More Higgy, less Trevino (…?)

We’re at that time of the calendar year in which we’re less than one month away from Opening Day and we can start having serious conversations about the Yankees’ 2023 roster and the expectations of individual players. The health of both DJ LeMahieu and Giancarlo Stanton is going to go a long way toward determining the Yankees’ success in 2023 (as seems the case every season) and I’m one of many fans who really want to see Oswald Peraza and Anthony Volpe get legit opportunities to shine.

Yet one roster item that seems to be flying under the radar is the team’s catchers. I’m not referring to the numerous injuries to the organization’s depth at the position, but with the presumptive opening day backstops Jose Trevino and Kyle Higashioka. I write this because despite the well-deserved accolades, Jose Trevino wasn’t particularly good over the 2022 season’s second half – essentially he became the Jose Trevino we all expected.

Conversely, Kyle Higashioka had a phenomenal second half of ’22 that doesn’t get acknowledged enough. Due to all the above, I’d expect more from Higashioka this season, and less from Trevino.

On June 8^th of last year, Higashioka went one for three with a double in an 8-1 Yankees loss to the Twins in Minnesota. From that day on he was one of the Yankees’ best players over the rest of the 2022 season – in fact he may have been the team’s second-best player. That may be hard to believe, but it’s true, as only Oswaldo Cabrera produced more fWAR per game than Higgy from June 8^th on and that was only by a pinstriped margin.

From June 8^th through October 5^th, Higgy produced 1.7 fWAR which was more than Anthony Rizzo produced (and as you would imagine, IKF, Aaron Hicks, and Josh Donaldson as well) and was essentially the same fWAR as Gleyber Torres (1.9) and DJ LeMahieu (1.8) with significantly fewer games played over that span (38 fewer than Gleyber, 26 fewer than DJ to be exact).

Of course, being a good defensive catcher is going to help a player’s WAR (as it should) and Higgy’s work behind the plate was very good last season, which we’ll come back to in a minute. But it was far from just that – Higgy brought the boom stick to the batters box with him over the season’s last four months.

His .493 SLG from June 8^th on was second on the team while his 120 wRC+ was third best among those wearing pinstripes over that span. And if you’re thinking “that’s great, but outside of Judge, Yankees batters didn’t exactly light things up over the season’s second half” consider this:

Higgy’s .493 SLG from June 8^th on was at the 91^st percentile in MLB among batters with at least 150 PA.

Defensively, Higgy was overshadowed by his Platinum Glove winning teammate Jose Trevino but make no mistake: Higgy is a very good defensive catcher.

Higashioka finished 9^th among MLB catchers in Defensive Runs Above Average in 2022, despite starting only 72 games, and his framing (71^st percentile) and arm (64^th percentile in pop time) are both above average. Even when his power stroke isn’t around, he’s going to contribute to winning baseball games.

I certainly understand that 150 or so PA over four months isn’t a big sample size (especially for a guy with a career 72 OPS+) but it isn’t an insignificant sample size either. I’m of the mind that Higgy, who’s always shown he has power, may have turned a corner with semi-regular playing time last season and we can and should expect more from him this year.

Conversely, I’d temper the expectations on Jose Trevino. We’ll come back to that next time.

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