NEWSLETTER
Victor Caratini has arrived from the Atlanta organization and is now one of the better catching prospects for the Cubs.
Kyle Schwarber, while his long term position remains in doubt, remains the best catcher on the farm. Carantini is nex,t based largely on a high floor, followed by Iowa catcher Rafael Lopez and bunch of guys in Low A and Short Season A.
Carantini is a switch hitter who will likely make his biggest impact with his bat, and figures to head to Kane County. He is a patient hitter who doesn’t give away many at bats, is fairly tough to strike out, and who hits line drives as opposed to fly balls. His home run rate is lower than we might like in a catcher, but at worst he has a chance to be a quality eight hitting catcher from both sides of the plate.
If he can stick at catcher. Atlanta moved him to third base for a time, but I doubt he has any future at that super-crowded position in the Cubs system. Behind the plate his path is more open, but can he do it? That remains to be seen. The scouting reports are not in agreement here – some talk about an awful arm, some a good one for example – so for now we’ll just mark his defense as ‘needs monitoring’ and go from there.
In terms of ranking, pending that defense, I’d currently be comfortable slotting him anywhere from about fifteen to a about twenty five. I think the bat gives him a pretty good chance to move up the system, but his glove will largely define his ultimate value.
Scores From Yesterday
Here are the box scores for all of yesterday’s action. Again, I recommend you sample the Iowa results in particular. Kris Bryant homered. Javier Baez homered. Mike Olt homered. Dan Straily pitched well. It was just one of those all around good games of that kind that seem to be appearing a lot from Iowa recently.
Other Notes
