Why Do People Want to DFA Matt Thaiss? A Closer Look at the White Sox Catcher Debate

There are a number of position players for the White Sox that are expected to come off the Injured List in the very near term. They include Mike Tauchman, Austin Slater, Andrew Benintendi, and Korey Lee. Scott Merkin dropped this yesterday:

If you’re following the team, this is not really news. I was, however, surprised in the reactions to this and previous interactions I’ve seen about this, how many people want to DFA Matt Thaiss. He is out of options, so that’s the only way to move him off the 26 man roster. Here are a few of the tweets:

https://twitter.com/ilovedrewthorpe/status/1923482423502798875

Now I get some of this was just reaction to the dropped ball and the overall shitty game he had yesterday (5/16) against the Cubs. So I will take these with a grain of salt. But Matt Thaiss has been good for the White Sox. I’m not saying he’s the best catcher in the league, but he’s certainly not a DFA candidate. Fangraphs ranks him 13th in Defensive Runs Above Average (DEF) and 18th in fWAR among catchers this season as he sports a 107 WRC+.

He also plays a very tradeable position. Just last year, Danny Jansen was traded at the deadline for 3 players. Jansen has a better track record than Thaiss, but his .671 OPS and 91 OPS+ are very close to Thaiss’s current .682 OPS and 99 OPS+. Additionally, Thaiss has 2 more arb years, making him controllable through 2027 as a reasonably priced backup catcher option.

Here’s a list of trades since last July involving catchers from Spotrac.
Note: there are three images worth

Even if you expect Thaiss to regress to his career averages, he’s generally a positive WAR player with a mid-80s OPS+ and WRC+. It’s a smaller sample, but Korey Lee has been worse than that by a good margin posting a career average -.8 WAR and 55 OPS+. Lee is a little over 3 years younger and the Sox have more control, but this doesn’t have to be a 1 for 1 transaction.

This blog is not meant to tell you Thaiss is some great player that must be protected at all costs. It’s just meant to make you consider the other possibilities here, like just keeping Korey Lee in AAA til you need him. Or carrying 3 catchers with Thaiss playing some 1b, Quero DHing, etc. (I would shed a tear sending Elko back to Charlotte for a bit). There are ways to handle this without cutting a player who is contributing on a team with almost no contributors. Not to mention, the Sox could use some positional depth for once.

And yes, after writing all of this, I fully expect him to DFA on Monday…

-Chorizy-E