On Friday, Royals catcher Salvador Perez, with the ink on his new five-year, $7 million extension still wet enough to smear, underwent surgery on his left knee, an injury that happened prior to a game and that will likely force the 21-year-old to miss upwards of three months.
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Yesterday, with a whole to fill behind the plate and only one healthy catcher on their 40-man roster, Kansas City acquired career backup Humberto Quintero as well as center fielder Jason Bourgeois from the Astros in exchange for lanky left-hander Kevin Chapman and a player to be named later.
The move immediately adds depth to the Royals’ depleted catching situation – Manny Pina was also placed on the 60-day DL – as well as a little added outfield insurance.
Quintero, 32, owns a career .234/.268/.321 big league line and has never received more than 276 plate appearances in a season. He has very little plate discipline (a career walk rate of 3.3%), similar power, and has remained on big league rosters for portions of nine seasons in large part due to his defense.
He’s thrown out 32.2% of attempted base stealers throughout his career, and while the catcher’s defense remains largely an inexact science, he’s graded out generally well. According FanGraphs’ version of Wins Above Replacement (fWAR), Quintero has been worth over two wins in his career. But breaking down the numbers by using Weighted Runs Above Average (wRAA), a metric used in WAR totals where every ten runs equals one win, he’s cost his team’s over six wins on offense throughout his career, which, of course, means he’s been worth about eight wins on defense (-6 + 8 = 2).
He’s a solid backup that won’t hurt his team in a pinch, but his weaknesses will be exposed in longer durations.
Coming along with Quintero is Bourgeois, a 30-year-old center fielder who batted an empty .294/.323/.357 in 252 plate appearances last season, a career high.
Bourgeois, like Quintero, relies heavily on his defensive prowess, where he has also posted solid numbers in brief stints throughout his career.
As an outfielder with 740 career big league innings, Bourgeois has been worth almost 15 runs above average according to Ultimate Zone Rating Per 150 Games (UZR/150). He’s capable of handling all three outfield positions, but has performed better in either corner spot.
On offense, however, he offers very little in means of overall production: he’s walked in only 6% of his plate appearances, numbers more or less in line with his minor league track record; he’s shown very little power (0.62 ISO), but has been fairly efficient on the base paths, with a career success rate of 82% (46 stolen bases in 56 attempts).
He does have the potential to be a useful platoon player against lefties, whom he has hit .328/.369/.409 off of in 200 plate appearances.
Going the other way, down to Houston, is 6-foot-4 left-handed reliever Kevin Chapman, and, of course, an undetermined player.
Chapman, a thrice-drafted amateur, has posted some ugly ERAs in 80 minor league innings, but his peripherals are much more promising. He owns an impressive 12.4% career strikeout rate, to go along with a slightly below-average walk rate (4.0 BB/9). And according to John Sickels, his fastball sits in the 90 to 94 MPH range, with a slider that flashes, at times, plus potential. He does have the potential – given his arsenal and peripherals – to be a solid late-game option if he can refine some things.
Overall, this is a solid move for both teams: the Royals fill an obvious need while also adding outfield depth in case center fielder Lorenzo Cain doesn’t pan out as expected, and the Houston Astros, who won’t contend within the next five years, at least, receives a solid relief prospect with fairly decent upside to go along with the PTBNL. This move, like the Jed Lowrie deal, shows that the new Houston front office is relying on scouting reports and numbers, a very positive sign.
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