A minor bout with writer’s block (and Louisville playing ten minutes from my apartment for three games) has had me silent of late, so I’m going with the old approach of just picking a random topic and writing until something worthwhile comes out. Whether or not I succeeded here is up for debate (as always), but it does feel good to get back in the swing of things.

Quick aside before we talk HS catchers…I put out some feelers (including my first tweet!) as to whether or not the brains behind College Splits have designs on updating their statistical database for the 2014 season, but have yet to hear back. If anybody knows anything on that front, I’d greatly appreciate an update. Not only does College Splits have certain bits of info that no other site has, but it also has all of said info in one convenient place. The thought of clicking around a couple hundred team websites looking for updated stats does not really appeal to me anymore. Getting too old for that, you know?

*****

I’ve written it before and I’ll surely write it again, but I like Alex Jackson as a catcher going forward. I think he’s good enough defensively at present with enough athleticism and general baseball aptitude to continue to progress behind the plate. My older notes on him reveal what I think will continue to become an accepted truth among industry folk: “not sure of the origin of the ‘not a catcher’ talk, but if he looks like a catcher, fields like a catcher, and leads like a catcher…”

I also think Jackson’s bat is very interesting, but not quite on the level of other prospects transitioned to the outfield in a rush to get them to the big leagues. The latter consideration isn’t reason enough to prevent moving him — if not being Bryce Harper disqualified a catcher from moving off the position to speed up a big league timeline, then we’d have thousands of pro catchers and empty outfields — but it does raise the question about what kind of player you’re really getting if you see Jackson as a top five type of prospect. I say very good to great bat with average to slightly above-average catcher defense. As a hitter — and, I suppose, as potential former catcher — I can see some similarities shared between Jackson and former catcher Paul Konerko. I’d like that comp more if I hadn’t used it twice already (CJ Cron and Kyle Schwarber, but you’ve memorized all my comps by now, right?), though I still think it works here in terms of offensive ceiling (adjusted for era, of course). The bat should play in a corner spot, but it could only be categorized as potentially special if Jackson is left alone and allowed to continue catching.

Just about the only thing I don’t love about Jakson Reetz is the spelling of his first name. His athleticism, arm strength, and hit tool are all top notch tools. Reetz was on my short (well, short-ish) list of FAVORITES that I saw play this past summer. The list has held up fairly well — he was joined at the time by Braxton Davidson, Kel Johnson, Jack Flaherty, Keaton McKinney, Ti’Quan Forbes, and Touki Toussaint — and the specific mention of Reetz’ foot speed, opposite field power, approach at the plate, and, again, athleticism made him one of the standouts among the standouts. In what I still consider a relatively weak year for college catching, — full disclosure: I still have plenty of work to do in finalizing college grades, so I could be way off and you can ignore me if you like — Reetz has a chance to go much, much higher than I think many currently anticipate. A bolder man than I might be tempted to jump him to the top of these rankings, but being locked in at the second spot behind a talent like Jackson and ahead of names like Chase Vallot, Simeon Lucas, Evan Skoug, JJ Schwarz, Bryce Carter, Michael Cantu, and on and on and on isn’t a bad spot to be. I don’t want to get the hype train rolling along too briskly just yet, but a source I trust threw down a “righthanded poor man’s version of Joe Mauer” comp on Reetz that exceeded even my loftiest of expectations of what others see in him. I mean, I thought I liked him, but wow. More realistic yet no less valid comps that I like: “better version of Brandon Inge” (that’s from a source) and my own Russell Martin. I can also buy Blake Swihart if you wanted to use a recent draft example as a frame of reference. Reetz is a really good player.