Navarro began his career, as many of the more fortunate Venezuelans who can get visas do, in the Gulf Coast League in 2001 with the GCL Yankees. He finished the year with a .280 average. He was promoted to Greensboro in the South Atlantic League the following year where he had a .238 average on 328 at bats. He was promoted to Tampa at the end of the 2002 season, where he barely played before the season ended.
Dioner began 2003 with the T-Yanks in Tampa and brought his contact numbers up into the .299 range with a more impressive .467 slugging percentage. He was moved to the Eastern League Trenton affiliate, where he finished the season batting .341 with a .471 SLG on 208 at-bats. This is the year that he started to wake up people in the Yankees organization.
On that promise, he was put on the fast-track coming into Trenton in 2004, where he failed to fully ignite.
Batting .271 with a .369 slugging percentage, he was promoted to Triple-A Columbus. He had 136 at-bats that generated a .250 average and an ho-hum .360 slugging percentage. The Yanks even gave him a cup of coffee in the big leagues that year. Seven plate appearances aren't enough to gauge much in the Bronx. He had one major league RBI.
In the Yanks farm system, he didn't even come up on the FAB50 radar in 2003 or 2004 because his numbers didn't justify it, and the Yanks players get a large discount in our system for their utter uselessness to the major league club stocked with multi-millionaire players holding down the top of the depth charts like those giant heads on Easter Island.
Inside the Yankees organization, Navarro was tagged as damaged goods in 2004: Too cocky, too overweight, too slow. The Dodgers' scouts obviously took different notes. Ours are a mixed bag:
Cocky: He sure has the huevos to be a major leaguer. When asked when he first played baseball this Spring, he said: “When I was four.” When asked when he first knew he was going to be a major leaguer, he smiled. “When I was four.”
Weight/Speed: His weight was down by the time he showed up for camp with the Dodgers this Spring, although we can see that it might be an issue if he doesn't watch it.
The fact that seems to have missed most scouts and touts clip sheets was that the guy's wife was quite ill, had brain surgery, and nearly died. A strong family man with a small son, it may have been angst, not cockiness, that dinged his performance in 2004.
MLN was told that the issues that the Dodgers had concerns about had more to do with managing a big league pitching staff, and developing some consistency in his approach to hitting day-to-day.
We really sit here scratching our heads on this one, though. His numbers just aren't there. Name a Dodger catcher of old: Yeager, Scoscia, Piazza, LoDuca... These guys are batting champions and dinger drivers. Trying to find the parallels in Navarro's career is like playing Where's Waldo in a drawing of a million guys with red-and-white striped caps.
His record with Las Vegas this year has not been a roadmap to the wisdom of the Dodger farm staff on this trade either. Navarro has eked out a meager .266 batting average in 241 appearances at the plate. His home run production (6) and RBIs (29) were not the stuff of which top ten rankings in the MLN FAB50 are made.
His call up to the majors might have been a bit more inspiring than playing with those dull old Triple-A guys: Navarro has a .289 average and one dinger in his major league stint with the Dodgers. With a slugging percentage around .390, though, is his major league run sustainable and permanent?
No one gives him big props as a power hitter. Mike Piazza hits more home runs before lunch than Navarro has in his whole career. Like most catchers, he's not a base runner. Defensively he's assessed as good to pretty-good by observers. So why is he here?
Mystic Dodger farm mojo: The Dodgers have, without exception, the best and most productive farm system since the concept was invented by Branch Rickey back in the 1930s. They have turned more supposedly average guys into World Series ring holders than many teams combined.
You could have Mike Piazza and a one-eyed, three-legged goat named Lucky. If this stellar farm system ignores Piazza in favor of Lucky, what's a politically-sensitive talent ranking supposed to do? You go with the flow.
Not that Navarro is anywhere near that bad. We just don't get what continues to give him such Beatle-like good karma with the Dodgers.
Tracy is not a guy who puts his rep on the line without getting convinced himself. Obviously there are facts about Navarro that Dodgers know that we mere mortals are missing. They have to bring it out of Dioner, which, given his performance with the 51s this season, may take more time than original estimates.
In Spring, the buzz about Navarro was that he was going to either make the club in Spring, or get a call-up by mid-season. He's got his call-up. Hopefully he'll make the most of it. Our sources in the PCL tell us that he needs more time before he's ready for the grind of the major leagues.
We expect Navarro won't be leaving Las Vegas right away. Our Dodger gnostics have seen visions of Cashman Field in Navarro's future well into 2006 unless he catches on fire with LA.
The danger for Dioner, of course, is that he doesn't get his numbers up and keep them there. Just like the nearby salt flats that are home to many a mothballed airplane, Navarro could find his career tarped up and on blocks along with many other promising Dodger players in the Triple-A who didn't shine at the right moment.
See Also: Dodgers Spring Training Report;
