Great question! If Campusano turns out to be the worst catcher in the league we will not be looking at him as an upgrade over Nola/Sanchez! He hasn't been good in his 31 games this year by the savant and fangraphs metrics. Fangraphs has him at -3.0 DEF runs through 31 games. Last season Campusano was -0.8 in 49 games. Is he actually almost six times worse this year (on pace for -4.74 DEF runs through the same 49 game sample)? Can he improve? Last season Fangraphs had Elias Diaz as the sixth worst catcher in baseball with a huge sample to work with, -5.2 DEF runs. This season he's rated second best at 5.0 DEF runs through 30 games. Maybe he turned over a new leaf at age 33? I tend to think there IS a lot of value to these measures but they need large samples to mature, and I absolutely think Campusano is an upgrade over Nola. But I would say he looks more likely to be a downgrade over Sanchez. So whether he is a cumulative upgrade over that platoon remains to be seen. But the question you asked is exactly the right one, and the answer is definitely important to forecasting the effectiveness of the run prevention strategy going forward.
Is Campusano "unspectacular-but-competent"? Fangraphs/Statcast seems to think he's literally the worst starting catcher in the league, defensively.
https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/savant-player/luis-campusano-669134?stats=statcast-r-hitting-mlb
https://www.fangraphs.com/leaders/major-league?stats=bat&lg=all&type=8&season=2024&month=0&season1=2024&ind=0&rost=&age=&filter=&players=0&sortcol=20&sortdir=asc&pos=c&team=0&qual=50&pagenum=1
Great question! If Campusano turns out to be the worst catcher in the league we will not be looking at him as an upgrade over Nola/Sanchez! He hasn't been good in his 31 games this year by the savant and fangraphs metrics. Fangraphs has him at -3.0 DEF runs through 31 games. Last season Campusano was -0.8 in 49 games. Is he actually almost six times worse this year (on pace for -4.74 DEF runs through the same 49 game sample)? Can he improve? Last season Fangraphs had Elias Diaz as the sixth worst catcher in baseball with a huge sample to work with, -5.2 DEF runs. This season he's rated second best at 5.0 DEF runs through 30 games. Maybe he turned over a new leaf at age 33? I tend to think there IS a lot of value to these measures but they need large samples to mature, and I absolutely think Campusano is an upgrade over Nola. But I would say he looks more likely to be a downgrade over Sanchez. So whether he is a cumulative upgrade over that platoon remains to be seen. But the question you asked is exactly the right one, and the answer is definitely important to forecasting the effectiveness of the run prevention strategy going forward.