Jesus, Our Saviour!

Over the past year or so, Jesus Montero has been the subject of endless conjecture. While very few doubt that he'll be a quality major-league hitter (with a few caveats about his power potential), an equally small amount of speculators believe that he'll be able to be a quality catcher. There has been a great deal of sentiment that Montero will end up as a designated hitter, in fact, as he does not appear athletic enough to shift to the outfield and is blocked from a move to first by the next seven years of Mark Teixeira. Before delving into my own thoughts on the matter, I wanted to share a bit of information on Montero's offensive potential, as it has a great deal to do with his overall value (and that may be understating the matter).

Take a look at THT's Minor League Equivalency Forecast for Montero's next six years:

Year AB HR AVG OBP SLG wOBA
2010 308 12 0.287 0.334 0.453 0.342
2011 335 14 0.305 0.349 0.497 0.365
2012 354 17 0.316 0.359 0.527 0.380
2013 369 19 0.321 0.365 0.545 0.389
2014 383 21 0.324 0.369 0.559 0.396
2015 399 22 0.321 0.366 0.552 0.392 

THT's methodology and inputs can be found here and here, if you're curious. They certainly aren't perfect, as projecting prospects is essentially a crapshoot, but most scouts see similar production from Montero... and his progress through the minors has been incredible, to say the least.

While the numbers do speak for themselves, it is worth pointing out that very few catchers have posted numbers of that caliber. Mike Piazza hit .308/.377/.545 in his career. Joe Mauer's career line is .327/.409/.484. Posada's slugged over .520 three times, and has a career line of .278/.379/.482. In short, Montero projects to compare favorably to the three best offensive catchers of the last twenty years or so.

Defensively, of course, Montero appears to be quite similar to Piazza and the current incarnation of Posada... perhaps even worse. However, is that really something that should concern the Yankees?

Mike Piazza had nine seasons worth at least 4.0 WAR. Jorge Posada has had six such seasons. Victor Martinez has had four such seasons. It should go without saying that those were incredibly valuable seasons, particularly from behind the plate. However, it's incredibly optimistic to expect Montero to produce such numbers - let's delve a bit deeper.

Mike Napoli, a supposed butcher behind the plate, has a career line of .254/.355/.486 in 1277 PA, which would seem to be a fairly pragmatic projection for Montero. Napoli has been worth 9.0 WAR, or about 4.5 WAR per season (assuming about 650 PA). In other words, a below average defensive catcher that can post an OPS around .840 is worth about the same as a peak season of Jermaine Dye.

In the end, I really don't know how Montero will shake-out behind the plate. If he's like Jason Giambi back there, then I doubt that his offense could make up for that (unless he ends up as the second coming of Mike Piazza)... but a competent defensive catcher, a la Piazza, Posada, Martinez, or Napoli, can be worth their weight in gold - and it seems incredibly inane to give up on the 20-year old Montero given this evidence.