Swihart traded to Dbacks

The Gray Eagle

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I hoped we could have got them to give us Kevin Cron instead of Wilson.

Cron mashes, but he's older and doesn't have a defensive position he's good at, so it's going to be hard for the D-Backs to play him. He's 6'5", 250 and can cover first and third, but not very gracefully. He's putting up video game numbers but it's the PCL and he's 26 so I don't think he's considered that valuable. Could have been a nice bat for us but maybe they wouldn't have given him up for Swihart.

Anyway, who cares at this point, maybe Wilson will put it together.
 

oumbi

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For those interested in Wilson, Soxprospects now has him ranked at the 21st prospect on their list. Just off the front page.

His write up says:
Age: 22
Born: August 15, 1996
Los Angeles, CA
Height: 6-3
Weight: 175
Bats: Right
Throws: Right
Drafted: 2nd round, 2014 by ARI
How Acquired: Acquired from Arizona for Blake Swihart and international bonus pool money (April 2019)
High School: Juniper Serra (CA)

Scouting Report: Tall, lean and athletic build. Very toolsy. Has some remaining physical projection and room to add power. Below-average hit tool. Wide, balanced stance with a leg lift. Strikes out at high clips, but shows solid plate discipline. Has some loft in his swing, which could result in slightly above-average power as he adds strength. Present in-game power is fringe-average. Plus speed and range. Above-average defensive center fielder. Average arm. Solid overall instincts. Currently profiles as a role player at the major league level, but could develop into more with hit tool development.

His stats in Portland thus far are:
Games = 19
AB = 62
2B = 1
HR = 1
SB =1
BB = 13
K = 33
Line = .161/.307/.226 for an OPS of .533
 

Cesar Crespo

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I hoped we could have got them to give us Kevin Cron instead of Wilson.

Cron mashes, but he's older and doesn't have a defensive position he's good at, so it's going to be hard for the D-Backs to play him. He's 6'5", 250 and can cover first and third, but not very gracefully. He's putting up video game numbers but it's the PCL and he's 26 so I don't think he's considered that valuable. Could have been a nice bat for us but maybe they wouldn't have given him up for Swihart.

Anyway, who cares at this point, maybe Wilson will put it together.
Cron is interesting. His ISO and ISOp are similar from 2014-2018. His 2016 is an outlier in production due to the .222 average. Outside of 2016, he's hitting .290. This year, those numbers have gone up drastically.

2014: .207 ISO, .065 ISOp
2015: .222 ISO, .042 ISOp
2016: .215 ISO, .056 ISOp
2017: .214 ISO, .074 ISOp
2018: .245 ISO, .059 ISOp
2019: .449 ISO, .095 ISOp

Career: 22.7% K%, 7.2% BB%, 1 HR/20.5 AB (excluding 2019)
2019: 17.7% K%, 13.1% BB%, 1 HR/8.2 AB

I wonder if the power is driving the increase in BB%, and if the power is real or just SSS/luck. 18 HR in 147 AB is insane.

Re Swihart: He already has 4 HR in 65 PA this year. Ignoring the 12 HR he hit in Portland, he had 23 HR in 1896 PA from 2011-2018. Evidence suggests the injury impacted his ability to hit for contact, it's not so clear if it impacted his ability to hit for power. The power wasn't on display in 2015 but he was also rushed to the majors. Maybe without the injuries, the bat and power would have continued to progress.

2012: 7 HR/378 PA, .133 ISO
2013: 2 HR/422 PA, .130 ISO
2014: 13 HR/451 PA, .176 ISO
2015: 5 HR/396 PA, .102 ISO
2016: 1 HR/196 PA, .079 ISO
2017: 4 HR/257 PA, .096 ISO
2018: 3 HR/210 PA, .094 ISO
2019: 4 HR/65 PA, .221 ISO

2012-2014: .285/.339/.433, 1251 PA, 22 HR, .148 ISO (normal development curve)
2015-2016: .273/.336/.369, 592 PA, 6 HR, .096 ISO (rushed, demoted)
2017-Current: .205/.250/.285, 532 PA, 11 HRs, .080 ISO (post injury)
 

moondog80

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Blake has been on the DL for a month and was hitting 141/191/281 for Arizona, good for an OPS+ of 20. It's becoming more and more clear why the Sox never showed faith in him.
 

