Baltimore Orioles: 2014 Season Grades – Catchers

May 8, 2014; St. Petersburg, FL, USA; Baltimore Orioles catcher

(32) singles during the sixth inning against the Tampa Bay Rays at Tropicana Field. Mandatory Credit: Kim Klement-USA TODAY Sports

Today is the first of five total posts where we look back at the 2014 season for the Baltimore Orioles and hand out final grades for the year. We’ll start with catchers, then look at infielders, outfielders, starting pitchers, and finally relief pitchers.

Over the past several seasons, the question was sometimes raised as to what in the world the Orioles would do if anything happened to Matt Wieters. There really were not a lot of viable options. Taylor Teagarden had some fantastic clutch hits in 2012, but clearly this was a situation that needed to be addressed by Dan Duquette.

The number of catchers being brought in by DD over the offseason was actually comical. But catching depth was needed throughout the organization, with hopes that 2013 second-rounder Chance Sisco will prove to be the ultimate answer in a few years (he’s batting a combined .345 over his first two minor league seasons).

With Wieters catching his final game on May 6^th before ultimately going to the DL for season-ending Tommy John surgery, the O’s got to find out what they had in the system much faster than anticipated. The combination of replacement players did a remarkable job on defense, and the batting numbers relative to the rest of the AL circuit were better than what one might expect to see. The positional batting average of .240 was seventh in the American League, while the home run total of 19 ranked O’s catchers as fifth.

Here are the combined statistics for Orioles catchers in 2014 …

Click through the following pages as we look individually at Matt Wieters, Caleb Joseph, Nick Hundley, and Steve Clevenger.