Detroit Tigers Roster Preview: Alex Avila

Quick hits
Name: Alex Avila
Age: 28
Position: Catcher
Salary: $ 4.15 million
Height: 5’ 11”
Twitter handle: N/A
How the Detroit Tigers got him: Drafted by the Tigers in the 5^th round of the 2008 amateur draft.

2014 season recap

Defensively Alex was a good, if not great catcher for the Detroit Tigers. With a .995 fielding percentage and only committing 5 errors while he was behind the dish in the 2014 season in 122 games. Avila also saw improvements in his defensive runs saved which in the 2013 season was a -4 to 5 in the 2014 season. Avila also threw out 34% of runners on the season and only trailed Brian McCann of the New York Yankees for league leaders.

Detroit Tigers /

Detroit Tigers

In 390 at bats in the 2014 season Avila hit .218 with an on base percentage of .327 along with a.359 slugging percentage. He only knocked out 11 home runs with 47 RBI. He walked 61 times but struck out 151 times in his to finish off his less than stellar season at the plate.

2014-2015 Season Potential

Honestly the biggest hope is that Avila stays healthy for the whole season and doesn’t sustain anymore concussions while behind the plate. I’ll take similar numbers with the bat as the prior season, with less strikeouts if I can get a full healthy season out of him.

This is the final season of his contract and the only way that Avila will be resigned is if he has a good season and can stay healthy. I like to keep him around, but having basically three concussions already is not a good thing for your starting catcher. At some point he becomes a liability, not your starting catcher.

Strengths and Weaknesses

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Weaknesses

There are two things that are the biggest weakness with Alex Avila. One, his rate of injury is terrifyingly high for a catcher. This kid gets hit by foul balls, back swings, and runners more than most catchers in the game. He has only missed time for an actual concussion in 2013, but also spent time on the disable list for concussion-like symptoms two times in the 2014 season. The reason the Washington Nationals moved Bryce Harper out to the outfield solely for the fact that his production would stay high because he wouldn’t be getting hurt by being a catcher. Avila isn’t in the same situation really, but it shows that the catching position is a hard one sometimes.