re young catchers in article mssc dfw u netcom com mss netcom com mark singer writes at age alomar had a brilliant rookie year true he was limited by injuries in his sophomore season but his numbers both that yaer and the year following were quite mediocre this season the same bill james projects a ba of ops of the same bill james why do you say that it sounds like you re suggesting bill james had something to do with overhyping the kid to death au contraire he was fairly critical of him after his roy campaign noting that he wasn t all world as a catcher or a hitter he called him basically average when everyone else in the media was predicting the next johnny bench or roy campanella both of these young men were highly touted defensive catchers expected to be among the best ever in baseball the reports i read indicate that lopez is very ordinary defensively which reports are those the dodgers options are parrish and hernandez and now only carlos piazza is as long as he continues with his very hot bat they will keep him in the lineup because they need the offensive production when he cools off look for the much better defensive catcher hernandez only to play more i like hernandez a lot but if piazza can catch the ball you ve gotta play him imho he s a much better hitter although hernandez isn t a bad hitter right now it sounds like piazza will catch most of the time and hernandez will be candiotti s caddy since he can catch the knuckler as long as they play up to their abilities the dodgers could have a very good catching tandem the braves options are berryhill and olson i agree that olson is nothing special but i do think berryhill is better than many people on rsb believe but both the braves catchers are very good defensively calling a game blocking the plate throwing and although they are somewhat weak offenivsively they play on a team that is not so much in need of another big bat i think both are overrated defensively see nichols law of catcher defense but that s something that s difficult to prove or disprove from your viewpoint or mine about the only tangible thing we can look at is opponent s sb and that s clouded by how well your pitchers hold runners catchers era is a possibility but it s subject to way too many biases as for them playing on a team that is not so much in need of another big bat i disagree here too about the only chink in the braves armor is that they re weak offensively at several positions cf c b ss if belliard plays b unless bream and hunter form another super platoon and very weak defensively if blauser plays i d like to see the braves give at least one of mel nieves javy lopez or chipper jones a shot but much like the talent rich jays of recent years they ll be conservative and stick with what they have i m not saying that s wrong just conservative dave hung like a jim acker slider kirsch blue jays do it again in kirsch staff tc umn edu new quotes out of context not to beat a dead horse but it s been a couple o weeks this disappoints me punishments discharges jackhammering stephen lawrence
