Who has information on Christian Bethancourt?

by JT12340 on Mar 10, 2010 7:08 PM EST

http://www.baseball-reference.com/minors/player.cgi?id=betanc001chr

I understand that he is to be honored for his accomplishments in the Gulf Coast League.

http://atlanta.braves.mlb.com/news/press_releases/press_release.jsp?ymd=20090914&content_id=6962360&vkey=pr_atl&fext=.jsp&c_id=atl

However, how good of a player is he really? Who are his MLB comps? How good is his bat? Will he stay at C defensively? Where do you believe he will rate in the top 100 next year?

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Bethancourt...

is a capable reciever with excellent pop-times who just needs to work on consistency of release. Health permitting, he should have no problem sticking at catcher.

Offensively he’s long on potential, with scouts seeing the possibility of plus power down the line. As far as comps go, it’s way, way too early. He’s 18. We don’t even know what kind of body type he’ll have in 2-4 years let alone what kind of skills he’ll be flashing at the plate/behind it.

The upside here is huge, but we don’t know quite what it is yet. Betancourt may develop true plus power to go with his solid bat control and compare favorably to Brian McCann, or he could totally biff it on plate discipline and compare more to someone like Miguel Olivo. Or, the power could never come and we could be looking at a plus-plus makeup guy with solid defense but only so-so offensive skills a la Yorvit Torrealba.

by slamcactus on Mar 10, 2010 7:46 PM EST reply actions

It's refreshing to see a write-up like this

Realism and optimism don’t have to be mutually exclusive.

by aap212 on Mar 11, 2010 12:52 PM EST up reply actions

I totally agree

The scouts have all said that he has an extremely strong arm and great foot work behind the dish but his receiving and blocking skills need work. He allowed a ton of passed balls this past season. As far as his offensive skills he had a similar season to Montero when he was in Rookie Ball so hopefully as a Braves fan he’ll end up like Montero w/ better D.

by Jay212033 on Mar 12, 2010 12:00 AM EST up reply actions