Making Some Noise in the Desert

James D’Antona has been a favorite of mine ever since he was taken by Arizona in the second round of the 2003 draft out of Wake Forest University. D’Antona has always been talented but he was slow to develop in professional baseball and has yet to appear in the major leagues despite being 26 years old.

He was left off the D-Backs’ 40-man roster the last two seasons and I kept waiting for a team to take a chance on him, given his excellent power potential and his ability to play third base, first base and catcher. In college, D’Antona showed the ability to throw 94 mph off the mound but had poor footwork at the hot corner and some doubted his drive to succeed.

In 2006 at Double-A, D’Antona hit .312/.383/.487. In 2007 at Triple-A, hit he hit .308/.362/.499. This season, in 142 at-bats, D’Antona is smoking the ball with a line of .430/.445/.676. On the negative side, he has walked only three times. But he has shown a better eye at the plate in recent years and he keeps his strikeouts down (especially for a guy with power). He struck out 19.1 percent of the time in 2006, and 11.8 percent in 2007. So far this season, D’Antona has struck out 13.4 percent of the time.

He may not be the everyday player that the D-Backs envisioned when the organization drafted him, but D’Antona has the makings of a solid bench player and pinch hitter. He’s just in the wrong organization, as the club has a solid bench, and he would be a smart acquisition for a National League team as the Mark Sweeneys and Julio Francos of the world begin to show their ages and/or hang up their spikes for good.