O’s Free MLB Spot for Wieters

by
December 9, 2008

The prospect most impacted by the Ramon Hernandez–Ryan Freel trade was not directly involved in the transaction. By trading Hernandez to the Cincinnati Reds, the Baltimore Orioles all but signaled that top prospect Matt Wieters will be entrusted with the starting gig in 2009.

Currently, the Orioles’ 40-man roster does not even include a catcher with Hernandez traded and 2008 back-up Guillermo Quiroz recently designated for assignment. Wieters, the top catching prospect in all of Major League Baseball, does not have overly big shoes to fill. Hernandez managed a line of just .257/.308/.406 with a wOBA of .310 in 463 at-bats in 2008. Quiroz hit just .187/.259/.269 with a wOBA of .242 in 134 at-bats.

In his first professional season after signing as a first-round draft pick out of Georgia Tech in 2007, Wieters dominated the minor leagues with a .345/.451/.576 line in 229 High-A at-bats. He then carried that hot stick to Double-A where he hit .365/.463/.625 with an ISO of .260 in 208 at-bats. The 22-year-old catcher also showed excellent plate discipline with rates of 15.4 BB% and 13.9 K%. His wOBA at Double-A was .466. The switch-hitter performs well from both sides of the plate and posted lines of .382/.446/.740 against southpaws and .341/.455/.543 against right-handed pitching.

Defensively, Wieters is an excellent handler of pitchers, he is a leader on the field and he threw out 32 percent of those trying to steal against him in Double-A. Unfortunately, at 6’5” and 230 lbs he may outgrow the position. Regardless, Wieters has the potential to be the next big marquee name in Baltimore – somewhere between Nick Markakis and Cal Ripken. There are not many players – let alone catchers – with Wieters’ combination of power, ability to hit for average, understanding of the strike zone, leadership and defensive prowess.

From the Reds’ perspective, this trade provides some insurance in case over-aged rookie Ryan Hanigan is unable to handle the full-time catching role. The 28-year-old performed well in 2008, but he has just 95 career at-bats at the Major League level. The club also has Wilkin Castillo on the 40-man roster, who was acquired last season from the Diamondbacks in the Adam Dunn trade, but he is better as a jack-of-all-trades utility player and third string catcher – and he could also benefit from some more minor league seasoning.

You Aren't a FanGraphs Member
It looks like you aren't yet a FanGraphs Member (or aren't logged in). We aren't mad, just disappointed.
We get it. You want to read this article. But before we let you get back to it, we'd like to point out a few of the good reasons why you should become a Member.
1. Ad Free viewing! We won't bug you with this ad, or any other.
2. Unlimited articles! Non-Members only get to read 10 free articles a month. Members never get cut off.
3. Dark mode and Classic mode!
4. Custom player page dashboards! Choose the player cards you want, in the order you want them.
5. One-click data exports! Export our projections and leaderboards for your personal projects.
6. Remove the photos on the home page! (Honestly, this doesn't sound so great to us, but some people wanted it, and we like to give our Members what they want.)
7. Even more Steamer projections! We have handedness, percentile, and context neutral projections available for Members only.
8. Get FanGraphs Walk-Off, a customized year end review! Find out exactly how you used FanGraphs this year, and how that compares to other Members. Don't be a victim of FOMO.
9. A weekly mailbag column, exclusively for Members.
10. Help support FanGraphs and our entire staff! Our Members provide us with critical resources to improve the site and deliver new features!
We hope you'll consider a Membership today, for yourself or as a gift! And we realize this has been an awfully long sales pitch, so we've also removed all the other ads in this article. We didn't want to overdo it.




 

Marc Hulet has been writing at FanGraphs since 2008. His work focuses on prospects and fantasy. Follow him on Twitter @marchulet.

4 Comments
Oldest
Newest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
Jack
17 years ago

Next big marquee name up there with Cal Ripken and… Nick Markakis? I mean, he’s a really good player who very well may be on his way to being great, but I think that’s kind of a narrow perspective on the Orioles. Don’t there have to be a few people closer to Ripken than Markakis.

0