A couple of rumors I read.

I really hope Treanor doesn't start everyday

I'm probably one of the few, but he's just on a nice hot streak.... he should come back to Earth soon (imo of course)

I'm with you. I think we will eventually need an upgrade at catcher, but Treanor is not it.

And the question that gets proposed is then: Well, how do you upgrade catcher? The two catching prospects out there (Clement and Salty) would likely require Willis. Oh and Clement might not even be tradeable (Johjima is a FA after next year, and the FO might want Clement to catch then). And let's not forget there will be other teams that have interest in them, raising their costs. Like, say, Pittsburgh with Ian Snell.

The best free agent catchers this offseason is Posada, who will likely get over 10m a year. The next best is probably Lo Duca, which says a lot about this group of catchers. We can't upgrade that way.

When it comes to trading for a catcher from another team....well, as said the FA class is weak so nobody is going to trade a catcher and look to fill the void there, meaning the only way way a starting catcher gets traded is if there's a serviceable back up catcher on the team (as-if) blocking a prospect. Johjima will require a lot because he's not only good, but has a Japanese market aswell. And McCann won't get traded.

So all that said, our options will likely come internal next year. We have four options. Treanor, Olivo, Baker, and Hayes.

Hayes seems to be in the front running with things said earlier in the year. He's the best deffensive catcher in our system, but he has a lot of trouble with right handed pitching. Here's his RHP splits in AA:

.258/.298/.348/.646

Now against LHP it's good (.326/.360/.565/.925), but you only face a few LHP a month.

Baker seems to get no love from the FO this year but he is doing well against RHP: (.296/.367/.465/.833). He did well the previous year aswell (.294/.371/.420/.792) although he struggled in 2005, his first year at AAA (.237/.302/.380/.682). It's still nice seeing somebody who can actually, you know, take a walk.

So a Lefty/Righty platoon with Baker/Hayes, with Hayes also catching the more erratic pitchers like Dontrelle? Seems like a good deal. I'm not completely sold on Baker because I haven't seen him deffensively (I know you say he's adequate Ramp, and I don't doubt you, but I'd like to see him with my own eyes). What I do like about Baker is he'll be 26 next year, just entering his prime, so I expect his hitting stats to go up.

Typing it all out really has me feeling a Baker/Hayes platoon for next year. I just hope the FO gives it a thought...

But yeah, then looking at the other options.

Olivo's a dead horse now and I'm not going to go and beat that again.

But just adding to Treanor, a lot of people look at his career minor league numbers and cry. To me, I focus what he had done since his prime. Combined in 3 years: .266/.385(love seeing that difference in baa and obp)/.436/.821

Now there's absolutely no way he puts up a .821 OPS up here and I'm not saying that at all. But those years were still impressive. And considering he's made changes at the plate, I would like to see what he could do everyday. Olivo should have no future with us at this point, and I simply want to see if Treanor does or does not.