Michael McKenry: more important than he should be?

Michael McKenry is going be in the mix at catcher for the Colorado Rockies, but are they counting on him for too much?

Hello, my name is Hayden Kane, and I am here to rain on the Michael McKenry parade (figuratively speaking, of course). Modest though this gathering is to be called a “parade,” this is still important for those of us who care about the Rockies and their general inability to get people out.

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Michael McKenry was a 1.7 fWAR player in 2014. That earned him a one-year deal worth $1.0867 million to avoid arbitration this week (with that very specific number reported by MLB.com). That fWAR from 2014 is also better than his combined fWAR (1.4) for the previous three seasons, including a below-replacement-level season in 41 games in 2013.

Going out on a limb here, but I am guessing that McKenry is not going to repeat anything close to the 141 wRC+ last season. If you think that McKenry is going to be 40% better than league average offensively, then you must be the grand marshal of this make-believe parade.

To be fair, McKenry’s other good season was quite good. In 88 games for the Pirates in 2o12, McKenry was also a 1.7 fWAR player, and he also hit the ball well with a 109 wRC+. Even still, my fear is that we have a larger sample of McKenry being “meh” than we do the impact player he was last year, and that the Rockies are too quick to take for granted that the man known as “Calf-zilla” will be a solid backup next season.

Speaking of that nickname, did you know that McKenry is 5’10”, 205 pounds? Holy smokes. That’s like having Marshawn Lynch as your backup catcher.

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When the Rockies signed McKenry almost exactly one year ago, he was mostly a castoff. The team signed him to a minor league deal with an invitation to big league Spring Training. At the time, I asked the following question in all sincerity: Should Michael McKenry or Jordan Pacheco be the backup catcher for the Rockies?

That mostly comes down to McKenry playing really well and proving many of us wrong. Maybe he will do that again by grabbing a lion’s share of the playing time next season. I would certainly be happy to be wrong again.

Call it a gut feeling, but I think the Rockies did not show enough urgency in addressing their catching situation this winter. Not that I wanted them to spend $80 million on Russell Martin or something extreme, but there has to be a middle ground between that and signing Nick Hundley, right?

I actually thought the Hundley signing was a solid one, but I think part of the reason the Rockies were more content than they should be regarding their catching situation is that they are counting on McKenry.

Will the Rockies wish they hadn’t bought into McKenry’s 2014 season? Hopefully ‘Calf-zilla’ can prove me wrong again and put together another solid season, but this question hangs over the team as Spring Training approaches.

Next: Rex Brothers, a risk well worth taking