Blue Jays' Alejandro Kirk extension is a blueprint for Angels' catcher's next deal

The Blue Jays and Angels are both confident in their catching units, and the Blue Jays are to the point that they locked up their main backstop. Alejandro Kirk just received a five-year, $58 million extension. The 26-year old is cashing out due to his excellent pitch receiving, framing, plate discipline, and bat-to-ball skills. The Angels' catcher of the future has face of the franchise potential, and Logan O'Hoppe should use this Kirk extension as an easily attainable contract figure if he simply maintains his level of play from 2024 this year. Travis d'Arnaud, O'Hoppe's other teammates, the coaches, the members of the front office, and everybody else who is around this Angels organization on a daily basis all believe he is capable of achieving way more in his career than Kirk .

In terms of playing time during the 2023-2024 seasons, Kirk has posted more but O'Hoppe could easily develop into the better player. Kirk, who debuted in 2020, played in 39 more games than O'Hoppe the past couple of seasons in large part due to the Angels' catcher suffering from left shoulder inflammation that kept him out four months in 2023. O'Hoppe is also a little over a year younger than Kirk, and the Angels fast-tracked him in 2022 after landing him in the Brandon Marsh trade. Despite the shoulder injury in '23, the past two seasons O'Hoppe has 21 more home runs, 32 more total bases, 30 more runs scored, a higher SLG, OPS, and OPS+.

When Travis d'Arnaud signed with the Angels, he immediately got to work pumping up O'Hoppe's confidence. Whether it's with an Angels beat writer or sideline reporter, d'Arnaud's been making it clear that he loves O'Hoppe and thinks he will go places in this league. It feels obvious that O'Hoppe, under d'Arnaud's tutelage, has a higher ceiling than Kirk moving forward, despite the body of work from both catchers the past couple of seasons skewing slightly in Kirk's favor. Between d'Arnaud, Ron Washington, Sal Fasano, and Jerry Narron, the Angels have a contingency of in-house mentors and coaches all trying to turn O'Hoppe into the best catcher in franchise history because they truly believe he could do so.

Kirk is clearly the superior defender, his defensive bWAR from '23-'24 is 2 full points higher than O'Hoppe's. However, O'Hoppe should be able to shorten the distance between their defensive metrics while also extending his lead over Kirk in terms of how good a hitter he is. Could it solely be the optics of O'Hoppe being 6-2 to Kirk's 5-8? Maybe, but all signs do point to O'Hoppe being the better player.

At the very least, O'Hoppe is trending towards surpassing Kirk's $58 million of total money. For the Angels, working towards an extension now makes all the sense in the world given this framework. If Perry Minasian is truly the gatekeeper of all things Braves, then he should work as hard as he can to get O'Hoppe to sign a similar deal given how high his ceiling is. A team-friendly extension for O'Hoppe would be a great indicator of things to come with this team's burgeoning young core.

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