DeJesus Built My Hotrod

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Blake has been on the DL for a month and was hitting 141/191/281 for Arizona, good for an OPS+ of 20. It's becoming more and more clear why the Sox never showed faith in him.
Again, he may amount to *something* in the MLB but given the tone of some of the early posts in this thread, you would have thought the Sox essentially gave away a top young player. No knock against him but as you note, Swihart may well be unable to consistently hit MLB pitching at even an average level. And that is with a change in scenery.
 

Sandy Leon Trotsky

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I still think the guy has a lot of potential.... christ! The issue the whole time has been consistency- he hasn't been given any chance to actually play on even close to a "regular" basis. I definitely don't think he'll be great but yeah... I can imagine him as a consistent 2/5 catcher on a MLB team hitting a .700OPS with league average defense. I don't know what the hell the Diamondbacks were thinking.... putting him in the outfield as a 5th OF? What the hell was that going to tell you? How many PA's did he have this year with AZ?
 

DeJesus Built My Hotrod

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I still think the guy has a lot of potential.... christ! The issue the whole time has been consistency- he hasn't been given any chance to actually play on even close to a "regular" basis. I definitely don't think he'll be great but yeah... I can imagine him as a consistent 2/5 catcher on a MLB team hitting a .700OPS with league average defense. I don't know what the hell the Diamondbacks were thinking.... putting him in the outfield as a 5th OF? What the hell was that going to tell you? How many PA's did he have this year with AZ?
I don't get how people here look at him and see a sustained .700 OPS player while, aside from his rookie year, the guy hasn't been close to that production. It also seems that people here have more insight into his best position while two separate MLB organizations appear to disagree.

Its possible that you are right about him but the overwhelming evidence suggests otherwise.
 

Red(s)HawksFan

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I still think the guy has a lot of potential.... christ! The issue the whole time has been consistency- he hasn't been given any chance to actually play on even close to a "regular" basis. I definitely don't think he'll be great but yeah... I can imagine him as a consistent 2/5 catcher on a MLB team hitting a .700OPS with league average defense. I don't know what the hell the Diamondbacks were thinking.... putting him in the outfield as a 5th OF? What the hell was that going to tell you? How many PA's did he have this year with AZ?
Considering the D-Backs had three catchers on their 25-man (plus one on the DL) when they acquired Swihart, perhaps they weren't thinking of him as a catcher at all? Frankly, I'm shocked they tried to acquire him at all, even if I fall on the side of thinking he could be productive if given consistent playing time.
 

Cesar Crespo

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I still think the guy has a lot of potential.... christ! The issue the whole time has been consistency- he hasn't been given any chance to actually play on even close to a "regular" basis. I definitely don't think he'll be great but yeah... I can imagine him as a consistent 2/5 catcher on a MLB team hitting a .700OPS with league average defense. I don't know what the hell the Diamondbacks were thinking.... putting him in the outfield as a 5th OF? What the hell was that going to tell you? How many PA's did he have this year with AZ?
Considering teams could have had him for basically nothing, I'm not sure any team in the Majors believes he's actually a catcher, never mind one with league average defense. There might be some teams who believe in his bat. Right now, the best way for Blake Swihart to stay in the majors is to be Brock Holt.

Looking back at his minor league career, I think the guy was completely overrated just because of the position he played. Maybe he would have developed differently if he wasn't rushed to the majors or didn't get injured.
 

Ale Xander

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Man you guys are rough. His brother's body is barely cold. It's hard enough to focus on hitting major league pitches when everything is going ok in your life and you have consistent playing time and health.
 

