Bethancourt

NinersSBChamps said:
Sure I get that, but we can't always be banking or counting on someone for the future every single time. Eventually we need players to be in the present. Sooner or later we need to move on and try someone else/
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The problem is that there are no available "sure thing" young catchers... Lucroy, Wieters, and McCann are the 3 big bats that would possibly be available through trade or free agency but they all have age/injury problems... all other young catchers are almost just as unknown as Bethancourt. I'd love to get Swihart but there's no way they'll trade him now that he's hitting. Susac doesn't excite me and I don't think he'd be any better than Bethancourt. Barnes from LA is intriguing but again... he's just as much of an unknown.
 
It boggles my mind how much lingering hostility there is toward Bethancourt. Catcher is probably the hardest position to develop, and he's what? 23? (Not going to bother to research to confirm.) For gosh sake's, he doesn't even have a 1/2 season total of major league experience. At the time, and the banter here was much worse than it is now, my comment was that sending him down could only be perceived as positive. It could serve as a wake-up call and he'd have a chance to work on his hitting regularly. He's responded.

Still, there's always some gasbag here, claiming "Oh, he sucked since A ball! And I have the numbers to prove it!" Losers.
 
msstate7 said:
How well respected is Garrett Spain? I looked him up on Twitter and he has 1,166 followers... Seems pretty small time
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He has several prospect reports up at TC. Read them and formulate your own opinion of him.

Fact is, if Beth is still trying to scoop balls that are thrown in the dirt, then he isn't doing what he needs to do with his demotion. He has the feet and athleticism to move his body to block those pitches. The big red alarm for me is that he doesn't appear to talk to his teammates on the bench, with the only one that he gravitates to being Sugar Ray Marimon. The catcher has to be a leader.

The big defensive issues he had when he was sent down were calling the game, framing pitches, and blocking pitches. Based on this article and the comments Mark Bowman made in an article last week, it doesn't appear he has improved those qualities to this point.
 
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