing. Fangraphs.com tracks pitch framing separately and also incorporates it into something they call "fielding runs value" (FRV). We can look at all three to see the direction that Diaz's defense is going in.

Essentially, Astros catcher Yainer Diaz is going in the wrong direction both offensively and defensively.

He has never been a good pitch framer (FRM). That kind of works in his favor actually. Baseball is moving steadily in the direction of the robo-umpire. That would effectively make every catcher's FRM zero. If you add those runs back to him then he becomes tolerable, but we are still seeing some sliding according to both defensive runs saved and fielding run value.

Most of that has come in his relative inability to control the running game. Sure, we can blame pitchers for being slow to the plate, but that hasn't really impacted Christian Vazquez nearly as much. So, the Astros have a potentially tough choice. The hot streak actually gives them some opportunities they might not have had earlier in the offseason. They can tender him a contract and then trade him to a team that thinks they are getting an above average offensive catcher.

There are three roads you can go down here. The first road would be to extend Diaz now while his value is relatively low. You would at least have something that could resemble a league average catcher for a few years while you wait for young catchers to develop. Both Walker Janek and Jason Schiavone are on the come and could be ready at some point in 2027. The Astros could promote one or both of those to take over in 2027 if they want to promote aggressively.

Schiavone is probably closer to being ready. He was recently promoted to AAA Sugar Land and has hit 31 home runs between three levels this season. Janek has also played between three affiliates and got off to a slow start, but has rebounded to a .254/.326/.425 slash rate with 27 steals. He is also the more renowned defender between the two.

The Astros could also trade for or acquire a veteran catcher to stabalize the position for a year or two while those two continue to develop. They could also tender Diaz for one more season to give those two that same time. It's not an easy decision given the direction Diaz seems to be going in his career. At least, he has been hot recently so they have options. However, the numbers above paint a very clear picture. Overall, he is a catcher going in the wrong direction.

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