The Cincinnati Reds have picked up two new players on waivers, and designated catcher Ramon Cabrera and right handed pitcher Keyvius Sampson for assignment. The organization picked up catcher Juan Graterol from the Angels and outfielder Gabby Guerrero fro Arizona.
Juan Graterol is a 27-year-old catcher who has a handful of Major League games under his belt, all coming in September of 2016 with the Angels where he went 4-14 with two doubles. Offensively his nubers look similar to the minor league ones put up by the player he’s replacing, Ramon Cabrera. In 2016, in the hitter friendly Pacific Coast League, he hit .300/.340/.370 with 10 doubles and two home runs to go along with 10 walks and 27 strikeouts in 246 plate appearances. He is a contact oriented, no power right handed hitter. Behind the plate he threw out 32% of opposing base runners in Triple-A this past season, but went just 1-for-5 in the big leagues.
He’s consistently been over 30% in the minors for his career, topping the 40% mark several times in the lower minors. At no point in his minor league career has he ever been listed among the Top 30 prospects in the organization he has been in, at least by the Baseball America rankings.
The team also picked up outfielder Gabby Guerrero from the Diamondbacks. The 22-year-old entered the 2016 season as the Arizona #11 prospect according to Baseball America, He really struggled though, for the second straight year, to handle the upper levels of the minor leagues.
After beating up pitching in the insanely hitter friendly California League, and even more hitter friendly High Desert, he’s managed to fall off of the map offensively in Double and Triple-A since the start of 2015. His on-base percentage has been well under .300 in the upper minor leagues and he’s hit for very little power as well.
He’s just 22-years-old, so there’s certainly room and time for him to improve, but his plate approach/pitch recognition seems to be severely lacking. Where he does stand out is in the tools department, where he’s got enormous power potential and a big time arm in right field. His approach, however, simply doesn’t let it play as he chases things out of the strikezone entirely too often to get much use out of his offensive tools at this point in time.
I discussed these guys a little bit more in the Cincinnati Reds Minor League Talk episode for the week. You can watch it below.