Dec4th

Rays Bring In Kelly Shoppach

AUTHOR: Dustin Staggers | IN: MLB | COMMENTS: 1 Comment |

The Rays on Tuesday, made a trade to bolster arguably the weakest position on the team, catcher.  The Rays traded a player to be named later to the Cleveland Indians for Kelly Shoppach.  Shoppach had a real nice campain in 2008, but his numbers tailed off considerably last season.

Year Tm G PA AB R H 2B HR RBI BB SO BA OBP SLG OPS
2008 CLE 112 403 352 67 92 27 21 55 36 133 .261 .348 .517 .865
2009 CLE 89 327 271 33 58 14 12 40 33 98 .214 .335 .399 .734
Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 12/4/2009.

I love the addition of Shoppach who I really like as a player, but am a little confused why the Rays looked to acquire another catcher who is not very good against righties and will mainly bat vs left handed pitching. Dioner Navarro is the exact same player. The first table is Shoppach’s splits, and the 2nd is Navi’s splits.

I Split G GS PA AB H 2B HR RBI BB SO BA OBP SLG OPS
vs RHP as RH 268 785 689 154 41 26 94 63 259 .224 .308 .396 .704
vs LHP as RH 135 258 220 65 19 17 47 25 80 .295 .386 .614 .999
Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 12/4/2009.
I Split G PA AB H 2B HR RBI BB SO BA OBP SLG OPS
vs RHP as LH 444 1323 1204 295 55 18 119 94 184 .245 .302 .339 .641
vs LHP as RH 235 478 422 115 23 15 52 40 52 .273 .336 .434 .770
Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 12/4/2009.

With the Rays offering arbitration to veteran catcher Greg Zaun, who we will almost certainly use vs RHP, that leaves to similar guys to face lefties.

GM Andrew Friedman has to have another move up his sleeve, as we will not carry 3 C’s on the 25 man roster.

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