DJnVa

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Plympton91

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Post-injury Swihart is simply not the same person as pre-injury Swihart. We all saw him be a perfectly respectable defensive catcher for a team that had a winning record with him as the everyday catcher in the second half of 2015, and now it’s nearly unanimous among baseball people that he’s incapable of playing the position. That makes no sense unless that ankle injury permanently robbed him of some explosiveness required to move laterally in a crouch.

The outfield experiment was an ill considered disaster. The moment they decided that Christian Vazquez was their number 1 catcher was the moment they should have traded Blake Swihart. You can go back and see that I said exactly that in real time, and it’s still true. Blake Swihart’s value was never going to be higher than it was in the spring of 2016 unless he remained Boston’s starting catcher. It’s as true as 2+2 = 4.
 

InstaFace

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I don't get how people here look at him and see a sustained .700 OPS player while, aside from his rookie year, the guy hasn't been close to that production. It also seems that people here have more insight into his best position while two separate MLB organizations appear to disagree.

Its possible that you are right about him but the overwhelming evidence suggests otherwise.
What they're remembering - or what I remember, at any rate - is the player who hit .298/.366/.428/.794 in 422 PAs at age 21 in A+ Salem, with 29 doubles, and followed up that power promise with hitting .293 / .341 / .469 / .810 in 451 PAs at age 22 in Portland and Pawtucket, with 26 2Bs and 13 HRs. That's not far off from the profiles of future MLB stars at the position, nevermind those who can merely hang in the majors.

They then rushed him to the majors in 2015, and in 209 PAs he OPS'd .712, which is fantastic for a rookie catcher, but since the injury (as P91 points out) he's been trying to regain that form ever since. Dude's 27 and doesn't have a ton of tread on his tires, he's got all of 694 MLB PAs. I assume the DBacks told him something like "don't worry, you've got 3 years to figure it out".
 

lexrageorge

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He had 329 games as catcher in the minors before his 2015 callup, the overwhelming majority at single-A level. So it's unclear that he had a reputation as being a solid defensive catcher before his callup; IIRC, the team was gushing about his offense, but was much more reserved about his catching ability. Lots of promising single-A catchers never make it to the bigs.

So, it's likely his 2016 freak ankle injury was more a factor of coincidental timing than something that has caused him to lose his catching ability.

We can debate the wisdom of moving him to the outfield over and over again. However, while his ankle injury seemed to be an outlier in terms of its severity, it makes little sense that it's still affecting him today. We're likely just enamored of a small sample size of 209 plate appearances in 2015, a sample which is predictive of very little. I mean, Will Middlebrooks looked great in his first 286 plate appearances, and he is hardly an exceptional case.
 

azsoxpatsfan

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I mean, Will Middlebrooks looked great in his first 286 plate appearances, and he is hardly an exceptional case.
Middlebrooks looked great until breaking his hand and he was never the same. More evidence swihart would’ve been a star if not for the ankle!

In all seriousness I think you’re spot on. Swihart’s hype always seemed greater than his production, even if his minor league stats were pretty good. I don’t think the ankle injury still has any effect on him this far removed from it occurring. It seems more likely he’s just not as talented as everyone had hoped (even if he is more talented than his horrendous numbers suggest)
 

mauf

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He had 329 games as catcher in the minors before his 2015 callup, the overwhelming majority at single-A level. So it's unclear that he had a reputation as being a solid defensive catcher before his callup; IIRC, the team was gushing about his offense, but was much more reserved about his catching ability. Lots of promising single-A catchers never make it to the bigs.

So, it's likely his 2016 freak ankle injury was more a factor of coincidental timing than something that has caused him to lose his catching ability.

