Marlins catcher upgrade options that can make a huge impact

Luke Maile - Reds Catcher

Sure the Marlins are a low budget team, but are you really suggesting Luke Maile as an upgrade. Yes I am. Stallings is a veteran but his bat was terrible and his defense worse. Maile is an upgrade and a cheap one compared to Stallings on both of those fronts. Let’s take a look at the numbers and see just why he is, even with a smaller sample size. 

Stallings threw out a pathetic 13% of base stealers this past season and Maile 23%. Is Maile’s number amazing, no but compared to Stallings, it’s a huge upgrade and not for a big price. Stallings allowed 58 steals and threw out 9 and Maile 56 steals but threw out 17. Big win and upgrade with Maile. 

Maile isn’t know as a good hitter but is he really an upgrade? Easily. In 200 at-bats Maile hit 6 home runs and drove in 25 while hitting .235. All of those numbers best Stallings and he had a decent amount more at-bats. The best part, Maile only made 1.18 million this past season. Seems like he is a no brainer if the other big names don’t work out. Then that would give time to the Marlins minor league system to get prospects up to snuff and take over in the future. I say sign him up for 3 years and 5 million. Not a huge price tag and a better return, and like Maldonado, Maile threw out runners at a high rate in years past.