Now seems like as good a time as any to start a series looking back at our expectations for 2009, who met or exceeded them, and who fell short. We'll start today with a look at catchers, to get them out of the way.
Performance:
Jason Kendall
Projected: .251/.333/.324
Actual: .241/.331/.305
Mike Rivera:
Projected: .260/.315/.406
Actual: .228/.326/.342
Surprisingly enough, we as a community were a little optimistic on Kendall, at least as optimistic as one can be while projecting a .659 OPS. While it was a narrow underperformance, Kendall underperformed our expectations in all three slash stats.
Sadly, Mike Rivera also fell short of our expectations. A year after performing exceptionally well in limited opportunities, Rivera was still used sparingly (although slightly more often), but failed to recapture 2008's magic.
Playing time:
| Player | Projected % | Actual % | Diff |
| Jason Kendall | 77.2% | 79.8% | +2.6% |
| Mike Rivera | 14.4% | 22.5% | +11.1% |
| Angel Salome | 7.5% | 0% | -7.5% |
| Vinny Rottino | .6% | 0% | -.6% |
| Brett Lawrie | .3% | 0% | -.3% |
| Carlos Corporan | 0% | .2% | +.2% |
It looks like most of us expected the Brewers to try out some other options at catcher this season. Both Kendall and Mike Rivera gained playing time over our expectations, mainly at the expense of Angel Salome, who some of us projected to play as much as 40% of the time.
Two of sixteen projectors thought Vinny Rottino would sneak in some plate appearances this season, and one reader, before Brett Lawrie's move to second base, projected perhaps the most ambitious promotion in Brewer history. Neither of those happened, of course.
We also completely failed to project the possibility that Carlos Corporan would see fill in duty this season. His one plate appearance resulted in a hit, but his overall contribution is pretty negligible.
Overall:
| AVG | OBP | SLG | OPS | |
| Projected | .253 | .327 | .343 | .669 |
| Actual | .240 | .331 | .313 | .644 |
| Difference | -.013 | +.004 | -.030 | -.025 |