The catcher’s mask, chest protector, and shin guards are baseball’s “tools of ignorance,” but there’s no more mistaken moniker in the game. The catcher is generally expected to be the smartest player on the field. He sets up behind the plate, facing the diamond and his teammates. He calls the pitches, and he makes sure the defense is positioned to catch the ball if it’s hit. He has to know what his own pitchers can do, as well as the hitting strengths, weaknesses, and tendencies of the opponents. If not the field general—let’s leave those military metaphors to football—he’s the team’s conductor, the player on the field directing the game.
Instead, let’s focus on how manager Lou Piniella, trying to end the Cubs’ century-long title drought, is relying on a rookie catcher, Geovany Soto, who happens to be a key reason why, for the first time since 1908—yes, the year of their last championship—the Cubs entered June of a season with the best record in baseball.
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In his first full season, Soto, 25, has handled everything—his pitching staff, the pressures of hitting, his teammates, and himself. “I’ve told the story before, and he doesn’t like me to talk about it,” said the Cubs’ TV color analyst, Bob Brenly, who’s a former catcher and series-winning manager himself, “but when the celebration was going on in Cincinnati last year, when they clinched [first place in the Central Division and a playoff berth], Geovany stuck his head in Lou’s office and said, as the beer and champagne were flying everywhere, ‘In a couple years I’m gonna be your captain.’ And I thought that was a pretty bold move for a kid just up from the minor leagues. But he went out and worked hard in the off-season and worked hard in spring training, and he’s earned that starting spot.” Now the notion of Soto becoming team captain as well doesn’t seem so far-fetched.
Though Soto has the face of a telenovela star, it was grafted onto a stereotypical catcher’s body—sturdy tending toward stocky. Soto struggled with weight and conditioning. He’d typically make the midseason all-star team as he rose through the minors but fade late in the campaign. He had a couple late-season cups of coffee with the Cubs in ’05 and ’06 and looked like a strictly defensive catcher.
“It was huge,” Soto said recently. “I came up here to open some eyes and get the attention of the staff and come here to play, and I did a pretty good job. That gave me a lot of confidence coming into this year to take charge, knowing my pitching staff and the relievers, and do my job a little easier, knowing that they know what I can do and taking a little pressure off.” When the Cubs let Jason Kendall go through free agency over the winter, Soto was the clear starter.
Piniella is known to be hard on catchers—he chased Michael Barrett out of town last year. A student of hitting as a player, Piniella doesn’t have the same acumen about pitching, and he relies heavily on his pitching coach and catchers to handle the staff. “Talk to the pitching coach” is a familiar refrain. He’s been more than pleased with Soto, who entered June leading the league in catchers’ earned-run average (i.e., the ERA for pitchers in games he catches); he’s shown faith in him since opening day. Asked whether he and pitching coach Larry Rothschild signal pitches for Soto to call, Piniella said, “We will help him if necessary in critical times. But we’re comfortable with Soto, we really are…. We let the catchers handle most of it. That’s the only way they learn, and that’s how they work better with pitchers.”
“One of the key points is the pitchers like throwing to him,” Fleita said. “And that’s usually a true indicator of a guy who might sustain a long career.”
