I owe Red Sox catcher Carlos Narváez to apologize. In my pre-season article on Boston’s back, I called him “organizational depth.” I joined him with Blake Sabol and Seby Zavala, the team’s backup substitute option for the team, the worst war in the American League. It was in March. It’s June, and the rookies will cut .288/.356/.456, five home runs and 126 WRC+ to 47 games. Thanks to strong frameworks, blocking and throwing skills, he won himself 6 DR and +6 FRV. The only catcher who beat him in both indicators was defensive wizard Patrick Bailey. In the war, Narváez was one of the top 30 players in the game. He ranks fifth in the catcher, if you only consider war accumulation As a catcherhe ranks second. If he lasts for a few more weeks, he will have a compelling case, the All-Star Game this summer.
No matter what happens from here, Narváez is no longer just the depth of the Red Sox. I was wrong, and although I really prefer pie, I can easily eat crows or modest pie. At the same time, I can’t ignore him too much. After all, it took him more than eight years from the day he signed with the Yankees’ international free agent to make him an honorary mention of one of our organization’s top prospects. Even so, Eric Longenhagen still ranked him at No. 32 in the Yankee System (35+ fv) entering 2024, while the term “third receiver” ended his article. At the same time, Nawaz did not appear American Baseball Until the past offseason, the publications listed ranked 29th in the Red Sox organization. Neither Baseball prospectus,nor sports This winter, they mentioned him on the prospect list for the top 20 Red Sox.
Although I might be wrong with who Nalvas meetingI’m not wrong with him once When I call him “unknown” and “almost no…highest prospect”. Still, I used his reputation, or a real lack of it, to free myself from more information about him. Relying on reputation is often a necessary heuristic – if we all have to verify everything ourselves, we will never accomplish anything – but that doesn’t mean it won’t lead to errors. With over 100 catchers for the position rankings, I need to find ways to reduce the workload. So I covered him up on Narváez because he didn’t have enough reputation to attract more attention.
Reputation can be a powerful thing. I’ll go to the movie friendship Last week, all the laughter in the theater shocked me. I’m not surprised that people are laughing. This is a comedy! What surprised me was when They are laughing. Laughs usually start before jokes, and sometimes I can’t even hear fists. The audience is already laughing loudly on the screen of star Tim Robinson. The clearest explanation I ended up in a full theater I think you should leave When Connor O’Malley appeared in a brief cameo, the huge fans (and to be clear, I counted myself in it) were all the laughter. Maybe Robinson crossed the comedy film actor from Niche Comedian, but O’Malley might be known for his few appearances on Robinson’s sketch show, and he still firmly falls into the former category.
I made this point because when I was watching the movie, I was writing an article about runners who rarely faced royals this year. (Since that piece came out, Royals opponents have tried a stolen base. It was unsuccessful.) The whole thing made me wonder how much the catcher was reputation To control the running game, it may affect his ability to actually control it. Consider Yadier Molina. Throughout his career, his opponents have tried to steal 52 bases per 1,000 innings on average. It’s by far the lowest speed for any receiver in the 21st century and the lowest ever. To find another catcher with a lower base attempt rate this century, you have to reduce the game time to at least 200 innings behind the plate, even then there was only one catcher in front of Molina: Mike Mahoney: Mike Mahoney, who is interesting to see most of his career in the 2005 reserve game in Molina. If you set the minimum to 1,000 innings (still less than the entire season), the receiver distance Molina is 13 times to win Gold Glover and first vote Hall of Fame member Ivan Rodriguez. Even then, it’s not close. Rodriguez allowed 63 stolen base attempts per 1,000 innings in the 21st century, 11 more innings than Molina. There is no doubt that Molina is absolutely great when it comes to controlling the running game. But is his skills really much better than any other catcher’s skills? I’m skeptical.
Tim Robinson is real Interesting. Yadier Molina is real Good at throwing away possible fixed people. But if you allow their reputation before they are, you risk joking or missing a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to promote the base. So watch movies, listen to boundaries, and if you find it interesting, please laugh. Consider the details of the situation, calculate the risk, and take off on the next basis if you think the chances of success are high enough. And, if you’re writing a positional power ranking, you need to look at more than just lead lists, predictions, and surface-level minor league statistics, otherwise you might call it a potential All-Star “organizational depth.”
