Everybody loves Dodgers catcher A.J. Ellis – the Dodgers front office loves him, general manager Ned Colletti loves him, field manager Don Mattingly loves him, his teammates love him, the fans love him and even the oft critical media loves him. He is, after all, Dodgers ace Clayton Kershaw’s best friend. But no amount of love for A.J. Ellis can cover up the fact that he is… well, awful this season.

Not only is Ellis hitting below the Mendoza line at .188, he has thrown out only nine of 41 base stealers this season. That’s only 22% and ranks 57th in all of baseball. To put this into prospective, even Ellis’s back-up, Drew Butera, has thrown out 34.5% of would-be base stealers, which ranks 19th in all of baseball.

In 2013 A.J. Ellis struck out exactly 20% of the time. In 2014 it’s up to 21.5% in 204 fewer at bats.
(Photo credit – Ron Cervenka)

There is another stat that jumps out at you with Ellis – he leaves a lot of runners in scoring position. In fact, he is 6 for 40 (.150) with RISP. And to add insult to injury, he has also grounded into 10 double plays thus far this season which is fourth-most on the team behind only Matt Kemp (15), Adrian Gonzalez (12) and Juan Uribe (11).

The point here is not to bag on A.J. Ellis, anyone who has ever had the pleasure of speaking with him knows that you just can’t do that; the point is that heading into the stretch run of the season, A.J. is hurting the team more than he is helping it.

Oh sure, it’s easy to say “But he’s so good with the pitching staff” and no one, absolutely no one can dispute this, but at what point does Colletti and Mattingly say ‘enough’ with A.J.’s lack of production with the bat, his inability to throw out base runners (this season) and the excessive number of balls in the dirt that get past him? Ironically, Ellis officially has zero passed balls this season but has allowed 39 wild pitches to get past him – many of which were balls in the dirt that he should have been able to block.

No one can argue that A.J. Ellis works well with the entire Dodgers pitching staff – especially with his best friend Clayton Kershaw. (Photo credit – Ron Cervenka)

Realistically, Drew Butera isn’t much better than Ellis with the bat, but this has more to do with the fewer number of games played which, of course, translates to fewer at bats. Butera has started 41 of the Dodgers 122 games thus far and is 27 for 140 (.193), so he is clearly not the answer as a viable everyday replacement for Ellis (although that 34.5% thing might give him the edge).

So who, then, is a viable replacement for Ellis as the Dodgers everyday catcher down the stretch?

I know that no one really wants to hear it, but perhaps the Dodgers should give Tim Federowicz another look; in fact, I fully expect Fed to be a September 1 call-up.

Bear with me here. I know that Federowicz has failed miserably offensively each time that he has been called up to the Bigs regardless of what he has done at Triple-A Albuquerque, but his numbers with the Isotopes this season, especially over the past month, have been off the charts.

On the season Fed is hitting .331, has an on-base percentage of .377 and a slugging percentage of .559 for an above average OPS of .937. He has hit 12 home runs, 18 doubles and has 42 RBIs. I know the argument, I’ve heard it thousands of times – “It’s Albuquerque” or “Triple-A numbers do not translate into MLB numbers,” but really now, isn’t it at least worth another try to see if Federowicz can finally hit MLB pitching? How much worse can he do than A.J. Ellis or Drew Butera?

And then there’s Fed’s defensive numbers. In 55 games with the Isotopes, Federowicz has thrown out 22 of 49 would-be base stealers – that’s an incredible 45%. He has also proven himself as a better ball blocker than either Ellis or Butera during his 17 games with the Dodgers earlier this season.

But don’t just take my word for it.

“I think Tim Federowicz is the best defensive catcher in the National League and this includes Yadier Molina and Buster Posey,” said Kevin Kennedy, a former catcher and former MLB manager. “His technique is perfect. If the ball is to his left he goes down left knee first and slides over and his right knee covers up and he brings it back to center, and if the ball is to his right he goes down right knee first and slides over and his left knee covers up.

“A lot of [former] Dodger catchers never did this, including Russell Martin,” added Kennedy. “This was always confusing to me with [Martin’s] manager (Joe Torre) being a former catcher. This was pre-Yeager [as the Dodgers current catching instructor] by the way. Russ would go down on his left knee on balls to his right and go down on his right knee on balls to his left. When he did this his upper half goes away and when the ball hit (his chest protector) it would go away instead of bearing it back to center. If you do this, you’re exposed… you’re open and the ball bounces away from you,” explains Kennedy.

Former catcher and MLB manager Kevin Kennedy calls Tim Federowicz “the best defensive catcher in the National League.” (Photo credit – Ron Cervenka)

As noted, in all likelihood Federowicz will be a September call-up, and if the Dodgers can maintain a significant lead over the second place Giants over the next three weeks a replacement for Ellis is a moot point. But should that lead start to dwindle and should Ellis continue to struggle, it might be a good idea to call up Tim Federowicz before September 1.