Inside The Milwaukee Brewers Players Project: Early 2000s Catching Crew

[Michael Trzinski]

Since Thanksgiving, we have been working on adding bios to the Players Project and with the three bios posted below, we now have over 100 player bios on Brewer Fanatic. 

The three bios tied into this front-page piece were not only catchers but played together in 2000-2002. Henry Blanco, Raúl Casanova, and Tyler Houston squatted behind the dish during the final days at County Stadium and the first two years at Miller Park. Blanco and Casanova were full-time catchers, while Houston only caught 23 games for Milwaukee but played at several other positions.

Henry Blanco
Blanco was primarily known as a ‘defensive’ catcher, but he did have some pop in his bat, hitting 72 home runs during his 16-year career. In just under 600 AB for the Brewers, he hit 13 homers but showed gap power with 42 doubles. Although his oWAR dragged him down, he did post a 1.7 and 1.0 dWAR in 2000 and 2001, respectively. Blanco threw out about 50% of runners in those two years, including an NL-best of 58.2% in 2000.

Blanco split time with Casanova during those two seasons.

 

Raúl Casanova
Casanova hit a bit more for average than Blanco and showed some power, hitting 35 homers in nine big-league seasons. Casanova only threw out 23% of runners trying to steal while with Milwaukee, which was well below the league average of 32.5%.

Casanova was released in September 2002 after only slashing .184/.273/.230 and was signed by Baltimore. After playing two games for the Orioles, he was released. He played in six organizations between 2003 and 2006, all in the minors. He played for the White Sox, Devil Rays, and Mets between 2005 and 2008.

 

Tyler Houston
The Las Vegas native was a rare player who was a better hitter in the majors than in the minors. His minor league OPS over 2,385 at-bats was .650, while his OPS in the majors was .735 over 1,805 at-bats. He was a catcher in high school and spent the first few years in the minors behind the plate, but he played primarily at third base in the big leagues.  He also played at catcher and first base and played a few games at each other's positions except for center field.

Houston batted at least .300 in over 100 at-bats in three seasons and was third on the Brewers in 2001 with an OPS+ of 111.

 

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