If I looked a little closer, I might consider something the Red Sox gave up to get Nawaz. They sent 21-year-old Elmer Rodriguez-Cruz and the International Bonus Pool Space, and their most intense competitors completed the exchange. Rodriguez-Cruz generally has higher prospects than Narváez. He appeared first in No. Two years ago, our Red Sox top prospect list was 16 (40+ FV) and climbed to No. Last season 7 (45 fv). We don’t have him at the moment. 6 in Yankee system. Whether the team’s internal assessment matches our own, this is not the kind of player you’ll trade deeply for organizing – especially not suitable for partitioned enemies, especially when including international reward pool space, especially when people like Sabol and Zavala are free to get, especially when there isn’t at the time. The Red Sox need not only backup catchers. They want Nawaz.
Boston caught up with coach Parker Guinn’s high praise for Narváez in spring training, telling Masslive’s Christopher Smith that he was “one of the highest defenders in the Triple-A, if not the top defender last year.” Gene also discussed the team’s plan to make Nawaz better: a throwing plan for “improving arm strength”. So far, so good. He ranked the highest among the catchers of the pop era, and he met 10 of 42 quasi-fixed players. According to Statcast, his value +2 was stolen above average.
In an article on the website “Talk Sox”, our own Davy Andrews noticed Narváez’s outstanding framework this spring, and excellence continued into the regular season. Narváez has converted 45.2% of non-mobile courts in the shaded area to strike. Although the Red Sox pitcher makes the job as difficult as possible, this is the 11th place among qualified catchers. They have the highest regional shaded area course in the league. Therefore, Narváez is ranked fifth in our framework run.
More importantly, it’s not just defense that makes Nawaz so valuable. The only receivers (150 PA) with a higher WRC+ are Raleigh and Will Smith. Narváez is a minor’s glove priority player, and that’s still true. He won’t keep his .366 BABIP all season and his .357 Woba put him in the top 20% of bats, but his .327 Xwoba is just one ticker above the league average. But if he continues to play this defense, he doesn’t have to be a great batsman. He just needs to be good enough to justify his position at the bottom of the lineup, and so far it seems he can attack it on MLB pitches. His 9.6% walking rate shows that he knows when not to swing, while his 43.6% tough rate shows that he may cause some damage when encountering it. This may be surprising for anyone who only looks at his triple A stats (104 WRC+) or pre-season ZIPS projections (77 WRC+), but there are clues that hint at his possible growth.
Eli Ben-Porat American Baseball Writing ahead of the season, Nawaz has the skills of a “good hitter” and noted his export speed and improved plate discipline. Ben-Porat even suggested that Narváez could replace Connor Wong as Boston’s main receiver by the end of the year, even saying he could “post several three-win seasons” in his career. As Ben-Porat acknowledged, the second prediction is almost very optimistic, especially given that his own publication ranks Narváez as the prospect. However, Narváez soon usurped Wong and he was on his way to three victories.
In fact, if you go to our War rankings and lower the match time minimum below the threshold for passing, you will find Narváez (2.0 War) on the first page. I think he is the highest ranked name, and even a dedicated baseball fan may never have heard of it. To test this theory, I texted my brother: “Are you familiar with Carlos Narváez?” Please note that he is a big enough fan and I don’t need to specify that I’m talking about a player. I’m more likely to specify whether I text him anything other than him.
“I might know the name,” he replied.
Narváez will no longer be anonymous. He is building a reputation. How do I know? On one hand, he already has some clever baseball minds that radiate beautiful meaningless word salads to describe his performance. Former Red Sox catcher, captain and current coach Jason Varitek told Boston pioneer Narváez is “the elite defender, an elite receiver”. In fact, it’s so much, “In short, Carlos is a baseball player…he’s a baseball player and he’s radiating baseball.” This nonsense has some high praise.
Narváez has become the Boston starter catcher, making more sense than clichés, with no clear competition to take the job away from him as soon as possible. He also participated in the annual rookie conversation. Entering the season, the Red Sox have three strong candidates to consider Roy’s considerations, assuming they are major league debuts: Christian Campbell, Roma Anthony and Marcelo Meyer. However, their strongest candidate right now is not any of these top 100 prospects. Although Jacob Wilson appears to have won the award, Narváez will receive a fair vote if the season ends.
So, is he a real breakthrough star? A solid player performs well? Flash in the pot? We have to wait and see, but he has become the name you should know anyway. Carlos Narváez deserves reputation.
