Jason LaRue Possibly Wants Out

by JD Arney on Oct 1, 2006 3:08 AM EDT in News

Jason LaRue

Hal McCoy has a candid interview with Jason LaRue, and LaRue isn't content with splitting time next year:

I'm no cancer in the clubhouse, not a complainer, and I never have been," and proves it by saying, "David Ross has had a great year." [...] "I don't know what they're thinking, but if I'm not No. 1 then I would prefer they move me," he said. "Actually, for what they are paying me ($9.1 million for this year and next), it makes no business sense if I'm not No. 1.
"I'm not a backup catcher, never have been," he said. "I played all last season with a broken wrist (hairline fracture) and had the best year of my career." [...] "Right now, the ball is in their court as to what they want to do with me. It is their decision. I have no plans to go spring training as the backup catcher. There is no sense keeping me if that's the plan. If that's the plan, trade me, absolutely, no doubt."

First instinct is obviously outrage, that a guy who couldn't hit .200 is speaking up like this. I'm not sure why this needed to be aired through the media, when LaRue could have just as easily privately expressed his feelings to the front office, and probably more effectively.

One thing about Wayne Krivsky is that he tries to be fair with his players. You see that with every time a Reds player was cut this season. Wayne was always in the paper saying that the Reds would do all they could to find a good situation for the player. Look at the Cody Ross situation. Cincinnati could have kept him on the bench, but they shipped him to Florida, where he played. I don't know if Wayne would do the same thing with a higher profile player like LaRue, but my gut says that he probably would.

The catching situation is one of the more up in the air issues surrounding the team heading to the off season, and I'm not really sure if there's even a right or wrong answer. I can't really see myself being upset regardless of who the Reds end up keeping, be it Ross or LaRue. But I do find it kind of disappointing that LaRue would speak up like this after the way he's hit this season.

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I think

LaRue could win the job back in spring training. Ross had a great year, but I don't know if he can repeat, and there's no way LaRue will have as bad of a year. It just isn't possible.

"The players make the manager, it's never the other way." ~ Sparky Anderson

by Daedalus on Oct 1, 2006 10:14 AM EDT reply actions

Ross

How much of a defensive liability has Ross been? My impression that these guys are nowhere near equals defensively, with Valentin in Ross's league in that respect, too, but I could be totally wrong there.

by Gray on Oct 1, 2006 10:18 AM EDT reply actions

Couple things.

I am a LaRue fan, but I try not to let that effect my thoughts on what to do with him.
I don't know if you can go into next season and have the one of the worst defensive catching pair in MLB. (If LaRue were not here).
This is not supposed to be one of the strong hitting positions. Granted you can't hit below 200 either, but LaRue (given a normal year) will hit .230 - .240 for you and in the past has had decent RISP numbers.

Truthfully, I'd like to see Ross go if we can get something for him. They really should have traded him when he was hitting 300, although then you'd catch crap if he continued that for a year or two..

But.. saying LaRue isn't a cancer just because he said "David Ross has had a great year." is just stupid. He has been the Rich Aurilia of this year when it comes to being vocal about playing time.

by snohio on Oct 1, 2006 10:57 AM EDT reply actions

Larue

I've been a Larue sympathizer all year and I'm not going to stop now. In 2004 and 2005, Larue ranked 8th in Runs Created per Game for catchers with over 500 PA. He's a pretty good defensive catcher, and he was part of one of the best offensive catching tandems in recent history in 2005. He's notoriously streaky, something that probably hurts him when his playing time is sporadic. I'm one who thinks that part of the reason this season was so bad for him was that he never got a chance to develop a rhythm at the plate. But it was inevitable that his playing time was going to drop with the way that Ross was hitting the ball for the first half of the season. However, I would expect that even though his skills will start declining with age, Larue will put up a decent year next year if he's not playing in a 3-catcher system again.

And while we never want to see players complain about this stuff in the media, I will say that there is a reason Hal McCoy is a hall of famer - he can get the story out of players when he tries. And to Larue's credit, this didn't come out publicly until the end of the season, which is much better than having to hear about it from May on.

by Slyde on Oct 1, 2006 10:58 AM EDT reply actions

LaRue

I've always been anti-LaRue, and I'm not about to change that now.

Does it really matter that LaRue speaks up now. It's pretty much what we'd figure he'd say anyway. I just hope he and Wayne are on the same page as far as moving him somewhere else. Hopefully to a division rival!

by Brian B on Oct 1, 2006 11:17 PM EDT up reply actions

Huh?

Slyde, you often get kudos for your stat-pulling ability, but you're wrong this time.

In 2004 and 2005, Larue ranked 8th in Runs Created per Game for catchers with over 500 PA.

In 2004, there were 12 players who were primarily catchers with over 500 PA; LaRue wasn't one of them. Same with 2005. If you expand it to 400 PA, LaRue was 11th (out of 20) in '04, and 5th (out of 24, lots of healthy catchers) in '05.

Unless you mean 500 PA combined in '04 and '05; if so, color me unimpressed. Those were clearly his best 2 years, as a 30/31 year old. You can't expect him to be as good now because of normal aging patterns.

As for his defense, how are you rating him? I know he throws out alot of runners, but at least once (and maybe twice) he's had more passed balls than any other team in MLB; he also seems to drop a disproportionate number of throws to the plate from fielders.

Finally, he'll be a 33 year old catcher next year. That's 104 for you or me.

