Braves recalled Bethancourt, sent Eury Perez back to triple a and recalled Sugar Ray Marimom. David Aardsma was designated for release
Braves recalled Bethancourt, sent Eury Perez back to triple a and recalled Sugar Ray Marimom. David Aardsma was designated for release
It's good that he's up, but this will be pointless if he's not the starter for the next month. Have Fredi call him in for a come to Jesus meeting, tell him he's the starter for the rest of the season, that this is his chance to prove himself, that they don't need to see him hit .300 or anything like that, but they want to see that he's willing to put in the effort and preparation required of a catcher at this level. If he can't do that, then it's probably time to move on. But you'll never know if he can swim if you don't give the kid enough time to thrash about in the deep end.
I've softened a bit on not liking him. At every stop, when he gets a second crack at it, he hits.
I don't know if that's true for the rest of his game, but he may have just needed time. Arguably, the Braves rushed him a bit. There's a lot less patience in America than Central America and the Caribbean, where its a maņana thing.
If he's able to OPS .800 eventually and clean up some of the other things that were lacking, that's a pretty nice player.
He doesn't even need to OPS that, I'd be fine with a mid to high 700's OPS with his arm and the rest of his defense catches up....calling games, framing pitches, blocking pitches, etc. Anything more than that would be icing on the cake, and it would allow us to go cheap at another position of need at catcher over the next few years and focus on upgrading at other positions of need offensively...mainly the outfield and possibly 2B because we'd be set at all positions except for those.
If recent history is any indication with Beth's improvements the second go round at all levels, we should expect him to put up somewhere in the neighborhood of a .675 OPS at the major league level this time...which is not good enough to be an everyday starter IMO unless significant improvements are made at other positions offensively and Bethancourt takes his defensive game to the next level. I would take a mid .700 OPS from him, though.
I knew it. He's defective.