1:28pm: Texas is also doing diligence on Twins catcher Kurt Suzuki, per Jeff Passan of Yahoo Sports (via Twitter). He has been a popular deadline candidate in years past, twice changing hands to help bolster a contender’s catching situation.
Suzuki is for all intents and purposes a rental piece, as his vesting option (485 plate appearances) is unlikely to be triggered. The 32-year-old struggled out of the gates but has recovered to the point that he’s now among the game’s better-hitting catchers on the year, with a .288/.327/.441 slash in 246 trips to the plate.
9:32am: Padres backstop Derek Norris is a “near-lock” to be dealt before Monday’s deadline, according to Ken Rosenthal of FOX Sports (via Twitter). The Rangers are one team in on the receiver, he reiterates, though there are others as well.
The catching position has seen some serious depth issues arise this year, so it’s not surprising to hear that there’s interest. And from the Padres’ perspective, giving Christian Bethancourt an expanded role while bringing up top prospect Austin Hedges obviously holds appeal.
Norris, 27, is earning $2.925MM this year with two more season of arbitration control yet to come. He is carrying only a .196/.256/.365 batting line on the year, with his slugging percentage and 12 home runs not quite offsetting a precipitous dive in the on-base department.
After a jump up in June, Norris has turned in a rough July, but he has done much more with the bat in the past. Over the prior three campaigns, he ran up a .256/.333/.405 slash. That rated out to a 108 OPS+ when factoring in the pitching-friendly parks in which he hit, which is quite productive for a backstop.
Even better, Norris has seemingly shown vast improvement in his receiving skills, with StatCorner and Baseball Prospectus rating him among the league’s best pitch framers both this year and last. And though it’s surely an imperfect measure, Defensive Runs Saved values him as the game’s second-best overall defender behind the dish.
As I stated the other day, get it done Coppy.
But Braves are out of it.
Rangers for Gallio to play 3B and so on?
that would be a clear overpay.
How about Bobby Wilson for Anderson Espinoza?
Jared Hoying for Wil Myers
I can’t see the Rangers giving up Gallo for Norris.
Has beens and never wases are never worth more than the week before the trade deadline. What causes GMs to lose their sanity during that week?
At this point Flowers is a David Ross type backup. To much time will expose him. Let him be Julio’s & Wisler’s catcher and bring in Norris to catch the rest.
I hope we can move Markakis but if we can’t we still gotta get a RH power bat for the OF. Maybe move Mallex as a 4th OF until Markakis is gone.
Unless ATL parts with Touki Touissant for Norris, I would turn my attention to Texas if I were San Diego. Luke Jackson & Ariel Jurado are two pitchers in the 10-15 range on their top 30 that could help the rebuild in SD.
How about Mallex Smith for Norris?
No 🙁 MallexSmith Hype Train has already left the station! You can’t call it back now man
Norris will be playing his last couple games as a Padre this weekend. I’m wondering if Preller would try and package him with another player to try and get a little better return, just like he did with the Cashner trade.
So, for example, if the rangers are in on Norris, would it make sense to also send another player with him? Maybe a controllable bullpen piece like Butcher?
Buchter?
Yes him, haha.
Kemp?
Why is nobody in San Diego talking about Hector Sanchez? He doesn’t seem to play much but seems to have put up very good numbers. He was always a good player, put up decent numbers for a guy who played once a week for SF except they would say he would sit too high and thus was always getting foul tips and therefore getting hurt.
What do Pardres fans think of Sanchez? Any reasons why he isn’t getting more playing time?
He isn’t getting playing time because Norris needs all the reps he can get to up his trade value and Hedges is the catcher of the future
Jeff, the link you posted from Baseball Prospectus doesn’t have pitch framing. Norris ranks 267th of all players that have stepped behind the plate this year. baseballprospectus.com/sortable/index.php?cid=1918786
Of players that have qualifying number of innings played he is 21st of 27. .
If you read Stat Corner, right on the site it says that the stats on Baseball Prospectus are more accurate, so why even use his stats at all?.
Norris or Suzuki are only worth a lower level class A prospect. I doubt either would present any more wins than what the Rangers would win anyway. Let it drop.