Shoppach's Role

Cleveland Sports Perspective raises the possibility that when all is said and done, Kelly Shoppach may end up being trade bait if the Indians are looking to make a move at the deadline. That's a possibility that Anthony Castrovince of MLB.com also mentioned at the time the Crisp deal went down.

Assuming that Shoppach makes the club (which I think is likely for the reasons Vinny cited in his Spring Training post), I hope that's not his fate. Victor Martinez is a legitimate star, but let's face it, his biggest value to the team lies in his bat. Like everybody else, I worry about what the wear and tear of catching every day is going to do to his offensive numbers.

Martinez caught 142 games last season and 132 games the year before that. That's 85% of the games the Indians played over the past two years, and that's a ton of catching. To give you some perspective, the highest career percentage for games caught belongs to Pudge Rodriguez, with 78.52%. (More information on iron men catchers is available here.)

I'd really like to see Martinez catch fewer than 120 games this season. Shoppach's the only guy on the roster with the defensive tools and offensive potential to allow him to do that. The guy's defense is supposedly first rate, and he's got a little pop in his bat. If Vinny's correct in his projection about Shoppach's offensive numbers, we could live with him catching 40-60 games.

Of course, there's one big problem in my brilliant plan: Martinez needs to be able to play some first base if the Indians want to keep his bat in the lineup, but he's played only 14 games at first base, none of them in the majors. Still, Shoppach has the potential to give the Indians options that other backup catchers on the roster don't, so if he comes through, I'd kind of like to see him hang around.