Harvesting Opinion: Boston Red Sox–Lavarnway, Middlebrooks, & Ranaudo

Harvesting Opinion is a regular feature on Seedlings to Stars which will appear every Monday. Each week, six of FanSided’s team blogs send S2S a question relating to their team’s minor league system, and we answer them in this space–each question gets one article devoted to answering it. In this way, we make sure we regularly get to discuss hot-button issues relating to the systems of every team, as these go on a five-week cycle. 

Please note that any statistics used may be a day or two out of date, as we prepare our answers over the course of a week.

In this edition, we tackle a question sent to us from our Boston Red Sox blog BoSox Injection.

This year, C Ryan Lavarnway, SP Anthony Ranaudo, and 3B Will Middlebrooks have turned some heads. Given their current success, when do you see them making an impact at the major league level? Do you think they may be more valuable as trade bait?

Nathaniel says: Lavarnway is absolutely tearing Triple-A apart. I think he’s ready to bash some pitches on and over the Green Monster right now. Part of me thinks he’s the best fit to start at catcher for the Red Sox the rest of the way this season. The big issue with him is defense, but while the scouting reports on him knock his defense, he does a good enough job statistically of avoiding passed balls and gunning down runners that it shouldn’t be a reason to keep him out of the lineup.

Ranaudo is down in High-A right now, and while he’s pitching solidly there, he isn’t blowing people away, with 41 K in 58 IP. He’s a polished pitcher who should move fairly quickly, but especially given the Red Sox’s reticence to rush people up, I certainly don’t see him as a big leaguer in 2012. Two years from right now is probably his ETA.

Middlebrooks certainly has some pop in his bat, and his defense at third gets good reviews. However, he’s got a 79/19 K/BB ratio in Double-A, and that’s not going to play very well in the big leagues, particularly for a corner guy on a team that demands serious production from its corner guys. He’s just 22 and has time to fix that, but his approach–which features a terrible 26/3 K/BB in July–has to improve for him to factor into Boston’s long-term plans.

As for the final part of your question–I think that Lavarnway’s an absolute keeper because Jason Varitek won’t be around forever, and good hitting catchers are very tough to find. It’s not like Jarrod Saltalamacchia is a dazzling starter either. Middlebrooks would certainly have more value to a rebuilding team that could just slot him at third and see what happens–heck, I could see a waiver deal of Middlebrooks for Wandy Rodriguez being somewhat even. Ranaudo’s in the middle–he’s got a checkered injury history and isn’t exactly dominating, so the Red Sox would be foolish to not at least listen to what teams might be willing to part with for him.

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Wally says: Of the three, I think Lavarnway is the best immediate and long term option of the group. I’m a fan of Jason Varitek but it’s been 6 season since he was an above average offensive player and leadership and intangibles only take you so far. Saltalamacchia has had a nice bounceback season and at 26 still has youth on his side but I’d put Lavarnway into the lineup right now have the 2 young catchers split time the rest of the way, and have Varitek mentor both of them as a player coach with a heavy emphasis on the coaching aspect.

Anthony Ranaudo was a steal with the 39th overall pick in last year’s draft and given the way his 2010 college season progressed, I think he deserves a bit of a pass this year as he adjusts to the pro-game. He blew through Cape Cod league batters last summer like few pitchers ever have and he handled himself very well in the South Atlantic League (A) before being promoted to the Carolina League (A+). He’s struggled against more advanced competition but I still believe in his long-term future as a frontline starter. I tend to be more conservative when it comes to promoting starting pitchers so I’d look for Ranaudo to be in Boston at some point in late 2013. He has the potential to anchor a major league rotation, assuming his arm stays healthy and intact.

Will Middlebrooks is 3rd of the 3 in my book and Nathaniel identified the primary reason. He’s struck out 400 times in 365 minor league games with only 116 walks to his credit. He’s got good pop in his bat, but not nearly enough to offset those numbers. It may be a different case if we were seeing some progress in this area but its not there. In 2009 he struck out 2.56 times for every walk, in 2010 that bumped up to 3.46 and this season it’s 3.95 times. If he reaches the majors, and I think that is a big if, I question his ability to make much of an impact.

It’s hard to acquire frontline starters and every-day catchers so I wouldn’t look to trade Ranaudo or Lavarnway. But as a result of their scarcity those roles also hold the greatest value on the market. If the Red Sox were to actively try to deal one of the three, Middlebrooks is without question the guy to try and flip, but other teams are going to be painfully aware of his shortcomings so you’d have to hope to find an organization that believes they can “fix” him.

For more on the Red Sox, check out BoSox Injection.