Guy of the Week - Erik Kratz
On Immaculate Grid #319 (Thursday, February 15th, 2024), one of the categories was "≤ 3.00 ERA SEASON" which comes with no minimum inning count and one of the teams was the Pittsburgh Pirates. After guessing, correctly, Doug Drabek, I went exploring the list of guys that have "achieved this feat" for the Pirates. Of course there were many relievers with only a handful of appearances in a given season and a couple of guys I'm sure who had a single start or only a couple of starts and gave up only a couple of runs. Plus Gerrit Cole. All predictable stuff.
One name I did not expect to see: Erik Kratz. Erik Kratz was a career backup catcher who played for an impressive 9 teams over 11 big league seasons. He had a career bWAR of -0.1 and had multiple stints with the Phillies, the Pirates, and the Yankees (142 OPS+ in 20 games over two seasons three years apart the second coming at age 40!) each. This man was the ultimate backup catcher, grinding out roster spot after roster spot each year. He made his big league debut at 30 and stuck it out for 11 more seasons. He never played more than 68 games in a season (and was only above 47 four times), was a career .209 hitter, but an above average defender at catcher (in small sample size of course).
As a quick aside, in 2012 and 2013, both for the Phillies, Kratz hit exactly 9 home runs and had 26 RBIs in each season. He played 50 games in 2012 and 68 in 2013 backing up Carlos Ruiz and somehow managed to synchronize those stats in those back to back seasons. Little weird statistical accidental synchronization.
He also pitched 7 times and had a very respectable 5.14 ERA for a position player. Not for the Pirates though. For the Pirates, he pitched one inning in 2016 and gave up 2 hits but did not give up a run and recorded 1 of his 3 career strikeouts (also impressive for a position player). His team lost 15-4 that day, but it earned him a place on this Immaculate Grid category and made him (among his other feats) a Guy worth Remembering.
One last note, in his last season he pitched a couple of innings for the Yankees in a blowout loss in Boston and he featured a pretty nasty and hilarious knuckleball that left the Yankees broadcast team giggling (watch it at the link).
