C - Steven Clevenger

[badgercub]

I don't religiously follow the minor leaguers, but looking at the box scores I notice Clevenger is having a good season and has continued to hit well after being promoted. Anyone have any idea of how he projects in the future? I noticed he hasn't hit for power, but his plate awareness looks pretty good as his OBP is good and his K/BB ratio is near 1. Defensively is he ok? Just caused me to take a look when I saw his stats and how bad our current catching situation is. Thanks for any info.

[craig]

Clevenger seems to be a genuine low-K contact line-drive guy. No K's, no HR's. This year he's pretty much not taken walks at all, either.

 

My view on his future hinges on his defense. Yesterday or Saturday was his first game at daytona catching, after 10 as a 1B/DH. His boise time was split 50-50 between catching and 1B/DH.

 

I would judge that as a DH/1B, the majors don't use too many no-HR guys. But if he could catch at a major-league level, I think their is excellent opportunity for a low-power high-average contact hitter, even if he doesn't walk or HR much. As a LH hitter, there is also obvious interest as a part-time player.

 

But it really depends on the catching. If he's Fox-caliber catcher, not so bright future. If in time he can catch at a Koyie Hill level, I'd take him very seriously. The odds of that, probably, are slim, given that they DH/1B'd him 10 games before getting him in to catch for a game.

 

If suddenly he was catching 3-4 days a week through August, I'd be really interested.

 

I realize that he's barely 21, so some of those doubles might become HR's in time. But it doesn't appear that he's really going to be a HR hitter.