Yesterday, Mike DiGiovanna of the Los Angeles Times relayed that catcher/outfielder Ryan Doumit turned down an offer from the Dodgers of almost 3 million dollars over one year, and while it became somewhat of a running joke, I’m quite happy that Doumit doesn’t want to play in Chavez Ravine.

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Over the years, Doumit has been somewhat of a popular choice at catcher in certain sabermetric circles because he possesses a potent bat for the position and there has always seemed to be a massive breakout just waiting to happen.

Now though? He’s 31 and about to be 32 and he’s still injury prone. Furthermore, while his potential with the stick is nice, there’s a reason that the Pirates had been trying to move him off catcher: he’s horrible at it.

Taking the last few years into account, Doumit has been worth about -4 runs throwing, -1.5 runs blocking, and a whopping -26 runs framing for every 120 games behind the plate. That’s an absolutely pathetic total of around -31 runs on defense or just over -3 wins. To put that in context, at his absolute offensive peak back in 2008, he produced about 16 runs with the bat over 120 games.

Doumit’s not anybody’s answer at catcher.

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While going with a combination of A.J. Ellis (starter) and Tim Federowicz (reserve) might not be the sexiest option, it’s undoubtedly better than repeating the 2011 mistake of signing Rod Barajas to a multimillion dollar deal.

Between the on-base skills of Ellis and the defense of Federowicz, Doumit did Ned Colletti and the Dodgers a favor.