The Gabriel Moreno hype train was doing just fine before the 21-year-old catcher first suited up for the Mesa Solar Sox of the Arizona Fall League in October — but after he hit .329/.415/.494 in a league with some of baseball’s top prospects, it reached a new gear.
Moreno’s fall league production, paired with a couple of appearances at third base hinting at the Toronto Blue Jays’ desire to find additional ways to get him into their lineup, has fans wondering about what kind of contribution he could make at the MLB level in 2022.
Although Moreno has limited triple-A experience, and his remarkable run at double-A in 2021 came in just 32 games, he’s not far from having an impact at the highest level. It’s reasonable to think he’ll factor into the Blue Jays’ plans next season, which begs the question of what he might produce as a rookie.
That’s tough to answer because historical comps for catchers with his prospect pedigree are few and far between. Baseball America listed Moreno as its 8th-ranked prospect in September, and his stock certainly hasn’t fallen since, making him one of the few backstops to earn top-10 prospect status with the organization that has the longest track record of prospect ranking.
Baseball America has been releasing top 100 prospect lists since 1990, and only 13 catchers other than Moreno have made the top 10. One of them, Adley Rutschman of the Baltimore Orioles, has yet to make his MLB debut. Another, Blue Jays star Carlos Delgado, only caught two games at the highest level.
That leaves only 11 backstops at Moreno’s prospect level that we have MLB numbers for. That’s a small, but instructive, sample. Below is their combined performance as rookies in just under 5,000 plate appearances:
Those numbers aren’t reminding anyone of prime Mike Piazza, but that’s pretty strong production for any rookies, especially catchers — who play a position where the league average slash line was .229/.305/.391 in 2021. There’s a bit of an apples-to-oranges issue as the top prospects’ numbers come from a variety of different offensive environments. However, nine of the 11 had a wRC+ above 95, a number that the average MLB catcher hasn’t cracked in the 20 years that FanGraphs has compiled precise position-by-position hitting splits.
One of the two rookies unable to top that mark was a 19-year-old Iván Rodríguez, who couldn’t have fairly been expected to hit the best pitching in the world as a teenager — especially after posting a sub-.700 OPS at every stop of his truncated minor-league career. Only 1995 second-overall pick Ben Davis was a significant minus with the bat at a similar age to Moreno (22).
Things are a little more ambiguous on the defensive side of the ball. Concerns about a rookie catcher’s ability to handle the nuances of the position is warranted, and historical performance is tough to quantify.
Even so, this cohort of top prospect rookies (with the notable exception of defensive train wreck Jesús Montero) seemed to perform well. Two members of the group (Charles Johnson and Sandy Alomar Jr.) won Gold Gloves as rookies, an impressive feat considering the role track record and reputation tends to play in defensive award voting. Two more of the backstops (Matt Wieters and Rodríguez) won within their first three years, making it unlikely they weren’t at least passable out of the gate.
Although most of the catchers’ debuts predate metrics such as DRS and FRM, it’s notable that they held their own in the running game combining for a 30.8 percent caught steal rate — despite awful efforts from Montero and Todd Zeile, who were ultimately moved off the position.
Considering Moreno’s limited upper-minors experience, it seems odd to compare him directly to a group of players that include all-time greats at his position such as Rodríguez, Buster Posey and Joe Mauer. The fact those players are his most obvious peers just shows how promising his minor-league career has been to this point. It’s extremely difficult to make the major leagues as a catcher, let alone be recognized as one of baseball’s elite prospects.
That doesn’t mean it’s impossible Moreno totally busts like Montero did (although his higher defensive floor makes it unlikely). He could also go on to a relatively anonymous career like Davis, or longtime Montreal Expos starter Michael Barrett. Those don’t seem to be the most likely outcomes, though. If the last 30 years of top-prospect catchers are anything to go by, he’s got a solid chance to make a significant impact from the moment he arrives in the majors.
