Alejandro Kirk’s unlikely march to one of the best catcher seasons in Blue Jays history

The popular 23-year-old catcher is unusual. And unusually great.

Toronto Blue Jays catcher Alejandro Kirk is an anomaly.

From his appearance — with or without a Bo Bichette wig — to his even-keeled persona, to the way he dominated All-Star Game voting, Kirk is one of a kind.

That singularity extends to his production. Kirk has been arguably the Blue Jays’ best player this season, and he may just be putting up the greatest season a Toronto catcher has ever had.

All five of FanGraphs’ projection systems have him finishing with the best or second-best Wins Above Replacement (WAR) total a Blue Jays catcher has ever produced in a season.

While FanGraphs WAR is an imperfect measure, its inclusion of framing numbers makes it our best tool for quantifying catcher’s contributions. And the fact Kirk ranks so high is remarkable considering he’s a 23-year-old who entered 2022 with just 69 MLB games played.

What is Kirk doing that’s so special?

Kirk’s offensive gifts are virtually unheard of among catchers. The average backstop has a Weighted Runs Created Plus (wRC+) below 90 this season. That means that, taking into account their home ballpark, most catchers are over 10 per cent worse than the average hitter.

As a contrast, Kirk’s wRC+ has lived around 140 for most of the year, at or near the top of the catcher leaderboard — and among the top 25 at all positions. Prior to 2022, no Blue Jays backstop had topped the 130 mark in a season.

The way Kirk excels offensively is also noteworthy.

In a league where hitters are swinging and missing more than ever, he rarely whiffs. In fact, he's among the elite four per cent of hitters league wide with more walks than strikeouts this year. Joining him on that list are superstars like Juan Soto and Jose Ramirez.

Kirk also cuts against the grain with the type of contact he makes by spraying line drives around the diamond — making him impossible to shift.

Kirk isn’t just impressing with the bat, either.

He’s made himself into a capable defensive catcher, throwing out base runners at a league-average rate after nabbing just six of 30 would-be base stealers in his first two seasons.

His biggest improvement has come in his framing, though, as he’s grown year by year — increasing the percentage of non-swings on the edges of the zone he converts into called strikes.

Kirk’s combination of elite offence and solid defence — headlined by top-notch framing — doesn’t come around very often.

What makes him such an unlikely star?

It takes one look at Kirk’s 5’8”, 245-pound frame to know that he’s quite literally built different. We’re used to seeing stocky catchers, but the 23-year-old takes that prototype to the next level, something that’s endeared him to Blue Jays fans since he first debuted.

His path to the majors makes him unusual, too. After Kirk cost the Blue Jays just $30,000 on the international free agent market, he cracked the big leagues at 21 without playing a single game above High-A — a development partly caused by the pandemic-related cancellation of the 2020 minor-league season, but a remarkable one nonetheless.

The Blue Jays have had some of MLB’s top prospects recently — like Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Gabriel Moreno — and both saw time at Double-A and Triple-A before reaching the majors.

Kirk had just 619 pro plate appearances before coming up. Here’s how that compares to position players Toronto has graduated lately:

If all of that isn’t improbable enough, Kirk entered 2022 with a nebulous role as Jansen was considered the team’s best defensive catcher while Moreno looked like a future star.

Kirk seemed like the odd man out, and a possible piece of trade bait. Now he’s indispensable.

Who is he chasing?

It won’t surprise Blue Jays fans to know that Russell Martin’s 2015 is the best catcher season in franchise history by WAR (4.5). The next highest number on the list is Ernie Whitt’s 1983 season, which is down at 3.6 WAR — a bar Kirk will surely clear barring a significant slump or injury.

During that memorable 2015 campaign, Martin, who had just signed the biggest free agent contract in team history, did it all. He tied J.P. Arencibia for the most home runs in a season by a Blue Jays catcher (23), got on base at a solid clip (.326) and provided excellent defence, throwing out a league-best 44 percent of base runners while adding 9.1 runs worth of framing value.

Martin had the highest WAR for an AL catcher that season, and his reputation as a great leader and game caller suggests that his value extended beyond those numbers.

That’s the bar, but there are a few other noteworthy Blue Jays catchers Kirk figures to be amongst by 2022’s end. Whitt was a patient hitter with a touch of power, who produced five of Toronto’s 10 best catcher seasons between 1983 and 1989.

Kirk has a long way to go to match Whitt’s overall impact on the Blue Jays. He’ll need a strong finish to 2022 to equal Martin’s single-season greatness. And he’ll require heaps of October magic to equal Borders, the 1992 World Series MVP, as a playoff hero.

This early in his career it’s impressive that he deserves mention among those names at all. If this season is a harbinger of things to come, one day he’ll be the player future Blue Jays catchers are compared to.

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