We can debate the wisdom of moving him to the outfield over and over again. However, while his ankle injury seemed to be an outlier in terms of its severity, it makes little sense that it's still affecting him today. We're likely just enamored of a small sample size of 209 plate appearances in 2015, a sample which is predictive of very little. I mean, Will Middlebrooks looked great in his first 286 plate appearances, and he is hardly an exceptional case.
WMB is a great parallel. A lot of young guys rake until the league figures out how to get them out, then never manage to adjust.
 

bigq

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WMB is a great parallel. A lot of young guys rake until the league figures out how to get them out, then never manage to adjust.
Another good example is the guy who put up these numbers in his first season:

.278/.356/.589/.945

Samuel Lee Horn
 

lexrageorge

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And about Swihart's minor league stats: he did very well through AA. Which was followed up by a very abbreviated AAA stint before being called up to the Show in 2015.

However, in 2016, he put up a 0.243/0.344/0.311/0.655 in 29 games in AAA. And that was all before he hurt his ankle. And his numbers for the PawSox were worse the following season when his ankle was fully healed.
 

Cesar Crespo

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Man you guys are rough. His brother's body is barely cold. It's hard enough to focus on hitting major league pitches when everything is going ok in your life and you have consistent playing time and health.
Staying on the field is a skill, and it's possible he'll never be 100%
Another good example is the guy who put up these numbers in his first season:

.278/.356/.589/.945

Samuel Lee Horn
And another player the sox gambled on in Jeremy Hermida.
 
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WMB is a great parallel. A lot of young guys rake until the league figures out how to get them out, then never manage to adjust.
Figuring out that WMB would chase sliders out of the strike zone shouldn't have taken that long. My belief is that he experienced some deterioration in his eyesight after that great half season.
 

Plympton91

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All the naysayers are obviously correct, it is just a complete coincidence that Swihart’s career tanked after the Red Sox changed his position and he destroyed his ankle.
 

ngruz25

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I think Ryan Kalish is as close a parallel as you can find. Excellent pedigree. Really, really solid if unspectacular minor league numbers coupled with great scouting reports leads to an call-up in his age 22 season. Puts up a totally decent .712 OPS.

Gets hurt, never really hits again at the minor or major league level, fizzles out and is never heard from again. Was it the injuries, or did he just not have "it"?

How about Ryan Lavarnway? With those power numbers in the minors and a decent major league debut, he was bound for a successful major league career, right?

We could do this forever.
 

Over Guapo Grande

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All the naysayers are obviously correct, it is just a complete coincidence that Swihart’s career tanked after the Red Sox changed his position and he destroyed his ankle.
I took a stats class once.. said something about correlation <> causation. Now I don't pretend to be as smart as you profess to be, but is there anything that hints at it being more than correlation in your view? So, if he had shattered his ankle chasing a foul pop as a catcher it would have been different?
 

lexrageorge

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All the naysayers are obviously correct, it is just a complete coincidence that Swihart’s career tanked after the Red Sox changed his position and he destroyed his ankle.
The "naysayers" provided good faith arguments with real examples of players that had great initial set of plate appearances after solid minor league careers who then fizzled out. If we expanded our reach to include non-Red Sox players, I'm sure the "naysayers" (insert guffaws here) would find even more relevant examples.

Noone is ruling out the ankle injury as being either the primary cause or a contributing factor to Swihart's career trajectory. But there's no way to prove it either, and the evidence of it being a complete coincidence is equally strong, if not more so. That's stats 101, btw.

EDIT: More evidence of the coincidental nature is that nearly all young players recover from sprained ankles, even high ankle sprains. Especially 3 years after the fact.
 

teddywingman

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All the naysayers are obviously correct, it is just a complete coincidence that Swihart’s career tanked after the Red Sox changed his position and he destroyed his ankle.
Watching him run the bases last year and early this year makes it pretty obvious to anyone with eyes that he did not, in fact, "destroy his ankle."
 

moondog80

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EDIT: More evidence of the coincidental nature is that nearly all young players recover from sprained ankles, even high ankle sprains. Especially 3 years after the fact.
Right. The number of players who have managed to not have their careers ruined an ankle sprain is surpassed only by the number who have not had their careers ruined by being moved to a less demanding defensive position.

