Bleeding Blue and Teal wants the Mariners to bench Kenji Johjima over his pitch calling. He makes the argument that Seattle pitchers give up fewer hits when Jamie Burke catches, and the same was true when Torrealba was the backup.

Jon doesn't go far enough in his article to show that the defensive versus offensive tradeoff really hurts the team. Since the start of 2007, however, the Mariners are 72-65 when Johjima starts, a .526 winning percentage versus 21-15 when Burke starts, a .583 winnings percentage. Now, 21 wins in 36 games for a team with a .526 winning percentage is well within the 95% confidence interval. So there's a bit of evidence the Mariners are better with Burke, but if I'm in charge of the team, I spend the time teaching Johjima to call a better game, or correct the flaws that may be tipping batters.