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Wednesday, December 17, 2003

Yankee Prospecting

Here’s something I grew up with as a big fan of Rob Neyer’s work:

Player A: .338/.398/.434(AVG/OBP/SLG) .288 GPA
Player B: .321/.374/.469(AVG/OBP/SLG) .286 GPA

Pretty close isn’t it? It’s made even closer by the fact that both players played in the same leagues at the same position last year. To save the suspense, Player A is Joe Mauer, the 20 year old lefty swinging Minnesota Twins catching phenom who will probably garner the number one slot in most prospect publications this spring. Player B is Dioner Navarro, a 19 year old switch hitting catcher in the Yankees system, who is much less well known than Mauer.

Seeing that Mauer is one of the consensus top prospects in the land, and that Navarro is actually a year younger than him I sometimes wonder why he does not get as much coverage. Defensively, most scouts favor Mauer, but not because Navarro is a slouch behind the plate, he first gained fame as “Pudgito”, rather because Mauer is supposed to be THAT good defensively. Granting Mauer the edge in defense, and calling their offense a draw at this point, especially since Navarro is a year younger, I for one will be very interested to see where Dioner ranks among the game’s best prospects come spring.

Quite frankly, the only thing that could Dioner back, is that he is 5’10’’ and 189 pounds, meaning he does not have as much room as the 6’5’’ Mauer to fill out. Despite this Navarro did manage to have 32% of his hits go for extra bases as opposed to Mauer’s 22%, and I feel this is a great indicator of at least some form of power to come for Dioner.

I’m not intimating that Navarro is a better prospect than Mauer, but I am saying he should get more respect than he does (Quite frankly, I feel it will be hypocritical if he is not amongst the top 20). Hopefully Steinbrenner holds on to him so he can succeed Jorge Posada when he succumbs to the perils of catching. I definitely feel that Navarro has all-star potential and that in the next decade he and Mauer should battle it out for all star game starts. The reason I can see this future for Navarro is that his minor league numbers are reminiscent of A.J. Pierzynski’s minor league numbers, except he has done it at younger ages and with more patience. I think it is fair to say Navarro has the potential to become a player that can be counted on for an average yearly line of .300/.360/.450(AVG/OBP/SLG) with about 15 home runs, which would make him a very valuable catcher.