Tampa Bay Rays: We look way too closely at Chris Herrmann

The Tampa Bay Rays have signed an eight-year veteran to add catcher depth.

With Mike Zunino and Michael Perez being the only options at catcher heading into Spring Training, the Tampa Bay Rays have made a couple of moves to add some depth at the position.

One of those moves is former Miami Hurricane, Chris Herrmann.

Herrmann has parts of eight seasons in the Major Leagues with four different organizations. He has played with Minnesota, Arizona, Seattle, and most recently Oakland.

Hermann may get a chance to compete with Kevan Smith and Michael Perez for backup catching duties, but will likely serve as organizational depth.

Herrmann has a career average of .205 with a .282 on-base percentage. He has a career -0.6 WAR with a 0.1 career defensive WAR.

He doesn’t seem to his righties or lefties particularly well…on the surface, so we dug a little deeper. Okay, we dug a lot deeper, maybe way too deep. It definitely made things interesting.

Deep Dive into the numbers on Chris Herrmann

• In his career, Herrmann has excelled in extra-innings with a .304/.407/.826 slash line.
• When leading off a game Herrmann is hitting 1.000 with a 4.000 SLG.
• He is at his best when the count is 2-1 with a .383/.383/.532 slash line.
• With two outs and runners in scoring position he is hitting .286/.364/.510
• Of his 133 career line-drives, 87 have been hits.
• He has a 1.101 OPS in his carer against the Red Sox.
• Herrmann has a career .333 average against the Yankees.
• His OPS is .112 points higher at night than in the day.
• His numbers are not as good in domes as they are in open-air stadiums.

We’ll try and find more statistics to figure out if the day/night splits are affected by the dome. Does he play better in a dome, at night time? Is he simply a night owl who is at his peak during the late hours? Only time will tell.

We’ll closely monitor this situation should he get to play in Tropicana Field for the Rays in 2020.