Meet The New Guys: Caleb Joseph

Caleb Joseph is a 33 year old catcher who was signed by the Jays as a free agent over the offseason. Joseph was signed to a one year minor league deal, and isn't expected to break camp with the team. With promising young catchers Reese McGuire and Danny Jansen on the team, it is most likely Joseph starts the year in AAA Buffalo as depth.

Joseph is a six year veteran who many Jays fans might find to be familiar, having spent five of those six years with the Baltimore Orioles (and 2019 with the Diamondbacks). Throughout his career, he has primarily served as a back up catcher, having never played more than 100 games a year in his career. Joseph is a well balanced player in terms of defensive and offensive abilities, being "industry average" across the board, but excelling at no particular skill. Throughout his career, Joseph owns a .223 batting average with 31 home runs through 1235 at bats (40 ABs per HR). His 2019 season seemed to fit the trend with a .211 average with zero home runs in 38 at bats in Arizona.

In Joseph's rookie season at age 28, he finished the year as the league leader in runners caught stealing, throwing out 23 of the 57 runners (40%) who attempted to run on his arm. Although that was his best year, Joseph remains to be a solid defensive option, as his career caught stealing average is 32% (for reference, Jansen — a gold glove finalist — threw out 31% of runners in 2019). Joseph has also finished a season with 10 or more defensive runs saved on 3 occasions, which is solid considering he is a career backup catcher (compared to Jansen's 12 DRS in 2019 in more games than Joseph has ever played).

Overall, Joseph is a solid depth signing who is known as a respectable player who brings a veteran presence (which the Jays need at a critical time in their rebuild). Although Joseph is unlikely to make the team at the start of the season, fans could see him in Toronto in the case of an injury.