Entries associated with the tag "Geovany Soto":

As it turns out, Geovany Soto would not be the first rookie to be the primary starting catcher on a World Series winner -- even if the Cubs manage to pull it off. Thanks and a tip of the cap to Ajax, who pointed out in responding to a previous post that Andy Etchebarren was the rookie catcher on the 1966 world-champion Baltimore Orioles. Etchebarren made his big-league debut in 1962, when he was the youngest player in the American League at 19, and had another brief cup of coffee with the team in 1965, when he became one of many players whose every hit was a homer for a full season (he was 1-for-6). So he was still a rookie in 1966 -- one of three at critical positions up the middle for Baltimore, joining second baseman Davey Johnson and center fielder Paul Blair. Soto has already surpassed Etchebarren's 11 homers he hit in 121 games, and will soon top his 50 runs batted in.

Etchebarren batted just .221 in the middle of what has been called "the second dead-ball era," when pitching dominated in the 60s. Yet it's a mystery why Etchebarren isn't more celebrated for the feat. He received no votes in the American League Rookie of the Year balloting (won by the White Sox' Tommie Agee), and the Cubs' Randy Hundley was named catcher on the Topps interleague All-Rookie Team, even though Etchebarren did place 17th in Most Valuable Player voting that year. He caught all four games of the O's four-game Series sweep of the Los Angeles Dodgers, the last three of which were shutouts, and Etchebarren recently told Baseball Prospectus of how they pounded the Dodgers with hard stuff on the outside corner to do it. Yet Google Etchebarren today and you're more likely to read of how by grounding into a double play to end the sixth inning of the second game of that series he was the last batter to face Sandy Koufax (soon to be retired), if not how Jim Bouton named him catcher on the All Ugly team in his 1970 book, Ball Four, no doubt thanks to his prodigious eyebrows. Etchebarren deserves better -- and Soto couldn't put himself in better company. 

Especially over the last month or so, I've heard some people remark on how unusual it would be for the Cubs to win a World Series championship with a rookie as their primary catcher -- if indeed they do win this year. But it seems as if no one has actually done the work to see just how rare it is. So while working on the profile of Geovany Soto in this week's Reader, I got out my trusty Baseball Encyclopedia and went through each series winner going back to the first in 1903. My findings? It has never been done before. Never. Not once.

Oh, some have come close. The Saint Louis Cardinals' Yadier Molina was in his third season when they won just two years ago. Before that, a few narrowly exceeded the rookie maximum for at-bats (130) the previous year and went on to win it all in their first full season. As I point out in the story, Joe Oliver of, yes, Lou Piniella's 1990 Cincinnati Reds batted 151 times the previous season to spoil his rookie status. And there are a couple of big names: the New York Yankees' Jorge Posada batted 188 times in 1997 before winning it all the following year, and--the closest to pulling it off --Mike Sciosia batted 134 times for the 1980 Los Angeles Dodgers, scotching his rookie status by four at-bats before winning it all in the strike-tainted following season. Among true rookies, a couple were part-timers on championship teams, including another big name, Yogi Berra, who played 83 games as a rookie on the 1947 New York Yankees, splitting duties with Aaron Robinson, and a certain Jack Lapp caught 71 games for the 1910 Philadelphia Athletics, sharing the job with Ira Thomas. Yet no rookie catcher has been the primary starter on a championship team.

In some ways Soto actually has more experience than many of those named above. He was up for cups of coffee in September of 2005 and 2006 before laying claim to the starting job late last year, but even so he kept his rookie status intact with 80 lifetime big-league at-bats. So don't worry about the Cubs' century-long championship drought: worry about them attempting something that's never been done before in World Series history. 

Kevin Goldstein of Baseball Prospectus is out with his annual list of the top 100 minor-league prospects, but don't waste your time hunting for all the Chicago players on it. The Cubs placed two -- Geovany Soto at 37 and Josh Vitters at 45 -- and the Sox just one, Aaron Poreda at 87. Suffice to say it's hard times down on the farm for Chicago's baseball teams.

Cubs fans got a glimpse of Soto at the end of last season, and they liked what they saw. After a Most Valuable Player season at Triple-A Iowa, where he hit .353 with 26 homers and 109 runs batted in, he batted .389 with three more homers and eight RBI while catching 18 games in September. Manager Lou Piniella liked what he saw, too, as Soto started the first two games of the playoffs in Arizona. His homer off Doug Davis to put the Cubs briefly ahead in Game Two was the high point of the series for them, as they went on to be swept in three games. General manager Jim Hendry evidently liked it too: he let Jason Kendall go in free agency to make Soto the de facto Cubs' starting catcher this season. A 37 ranking isn't exactly can't-miss territory, but if Soto can hit 20 homers while batting respectably and calling a good game, he'll fit right in. BP's Pecota projection says Soto should approach those numbers. Just as important where the Cubs are concerned, he's got the matinee-idol looks to have the Wrigley Field tube-top brigade sighing for years.

A few Cubs fans got a glimpse of Vitters as well, but they probably didn't realize it. The Cubs' top choice and third overall in the June draft out of Cypress High School in California, he was considered the top high-school hitter available, and upon signing in August they let the then 17-year-old suit up and take batting practice before a game. He's lean and slight, but the ball jumps off his bat, and the projection is he'll fill out and hit for power in playing the position once held by Ron Santo. But for now it's all speculation. He hit .067 in seven games in his Rookie League debut in Mesa, and not much better at .190 in seven more games at short-season Boise. He figures to be at least four years away, but a 45 ranking is high praise for a teenager and marks high promise.

Poreda was the Sox' top draft choice too, 25th overall last June, out of the University of San Francisco, and he had a much more impressive debut at Great Falls in the Rookie League. The lefty was undefeated in four decisions, with a sparkling 1.17 earned-run average, with 48 strikeouts against 10 walks in 46 innings. Bears fans should like him, too, as he played defensive end and tight end in high school, and has filled out to 6-foot-6 and 240 pounds. His three-quarter-sidearm delivery -- think a big Billy Wagner -- produces a fastball that has touched 100 miles an hour and a nasty sinker, but thus far has kept him from developing any other breaking or off-speed pitches. His fastest route to the majors is as a reliever, and if the Sox go through what they did last year in the bullpen, it's not unthinkable the 21-year-old could be called up this year, though the Sox would no doubt prefer to take it slow and see if he can develop as a starter.

The Sox would have had another couple of pitchers in the top 100, but instead they included the highly touted Fautino de los Santos (46) and Gio Gonzalez (56) in the Nick Swisher trade. That left them with "arguably the thinnest farm system in baseball," according to Baseball America's Phil Rogers. So, Sox fans, just consider Nick Swisher your top new prospect for years to come.