(Can I no longer hyperlink to ESPN pages? I got an error in my post when I tried)

by sidnancy on Oct 2, 2006 4:04 PM EDT up reply actions

Answers, hopefully

My 2004-2005 comparison was 500 PAs total over those two seasons. You can be colored whatever color you want, but you can't tell me that a catcher is going to go from Top 10 offensive production for his position to the bottom of the barrel based on normal aging patterns. I didn't say it here, but elsewhere I have said that I think it is not unrealistic to think that Larue would put up .240/.330/.430 numbers next season. It's not barn burners, but it's a hell of a lot better than what he put up this year.

I was rating his defense the way all good defenders are rated, by reputation. :) Actually, Chris Dial had him at 6th this year on his last list in August. He's consistenly in the top 10 on Dave Pinto's PMR rating lists from 2005. But I'm sure you know that fielding metrics are suspect, especially for catchers.

I believe that Larue gets out from behind the plate as good as any catcher in the league. I realize that I don't really have numbers to back that up, but even if I did they probably would be debatable. As for the passed balls, Larue did that during seasons when the Reds were the league leaders in Wild Pitches as well. Those pitching staffs were terrible. Johnny Bench whould have had a hard time catching them. He only had 6 PB last year and 3 this year, though in much fewer innings.

As you said, he's got a good arm, but I'm not sure that he's the one that drops a lot of balls at the plate. I think you might be thinking of Ross. Unfortunately, I don't think either of us will be able to come up with exact evidence outside of watching every game over again. But I think it's safe to say that at the very least, he isn't any worse than Ross in this regard.

And as for his age, sure he'll be 33, but Valentin will be 32 and Ross will be 30 and Larue is the only one of the three that has shown consistent performance prior to this season.

I was arguing against the statement that Larue is a sub-200 hitter. I don't think he's an all star, and I realize that his skills are going to diminish quickly, but if the Reds have to get rid of a catcher, why not get rid of Ross since he's a definite threat to come down from a career year, but since his numbers were better, somebody might find him more valuable?

by Slyde on Oct 2, 2006 4:39 PM EDT up reply actions

Answers for answers

1. I'm unimpressed because (a) if you look at the years individually, '05 was his really impressive year (by rc/27 for catchers), while he was average
in '04, and (b) '04-05 was clearly a peak for him. By the way, your "not unrealistic" line would be better than any year he's had, other than those two. I'd say it is, in fact, unrealistic.

It is true that LaRue had all of those passed balls at a time the team had a load of wild pitches. However, I would argue that catchers get the benefit of the doubt in those calls (it sure seems I'd dock the catcher for more PB than are actually called).
The "dropped throws" comment has to do with previous years, not this. I know that 2 years ago LaRue dropped 10 consecutive throws that I saw on plays at the plate.
I don't dispute that Ross may have been a "5 month wonder", or that he has more trade value than LaRue right now. But this is also the first year he's had as many as 200 PA, so who knows?

Considering LaRue's age and performance this year, I'd prefer that he be the odd man out next year. If I were running the team, with the comments he made in this article, I'd guarantee it.

by sidnancy on Oct 2, 2006 5:23 PM EDT up reply actions

My unrealistic line

Yeah, maybe I rounded too much. But his career line going into this season was .243/.326/.421, so I wasn't off his career figures by that much. Still, my main point is that 2006 is not indicative of what we can expect from Larue. People talk about him being a terrible hitter as if he has been doing it his whole career. My point is that's not the case. I expect a rebound, not to his peak maybe, but not so far down that he won't be servicable.
Neither of us have anyway to argue either side of your point on passed balls outside of personal opinion, so I'll just say that I disagree.
I don't have that memory about Larue's dropped balls, but I'll trust that you do. Even still, I don't think he's any worse defensively than Ross or Valentin.
Ross is a 29-year old and this is his first year of 200 PAs. That doesn't give me hope that he will continue. The key to being a good trader is to trade at a player's peak value, especially for a player that is not in the team's long term future plans. I think Ross is at his peak value. Larue most definitely is not.

I have no problem with trading Larue, especially if someone will take his salary. I just don't know how realistic it is that that will happen. I'd rather be able to get someone to help the Reds for Ross than trade Larue just to get rid of him.

by Slyde on Oct 2, 2006 5:42 PM EDT up reply actions

As for his age,

I'm not sure if his performance will fall off too dramatically. I mean, take Ausmus for example. He was crap back in his 'good' days, (and I use the word 'good' loosely), and now his skills have declined to slightly worse than crap.

More, more, more ....... how do you like it?

by Gapper on Oct 2, 2006 7:53 PM EDT up reply actions

Ausmus' "decline"

As my dad used to say, "It's tough to fall out of bed when you sleep on the floor."

by sidnancy on Oct 2, 2006 7:58 PM EDT up reply actions

LaRue

This is a guy that has put up some good numbers for us in previous years. He was hurt and had knee surgery during spring training, which I feel was a large part of him troubles this year. I think he came back way too soon, then never did get the playing time he needed to develop his confidence at the plate. Plus what playing time he did get probably took its toll on his knee. I want to see him stay in Cincinnati next season, as someone pointed out the catcher is not expected to be a power hitter.

by thencamebronson on Oct 1, 2006 12:47 PM EDT reply actions

A Good Defensive

catcher is a key to a winning team and LaRue is that. Over the years he's had some clutch hits. This year with the appearance of Ross he's played sporadicly and it was apparent he was pushing and talking to himself at the plate. With a salary of 9.1 mil he's going to be next to impossible to trade. Keep LaRue and Valentin and trade David Ross and Dunn for pitching and an outfielder.

by TR on Oct 1, 2006 1:18 PM EDT reply actions