But even if a 2015 ankle sprain did ruin his career, it was a completely unforeseeable freak accident and I don't blame the Red Sox. It's not like they asked Rich Garces to play CF and he tore a quad chasing down a ball in the triangle.
 
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In my lifetime

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Right. The number of players who have managed to not have their careers ruined an ankle sprain is surpassed only by the number who have not had their careers ruined by being moved to a less demanding defensive position.

But even if a 2015 ankle sprain did ruin his career, it was a completely unforeseeable freak accident and I don't blame the Red Sox. It's not like they asked Rich Garces to play CF and he tore a quad chasing down a ball in the triangle.
And a player was moved from a position with a much greater daily grind and much higher chance of injury.
The one thing P91 is correct about is that the RS failed to sell high on Swihart. However, that happens every day whether we are talking about a player or a stock. Only in retrospect can anyone be sure to maximize their returns.
 

Plympton91

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I took a stats class once.. said something about correlation <> causation. Now I don't pretend to be as smart as you profess to be, but is there anything that hints at it being more than correlation in your view? So, if he had shattered his ankle chasing a foul pop as a catcher it would have been different?
I’m not saying the change of positions was the cause of the ankle injury. I’m saying that the position change could easily explain why his hitting was subpar in the 29 AAA games he played — due to the need to focus on learning a new position, which often causes folks to slump. And then the injury of the ankle in 2016 and re-injury of it in 2017 from which he said himself was still bad enough that it was preventing him from succeeding.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/nesn.com/2018/01/finally-healthy-blake-swihart-might-be-most-intriguing-red-sox-player-entering-2018/amp/
And, he did have a perfectly good season as a lefthanded hitter at catcher in 2018. .275 / .336 /.412 So it’s wrong to say that he hasn’t done well since 2015.
 

DeJesus Built My Hotrod

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I’m not saying the change of positions was the cause of the ankle injury. I’m saying that the position change could easily explain why his hitting was subpar in the 29 AAA games he played — due to the need to focus on learning a new position, which often causes folks to slump. And then the injury of the ankle in 2016 and re-injury of it in 2017 from which he said himself was still bad enough that it was preventing him from succeeding.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/nesn.com/2018/01/finally-healthy-blake-swihart-might-be-most-intriguing-red-sox-player-entering-2018/amp/
And, he did have a perfectly good season as a lefthanded hitter at catcher in 2018. .275 / .336 /.412 So it’s wrong to say that he hasn’t done well since 2015.
Is there any evidence that position changes cause slumps? Aren't most MLB players converted from positions they played in HS, college or the minors? I know we don't have any recent examples on the current Sox roster of players who converted positions and still manage to hit well but surely there has to be some data on this somewhere...
 

Plympton91

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Is there any evidence that position changes cause slumps. Aren't most MLB players converted from positions they played in HS, college or the minors? I know we don't have any recent examples on the current Sox roster of players who converted positions and still manage to hit well but surely there has to be some data on this somewhere...
There’s data going both ways I’m sure. Some struggle some don’t. Sometime it’s causal, sometimes it’s not.

We don’t know that Swihart would have developed differently. We do know that on the day the Red Sox demoted him in favor of Vazquez and changed his position, they lit a large portion of his value on fire. His highest and best use was as a catcher, and at that point he had both options remaining and still 6 years to free agency. He had been a top 20 prospect with no hint at all of defensive issues in his 60 game run as the starting catcher on a major league team that had a 600 winning percentage in those games. They should have traded him prior to recalling Vazquez. I said that in real time, and I was incontrovertibly correct.
 

