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Looking Once More at Dioner Navarro

Swinging at ball four most likely.

More photos » by Elaine Thompson - AP

Swinging at ball four most likely.

Player A: 17% liners, 41.2% fly balls, 7.8% walks, 17.3% strikeouts

Player B: 17.6% liners, 41.8% fly balls, 2% walks, 14.5% strikeouts

Both are Dioner Navarro. "A" is 2007, "B" is 2009. Believe it or not, this season is a lot worse. Navarro isn't hitting for as much power, not walking as much, and he's costing the Rays some real money. ZiPS projects for Navarro to finish at -20 runs, which is just abysmal. Two whole wins despite ZiPS forecasting regression and therefore softening the blow.

The problem with Navarro isn't contact; he's hitting 87% of the pitches he swings at. Instead it's what he's making contact with. Navarro is swinging at more pitches outside of the zone, and making more contact with those balls while making less contact with pitches in the zone. Guys aren't throwing Navarro pitches in the zone and when they do, it's usually a diet of fastballs.  More contact, but on bad pitches. As you would suspect, this is a bad combination.

It sounds stupid, but the best thing for Navarro might be making less contact, at least out of the zone. Unless he's brain dead, less contact would tell him to swing less, not more, and thus he would take a few pitches that would be called balls. He seems to lack confidence in his ability to judge pitches and their placement, which leads to a ton of fouls. Navarro is attempting to avoid striking out, and by doing so is actually costing himself a few walks along the way.

I've said it before, and here we go again. At this point, adding an upgrade at catcher is the easiest way to give this team an additional win or two. Who and for what? I don't know.

0 recs  |  Comment 24 comments |

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As most of you know I'm not a Navarro fan

I’ve always thought his offense has sucked and that 2008 was a major outlier.

What concerns me more is his defense. His offense is worse than even what I thought it would be, but it isn’t that far off. However his defense is just off the charts bad.

by matthan on Jun 19, 2009 4:26 PM EDT reply actions   0 recs

Navi sucks

’nuff said

I’m not a huge Michele Hernandez fan, but Navi is playing much worse then him.
I think they should at least split time at catcher for now. We need to find anyway to get Navi and his -.342MLVr out of the lineup everyday.

Kap-rilla???

by Sveet on Jun 19, 2009 4:34 PM EDT reply actions   0 recs

His Bat has been slowly getting better

April .181/.192/.264
May .241/.282/.316
June .238/.250/.452

The refusal to walk is unreal but the bat has been getting better.

Follow Me on Twitter @FreeZorilla

by FreeZorilla on Jun 19, 2009 4:45 PM EDT reply actions   0 recs

Caught the clap?

"Doesn't Manny Ramirez look like the monster from Predator??" - Will Farrell as Harry Carey

by Gone Phishing on Jun 19, 2009 5:32 PM EDT up reply actions   0 recs

Riggans tried to clap once

But he broke his finger

Bad Left Hook - The SB Nation boxing blog
"Baseball is played on the field, not on a calculator."

by Brickhaus on Jun 19, 2009 6:16 PM EDT up reply actions   0 recs

You were right, I was wrong

You better rec this one.

Bad Left Hook - The SB Nation boxing blog
"Baseball is played on the field, not on a calculator."

by Brickhaus on Jun 19, 2009 5:06 PM EDT up reply actions   0 recs

navarro

They say he’s still miffed because of arbitration.
Defensively he’s not shining either.

by dram57 on Jun 19, 2009 9:46 PM EDT reply actions   0 recs

Patience is a virtue

We need to wait out Navi’s little slump. We all must remember Dioner is an all star catcher that captained this team in 2008 world series appearance with his expertise of handling pitchers, rocket arm behind the plate, exploding bat, and that charasmatic smile that we all have grown to love.

What’s up with all this Navi negativity? I just don’t get it! He’s an ALL STAR man!

by ConnorManning on Jun 20, 2009 8:26 AM EDT reply actions   0 recs

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