I remember comments back when he was drafted that he would have to move off catcher. Were they thinking of protecting his bat, did he improve defensively, or am I just misremembering?

I've heard it both ways initially. His value would decrease a great deal if he was moved off catcher. He'd still be a good bat elsewhere though.

Well he is 6'5".

The problem with catchers is that unless you want to run them into the ground, you really should only play them at catcher 120 times a year.

The upside with Wieters is that the bat plays at DH too. So you can get his bat in another 30 games easily enough while not imposing the physical toll of catching those 30 games.

Granted, the 4th and 5th at bats can't be easy after catching 7-8 innings. (Which makes what Joe Mauer has done all the more remarkable.)

I am SURE MLE's do not *systematically* overrate sub-AAA hitters, since they are obviously averages based on empirical data of players switching between leagues. I'd certainly buy that they are less reliable overall for translations from the lower levels, but that could mean Wieters is being UNDERrated just as much as it could mean he's being overrated. The point is that until a guy actually faces major league pitching, you don't know whether he'll be able to hit it.

I think "really good" would suffice.

Damn you, Dave Littlefield.

BA ranked him # 1 in the Eastern League (I know, get the smelling salts), and the praise in the scouting report couldn't have been more glowing. A brief excerpt:

His patience and pitch recognition puts him in hitter's counts regularly, and he has above-average bat speed and strength that generate plus power. His bat stays in the hitting zone a long time, so he should hit for high average as well.. . . . "For me, no one in the league compares," Bowie manager Brad Komminsk said. "He was the best batter in the league and the best power hitter. He eventually will be as good as any catcher in the league defensively, and he can throw with anybody."

Oh, he was also # 1 in the Carolina League. And he was their Minor League Player of the Year. Yawn.

The O's have some pretty decent young positional talent in Jones, Markakis and Wieters. They're an intriguing team to watch over the next few years. The AL East is getting ridiculous.

I have not done any work on MLEs, but I would be certain that they would inflate higher level performance of players who are already producing at their current level. Why? MLEs are typically linear, stepwise series of formulas that consider park factor and league factor to predict performance at other levels. When you plot talent against performance, it is not a linear function as MLEs would generally have you believe. First off, there are essentially asymptotes at the lower and higher end of the performance spectrum. This makes it difficult to discern difference in talent among players who perform quite well and those that perform quite poorly. Further complicating these calculations is that the population that these formulas are calibrated for are actually those who are league average talent. The slope of these when extrapolated would wind up overpredicting higher level performance.

Again, I have not yet actually tested this concept, but it would be fairly easy to do so. I considered it common sense, but thanks for challenging the statement. When I have time, I'll test it. But, yeah, it seems the distribution is rather similar to some of the environmental metrics I use for my day job.

Thank you for the comment.

I am SURE MLE's do not *systematically* overrate sub-AAA hitters, since they are obviously averages based on empirical data of players switching between leagues.

Isn't that a problem, that they're based on players switching leagues (as they of course has to be)? It introduces a selection bias. Maybe players switching leagues are better and will perform better in higher leagues than their peers with similar stats who stay in the lower league?

I forget who came up with it, but I propose that Wieters only be referred to as "Oriole Jesus" from now until the end of time(or until Wieters proves himself as somehow less than a messiah).

Wieters is my sleeper catcher for next year's fantasy team. This past year I had Soto, the one before Russ Martin. If I can make it 3 in a row I'll have a trend!