Cesar Crespo

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I’m not saying the change of positions was the cause of the ankle injury. I’m saying that the position change could easily explain why his hitting was subpar in the 29 AAA games he played — due to the need to focus on learning a new position, which often causes folks to slump. And then the injury of the ankle in 2016 and re-injury of it in 2017 from which he said himself was still bad enough that it was preventing him from succeeding.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/nesn.com/2018/01/finally-healthy-blake-swihart-might-be-most-intriguing-red-sox-player-entering-2018/amp/
And, he did have a perfectly good season as a lefthanded hitter at catcher in 2018. .275 / .336 /.412 So it’s wrong to say that he hasn’t done well since 2015.
It was only 13 games. The first 12 games he played at catcher. So it was 17 games, 4 of which he played C. Before the move to LF, he was hitting .245/.349/.283 in in 63 PA. After the move, he hit .250/.353/.324 in 82 PA. That doesn't fit your narrative. He actually improved after the switch.
 

DeJesus Built My Hotrod

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There’s data going both ways I’m sure. Some struggle some don’t. Sometime it’s causal, sometimes it’s not.

We don’t know that Swihart would have developed differently. We do know that on the day the Red Sox demoted him in favor of Vazquez and changed his position, they lit a large portion of his value on fire. They should have traded him prior to recalling Vazquez. I said that in real time, and I was incontrovertibly correct.
The question I have is Boston determined he wasn't going to be a catcher, do you think other organizations would have arrived at a different conclusion?

This isn't the 80s, 90s or even the early aughts - most teams are now a lot more data driven in evaluating talent. Its possible they could have received value by finding a counterpart who saw him as a catcher but its also likely that other organizations saw him for what he was - a guy who wasn't good enough to be a starting catcher and likely had more value as a super-sub or something. You can spike your football but I am not sure you are or were "incontrovertibly correct".
 

Cesar Crespo

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The question I have is Boston determined he wasn't going to be a catcher, do you think other organizations would have arrived at a different conclusion?
They didn't necessarily determine he wasn't going to be a catcher, just that Vaz was their guy. The minute they picked Vaz or Blake, they arguably should have traded the other.
 

DeJesus Built My Hotrod

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They didn't necessarily determine he wasn't going to be a catcher, just that Vaz was their guy. The minute they picked Vaz or Blake, they arguably should have traded the other.
Fair enough - I should have been more precise in my language. My point is, its not clear they didn't feel out a trade at the time and we simply don't know what the other teams would have traded for him. Its hard to criticize the absence of a move with Swihart when we simply don't know what the Sox could have potentially received in return for him. I mean, its possible they kicked the tires on a trade and found more value in keeping him, right?
 

Plympton91

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Fair enough - I should have been more precise in my language. My point is, its not clear they didn't feel out a trade at the time and we simply don't know what the other teams would have traded for him. Its hard to criticize the absence of a move with Swihart when we simply don't know what the Sox could have potentially received in return for him. I mean, its possible they kicked the tires on a trade and found more value in keeping him, right?
Can you point to any contemporaneous article or stat from 2015 that questioned his ability to be a solid major league catcher? I can’t find one.

Don’t you think that if there were widespread doubts about his ability to catch Keith Law, Baseball Prospectus, or similar prospect sheet would have mentioned it and downgraded his prospect ranking?

There’s no evidence that anyone other than John Farrell had a problem with his defense in 2015-2016.
 

Plympton91

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It was only 13 games. The first 12 games he played at catcher. So it was 17 games, 4 of which he played C. Before the move to LF, he was hitting .245/.349/.283 in in 63 PA. After the move, he hit .250/.353/.324 in 82 PA. That doesn't fit your narrative. He actually improved after the switch.
Fair enough. Though in that few plate appearances, a 350 OBP is hardly a poor performance. His power stroke was MIA as can happen to anyone in Pawtucket in early April and May.

Again, my main point isn’t how Swihart has performed in various small sample size and disjointed opportunities the past 4 years. It’s that the Red Sox totally mismanaged his value and his career when they switched him off of catcher on a whim and a dropped pop up in early 2016.

They switched him off of catcher in part because they needed an outfielder. They could have traded him for a damn good outfielder instead.
 

