Cleveland Baseball Insider

Evaluating Bo Naylor's Rookie Season So Far, Cleveland Guardians

Bo Naylor has put together a respectable rookie season for the Cleveland Guardians.

Tommy Wild

© Ken Blaze-USA TODAY Sports
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Cleveland Guardians fans finally got what they were begging for in the middle of June 17. The organization called up one of their highly-ranked prospects Bo Naylor to take over the catching duties for the Big League team. 

The hype surrounding Naylor was huge. Seeing just his face in the comments of Clveland's social media posts became a regular scene in the early month of the season.

Has Bo been able to live up to the expectations?

At The Plate

One of the most compelling parts of Naylor's skillset is his ability to hit for power. He slugged .433 with an OPS of .781 over his five-year Minor League career and finding a catcher who is just good at the plate as they are behind it is hard to come by.

Naylor has yet to show this offensive potential on a consistent basis. He has an OPS of .636 and a wRC+ of 76 through his first 40 games at the Big League level this season. 

However, he has shown flashes of what he can do to Major League pitching as he continues to develop. Bo already checked off his first multi-home run game which came on July 25 against the Kansas City Royals. 

An encouraging sign for what is to come is that Naylor is hitting .276 with a BAbip of .333 with runners on base so he's doing his part to keep the line moving.

As The Back Stop

If you're going to be an everyday catcher for a winning Big League team, it's crucial that you're able to play solid defense and call a good game for your pitcher. Cleveland learned the hard way what can happen when a catcher struggles on defense with the Mike Zunino experiment that never worked out. 

Bo has always had a good arm in the Minors. He currently sits in the 59th percentile in pop time to second base but he's only thrown out 10 percent of the runners that have tried to steal on him. 

This is definitely an area that Naylor can improve and continue to develop at.

One area that has been truly impressive is the games he's called for Cleveland's pitchers. The rotation is still one of the best in baseball and a lot of this has to do with who is behind the plate. Tanner Bibee praised Bo for all the "homework" on hitters he does before games and that has been visible on the field.

Bo possessing this skill so early on in his career is a great sign for himself and the young rotation for years to come.

Terry Francona's Assessment

We can look at all the stats we want, but what does Naylor's manager think of his performance? This is what he said about Bo's development:

Tito says it best. He has all the skills to be a great MLB player even if he hasn't shown that consistently yet. Catcher's already have a lot on their plate and being able to manage all of that as well as Bo has doesn't show up on an analytics website.

With all that in mind, I think it's fair to say that Bo's had a good rookie season thus far. We're still waiting to see him really go on a tear at the plate and become a defensive threat as a catcher. However, he has the potential and is putting in the work to get there. 

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Photo Credit © Ken Blaze-USA TODAY Sports

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Tommy Wild
TOMMY WILD

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