Blake Swihart was the starting catcher for two months on a team that played at a playoff level win pace. I'm still waiting for anyone who can point me to the news article, scouting report, or main board thread where people discussed how awful he was on defense over that stretch of games.
If they believe that to be the case, they should DFA him. Right now he is taking up a valuable roster spot.
who exactly promoted this "fiction"? All of us are pretty upset with Vaz's play and I can't imagine anyone thinks that extension looks good right now.
Exactly. It wasn’t that long ago that “Swihart or Vazquez as starter?” Was a legit debate. And a bunch of folks thought Swihart was the better answer.
Yes.
Maybe, but hard to tell, because he never catches. And Vaz’s defense seems to have significantly declined post TJ-surgery, but not necessarily for that reason. Seems to me he’s become sloppy since winning the starting job.
Is he though? Is there someone in the minors who is champing at the bit to get on the roster but can't because Swihart is blocking him? Is there an obvious and easy trade to be made if only they didn't have Swihart's dead weight taking up the spot?
At some point, I don't know when, maybe during that period or maybe afterward, they quietly decided he's not a legit catcher. There was no press release. It's pretty obvious that this is what they think -- the notion that they think Swihart can do the job but won't play him because they don't want to acknowledge that Vazquez can't is sill. Teams make mistakes and move on from them all the time. That's why they are paying Sandoval a medium sized fortune while he plays for SF.
I'm not sure that the people evaluating talent on the team should care about "news reports" and "main board threads" regarding Swihart's skills. The only fiction is the one you keep peddling, that this is somehow about more than just "the people running the team must not think Swihart is a very good catcher." Maybe they didn't think much of his catching pre-injury either. They had a long look at him in 2015.
I can’t figure out why the fact that there is no third catcher behind Swihart isn’t dispositive if this debate, even if it sucks for the guy.
Especially since he played mostly SS in high school, outfield for Team USA and wasn't fully converted to catcher until in the RS farm system. This narrative that his development was destroyed by playing the outfield, resulting in an injury which destroyed his development as a catcher is creative projection. The injury required surgery, but was not one which be career ending. Athletes get hurt, they often play positions other than their primary position and prospects often don't live up to expectations. All those things happen, but it doesn't mean those things are causal.
It was a freak injury. I think the switching position issue gets brought up more in the context of the Sox bobbling him about. We've seen positional switches derail offensive performance before. We've also seen that catchers may take longer to develop a full catching skill set, and/or may take longer to develop offensively.
Its absolutely dispositive as for his current predicament.
Right. His trade value is probably where Jarrod Saltalamacchia's was when we acquired him.
Dan Butler wants a word with you.
So the team needs a reliever, Swihart wants a trade, and no one in the league knows his value because they haven't seen him perform behind the plate. It seems asinine, at this point, to refuse to give him a few starts at catcher. Do they think Vasquez is really so fragile that he can't handle being benched for a week? It seems pretty clear that Vasquez, like JBJ, are just lousy hitters right now. Neither is "on the verge of coming out of it". Maybe they'll figure it out eventually, but not any time soon. With Pedey's timeline now less than 2 weeks, you've got to demo Blake now before you are forced to let him go for for a trunk full of sunflower seeds.
We also signed Mike Ohlman this year. http://www.milb.com/player/index.jsp?sid=t533&player_id=572000#/career/R/hitting/2018/ALL
This is revisionist history.
I think that's just as obvious as why he's still here. Both DD and Levangie have some prior history-based knowledge, and Cora had his own eyes this spring. They just dont think he's good enough for better than 3rd string on this team.
Not saying it should be dispositive, but another possibly meaningful difference is that Swihart can play OF in a pinch.
They don't need a reliever. They've got a solid group and some guys on the shuttle that haven't even been needed yet. And let's be realistic, Swihart isn't bringing back a pitcher any better than what those they already have, so I fail to see how 2+2=4 and they (Dombrowski & Cora) are too dumb to see it.
Ohlman has no options remaining. So he'd be in the same boat as Butler were he to be added to the roster: he'd need to be DFA to be removed from the 25-man. And while people will point out they're already carrying three catchers with Swihart, neither Ohlman or Butler have the positional flexibility that Swihart does. They might be able to play some 1B, but that's about it. At least with Swihart, if they need someone to play LF or 1B or even 3B or 2B, Swihart can do it. Which is why he's been sitting in that 25th roster spot all season rather than moved for a bag of balls. They may not have needed it so far, but his flexibility is a nice asset.
The same management that is paying Pablo Sandoval to play for the Giants.
Unless that’s not what the FO is looking at here.
This could be true but the stats we have access to suggest the catching duo is pretty anemic. According to Baseball-reference, we are 30/30 in the catching position for wins above average, at -1.7. The 29th rank team is at -1.0. If that holds up all season long, by the time the year is over, we will be about 3 wins worse than the 29th ranked team, and close to 7 wins worse than an average team from the catching position alone. That is a lot.
Perhaps the FO expects some bounce back offensively from Vaz/Leon -- I think that's fair based on historical averages and the fact that it's two guys, not one.
Sure, if you are basing that "starting quality" evaluation today on the Blake Wants to Rake fluff piece/speculation, the misconception that his bat didn't look like complete crap after the first couple of startup ST games, and outdated scouting reports made at a time when Henry Owens (who I believe was ranked ahead of Swihart) was still being projected to have a promising MLB future.
To be clear, that post was sarcasm. I don't believe that Swihart is a viable starting catcher or that the Sox would bury him despite that possibility because they gave Vasquez an extension. As far as screwing up his development over the years, maybe in an alternate universe he's Buster Posey lite, but it sure ain't happening in this one.
All of what you write would be very reasonable, but would make it even more collassally stupid that they didn’t trade him during the winter of 15-16.
They definitely mishandled him as a trading chip but that doesn't mean anything at all when you evaluate Blake Swihart as a player in 2018. Even if what you say is true and the organization just made excuses to justify Christian Vazquez's contract and the Blake Swihart can't catch stories were complete fiction, those stories could very much be non fiction now due to injury.
Last year he slashed 290/.330/.404, not horrible for a catcher. Maybe Cora feels he’ll still come around. At 27 years old, he shouldn’t be anywhere near done yet. I still say he looks a bit tubby, which, however, you’d think would affect his fielding more than his hitting.
He might be another guy for whom the launch angle revamp isn't working.
Who do you want back, Jace Fry?
Kopech and a PTBNL?
