Jun 03
Earlier today we took Steve Henson behind the woodshed for referring to Dioner Navarro as a “middling” catcher and for suggesting that if the Rays have any interest in winning, they should draft Buster Posey. A little voice in our head kept telling us that we we weren’t doing Navi enough justice in our evaluation. So we dug a little deeper.
Heading into tonight’s game, Navarro has an OPS of .831 (.391 OBP + .440 SLG). That seems pretty good, but we wanted to know exactly how good that is for a young catcher.
In the expansion era (since 1961) only 11 catchers posted an OPS higher than .831 in their age-24 season or younger. The list is a who’s who of modern catchers…
If we look at adjusted OPS (OPS+; OPS adjusted for park and league; 100 is league average), Navi’s 131 would be in even more rarefied air…
There are quite a few Hall-of-Famers and near-Hall-of-Famers on those lists. But hey, maybe Steve Henson thinks Johnny Bench, Mike Piazza, Carlton Fisk, Joe Torre and Gary Carter were “middling” catchers also.
[Ed. note: when running this through Baseball-Reference's "Play Index" we only included catchers that had enough plate appearances to qualify for the batting crown. If we removed that restriction, the only difference in both lists is the addition of Brian McCann's '06 campaign (age 22), in which he was 10 plate appearances short of qualifying. He would be #1 on the first list with a .960 OPS and #5 on the second list with 143 OPS+]
Jun 03
Steve Henson of Yahoo! Sports projects the first round of the upcoming baseball draft and predicts that the Tampa Bay Rays will select Buster Posey, the catcher from Florida State. Of course his reasoning is a little screwy…
1. Tampa Bay Rays – Buster Posey, C (Florida State): All of a sudden the Rays are a team with aspirations of winning now, and Posey – a converted shortstop – is an advanced player who could take the job from middling incumbent catcher Dioner Navarro by 2010.
Ahhh. So drafting Posey will help the Rays win “now” even though he won’t be ready for the big leagues until 2010.
And apparently Henson believes that Navarro is an average catcher. First of all, Navi is only 24 years old. Most 24-year old catchers are still in AA and yet Navi is in his 5th season in the majors, which explains his slow development. But he is far from “middling” any longer. Since the All-Star break last season Navarro is hitting .313/.370/.461 with an OPS of .831, all while playing better-than-average defense. Did we mention he is only 24?
If somebody wants to argue that the Rays need catchers in the system because outside of Navi, there are very few, if any, options…that is an argument. But to say the Rays need to draft a catcher to win now, just shows that a writer only needs 36 words to sound like an idiot.
MLB first-round projections [Yahoo! Sports]
Jun 03
THE GOOD:
All 3 AL East Teams in action last night lost. Both the Sox and the Yankees lost last night.
THE BAD:
THE TELLING: Even if the Rays lose 2 of 3 in this series, the Rays would still be in first place in the AL East…David Ortiz went on the DL and will miss this series, and will be out at least a month, meaning he will miss the next Rays-Red Sox series at the end of this month. There are even rumblings that Big Papi’s injury could be season-ending.
DEVIL RAYS WEBTOPIA…
- Don’t forget to VOTE for Carl Crawford to start the all-star game. If you haven’t voted yet today, go NOW! [MLB All-Star Voting]
- Is our push to get Carl Crawford voted to the All-Star team working? CC moved up a spot to #12 on the list. Remember he only need finish in the top 3. [Rays Report]
- Looks like this week’s Rays Index Live Blog-A-Baloo will be Thursday night. There is a small chance we will have to move it to Wednesday night. We will make another announcement later on to confirm the day.
- Scott Kazmir was named AL Pitcher of the Month. [Yahoo! Sports]
- just to show how Sox fans are not taking this series seriously, the opening line of this Boston Globe piece: “For now, it ranks more as novelty than high drama, this notion of the Red Sox playing a showdown series in June against the Tampa Bay Rays”. [Boston Globe]
- One blog nominates first base coach George Hendrick for “Most Interesting Man in the World”. They even found a picture of him, which is apparently not an easy thing to do. [The Place To Be]
- Jim Caple of ESPN.com has had enough of “Red Sox Nation” and set out to figure out exactly when the Bandwagon started filling up. It is refreshing to know that the Trop isn’t the only park where the home team’s fans are outnumbered by the green and pink hat wearing newbies. [ESPN]
- Baseball Prospectus does a Q&A with Andy Sonnanstine. It is hidden behind their password wall if you don’t have an account. It is an interesting read in that Sonnanstine still considers himself a pitcher that throws from different arm angles even though we showed you a while back that he is not doing that this year. [Baseball Prospectus]
Jun 03
Durham 6, Pawtucket 0. Jeremy Cummings struck out 11 and did not walk a batter in 7 shutout innings. He gave up 5 hits. Since being signed by the Rays and assigned to Durham, Cummings is 5-0 in 5 starts with a 0.84 ERA. He has allowed 15 hits and 7 walks in 32 innings, while striking out 29…Juan Salas pitched the final 2 innings…Elliot Johnsonwas 3-4 with a double and an RBI..Ben Zobrist batted third and played third base in place of Joel Guzman. He went 0-4 with a walk…Fernando Perez was 2-5 with 3 strikeouts…Dan Johnson went 2-3 with 2 walks and Reid Brignac was 0-3 with an RBI.
Montgomery 11, Carolina 4. Wade Davis picked up his 6th win with 6 innings of work. He did allow 2 runs on 9 hits and 2 walks. He struck out 4…Ryan Reid made his first appearance since being promoted to Montgomery, working 2 scoreless innings. He struck out 2 and walked 2…Sergio Pedroza hit a 3-run double and John Jaso drove in a run on 1-2 with 3 walks.
Vero Beach 3, Jupiter 1. David Price continues his domination of the FSL. In 7 shutout innings, he allowed only 3 hits and 1 walk with 6 strikeouts. The biggest threats were in the 3rd inning when he gave up back-to-back 1-out singles, and the 4th inning when he gave up a lead-off double. After the double, he retired the last 11 batters he faced. On the year now, Price has only allowed 8 hits and 2 walks with 19 strikeouts in 18 innings and he is yet to allow a run…Desmond Jennings went 2-3 in just his second game off the DL…Garrett Groce and Ryan Royster provided RBI.
Savannah 2, Columbus 1. Alex Cobb went 7 innings and only gave up 2 runs, but ropped to 6-4 on the year. He struck out 4 and did not allow a walk…The Catfish managed only 1 run on 8 hits, off a Reid Fronk solo home run…Greg Sexton added 2 hits, including his 18th double.
NOTES FROM DOWN ON THE FARM…
- Emeel Salem, Maiko Loyola and Alex Cobb were all names to the ASL All-Star team. [MiLB]
- Minor League Ball has a mock draft up and they project Tim Beckham to be drafted by the Rays. [Minor League Ball]
- Apparently there was a minor typo in the Vero Beach boxscore that had Desmond Jennings making his 2008 debut at third base. [Baseball America]
- Rays Digest breaks down the potential picks for the Rays on Thursday. [Rays Digest]
- Jeremy Cummings says he is in the best stretch he has ever had as a pro. [The Herald-Sun]
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