d'Arnaud wins Eastern league MVP

[TheMainEvent]

I understand that it's still a few years off and that you never really know how a prospect is going to turn out in the majors, but I really hope that the Jays don't prefer JPA over Td'A. I really think Td'A is a much better catcher. He probably wont hit as many HRs (and therefore, RBIs), but I think everything else about his game is better than JP's. I think most of the Jays brass recognize this, but I'm still wary that they might end up keeping JPA and trading Td'A, because he's a very likeable guy, is hitting quite a lot of HRs and driving in quite a lot of RBIs for a rookie, and he seems to have a very strong work ethic, especially for the defensive side of catching -- basically, he has quite a lot of positives so far in his major league career (which is always more assuring than a prospect).

[Hendrix]

So Napoli has no value to a team? I disagree.

This season:

Napoli is a 3.8 win player, JP is a 1.1 win player.

Napoli has a wOBA of .415 (.410 adjusted for park effects), JP has a wOBA of .310 (.309 adjusted for park effects).

Napoli's bat plays at IB/DH, JP's bat doesn't (this season, anyway).

But we are talking about a guy in his prime vs. a rookie. In 2 years time I don't see why JPA can't begin to transition into a Napoli process. He isn't going to hit .210 for the rest of his career, and his WAR will likely increase if he has less starts behind the plate because he is below-average defensively right now.

Napoli's putting up a .976ops year. It's possible JPA puts up those kind of numbers one day but very unlikey and I don't think we should be prediciting it, or expecting it or comparing the 2 or anything.

WAR doesn't properly evaluate catcher defense anyways, so his WAR wouldn't rise from going out of C, it would most likely only drop significantly as he would not have the "positional" aspect to pull him up.

If you plug in Napoli's positional #'s into JPA's WAR #'s then JPA would be sitting around .4 WAR right now.

[evenflow]

stumbled across this write up on D'Arnaud in the spring which caught my attention, for those who missed it:

You've got a guy that can control the running game from the way he throws, and he's not afraid to lead a pitching staff," Farrell said. "In the early conversations between innings, or conversations early in camp, he shows a presence and is not afraid to speak his mind.

He also has an impressive amount of quickness and athleticism behind the plate. What has impressed Farrell the most, though, is d'Arnaud's baseball IQ and natural feel for the game. He has an ability to make pitches look better than they actually are.

"I love the way he frames a pitch," said Farrell, who believes d'Arnaud is capable of earning an extra 8-10 strikes a game. "He's going to get a lot of borderline strikes at the bottom of the strike zone, because if you watch his receiving [his glove] ends up coming into the zone, but he makes it in such a way that it doesn't look like he's trying to steal a pitch that might turn some umpires off."

http://toronto.bluejays.mlb.com/news/ar ... e_17006194

some pretty high praise from the manager.