Lowrielicious

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It’s that the Red Sox totally mismanaged his value and his career when they switched him off of catcher on a whim and a dropped pop up in early 2016.
They mismanaged his value because he didn’t turn out like the prospect list makers thought he would.
If he hit like many predicted he would, and could catch AND play competent (or better) outfield then his value would have increased from that point onwards, which I am sure is what the hope was at the time.

They switched him off of catcher in part because they needed an outfielder. They could have traded him for a damn good outfielder instead.
Which outfielder did they have a confirmed offer for? Or do you not know just like the rest of us?
Maybe they had no offers or maybe none that matched how they valued Blake at the time.

I expect part of the reasoning was that swapping Blake for an outfielder left them exposed if Vaz was injured.
Instead Blake was injured, Vaz wasn’t (and hit historically badly - shame he didn’t find this years power stroke a few years earlier, I don’t think anyone saw that coming) and the predicted stud in Blake never eventuated. Can’t win em all.

You were right though, enjoy your victory lap(s) cause you can’t get em all right.
 

lexrageorge

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Swihart's defense was generally considered average at best when he was in the minors. It was expected he would need some time before being ready to be a major league catcher.

In hindsight, it seems easy to criticize the Sox for the way they handled Blake. After all, it fits with the increasingly tired "Dumbrowski" narrative. But at the start of 2016, the Sox were still unsure if Vazquez was going to be ready after having TJ surgery. Blake was struggling out of the gate, and so it seemed prudent to get him some time in AAA before his confidence got completely shot. Maybe Farrell wasn't the best manager for him, but Dombrowski wasn't about to fire a guy that had just come back from a battle with cancer and was still not far removed from a World Series victory.

Had the team traded Blake at that time (in hindsight the right move), he probably would have netted a similar level prospect that was similarly blocked. Key word is prospect, which means the most likely outcome is a AAAA player who rides the shuttle a couple of seasons before being similarly DFA'd. A nice upside may have been Brock Holt; or a Heath Hembree. It's not like teams were knocking down their door dangling their best players for him.

By holding on to him, the Sox could have been gambling on the chance to include him as part of a bigger trade when bigger trades happen mid-season. Swihart and a higher ranked but lower level prospect perhaps brings in a starter or key bullpen piece. Or by holding on to him they can trade Vazquez mid-season and call up Swihart. And, no, it's not expected that a catcher like Swihart would incur a season ending injury playing the outfield.

Like everything, context matters, and the context here shows the situation was a bit more complicated than Felger & Mazz would want you to believe.
 

Yelling At Clouds

Post-darwinian
SoSH Member
Jul 19, 2005
3,405
Really, though, instead of talking about some guy struggling on a different team, we should be talking about the actual two-way star catcher the Red Sox do have. If you're disappointed that Swihart's development got derailed, well, what were you hoping he'd become? A decent defensive catcher with an OPS over .800? They have one of those already!
 
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Red(s)HawksFan

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Jan 23, 2009
20,676
Maine
Really, though, instead of talking about some guy struggling on a different team, we should be talking about the actual two-way star catcher the Red Sox do have. If you're disappointed that Swihart's development got derailed, well, what were you hoping he'd become? A decent defensive catcher with an OPS over .800? They have one of those already!
They had one of those in 2016 too. We still getting that from him?

I'm a Vazquez fan and I'm happy to see the success he's having with the bat, but it's a bit of an outlier compared to his previous performance. The difference between his 2017 (which was good enough) and 2019 stats is a spike in HRs. I don't know that that's sustainable or predictive long term. I have little doubt that he's benefiting from the juiced ball.
 

nighthob

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Jul 15, 2005
12,678
I took a stats class once.. said something about correlation <> causation. Now I don't pretend to be as smart as you profess to be, but is there anything that hints at it being more than correlation in your view? So, if he had shattered his ankle chasing a foul pop as a catcher it would have been different?
The correlation ≠ causation is better directed at the OF variable than the injury. His shattering his ankle while playing LF is clearly coincidence (because as you rightly point out he could have done it falling down dugout steps while chasing a foul pop), but it's a reasonable supposition that the injury could derail his career.