Sunday, June 22, 2014

What to do at catcher next year at West Virginia?

One of the interesting things that has developed after this year's draft is what to do at catcher next year in A ball (West Virginia).
They already have a bit of a problem in Jamestown between Taylor Gushue and Kevin Krause.  One can DH while the other plays catcher, so it works, but both are top 10 draft picks who should be viewed as prospects.  Getting playing time behind the plate is especially important to Gushue, who only had one year at the position at Florida.
Add to this the new level of Bristol, a Rookie League club, but a high rookie league, and you can have some problems.  At Bristol sits Daniel Arribas.  Arribas is an international signing, and he has talent.  He played GCL last year, and DSL the year before that.  He is talented enough to play any position, focusing mostly on 1B when not playing catcher, but he is a catcher first.  Arribas has a nice bat, but cannot spend a third year in short season ball without it killing his career.  Plus, he has done everything needed to get promoted to full season ball.  The organization needs to be able to evaluate Arribas and now there is a back log on talent at catcher.  Arribas has more years in the system, which means his clock is starting to tick loudly.
You might be thinking that Arribas could just go to 1B for a while so that all three might could play, but that is not really possible because the Pirates have Kevin Ross currently playing 1B at Jamestown.  He was an 8th round pick in 2012 who did well in the GCL in that year, but the next year was hurt, played little, and lost a whole year of development.  He is too young to toss aside.  He probably needs to be seeing time at West Virginia as well.

So next year there will be three catchers who need to be at West Virginia.  Two of them can play other positions, particularly 1B, but that position is has a person sitting on it too.  One of these catching prospects is going to be missing a lot of at-bats.  It will be interesting to see who the Pirates handle it.

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