Rays Bring In Kelly Shoppach

The Rays on Tuesday, made a trade to bolster arguably the weakest position on the team, catcher.  The Rays traded a player to be named later to the Cleveland Indians for Kelly Shoppach.  Shoppach had a real nice campain in 2008, but his numbers tailed off considerably last season.

I love the addition of Shoppach who I really like as a player, but am a little confused why the Rays looked to acquire another catcher who is not very good against righties and will mainly bat vs left handed pitching. Dioner Navarro is the exact same player. The first table is Shoppach’s splits, and the 2nd is Navi’s splits.

With the Rays offering arbitration to veteran catcher Greg Zaun, who we will almost certainly use vs RHP, that leaves to similar guys to face lefties.

GM Andrew Friedman has to have another move up his sleeve, as we will not carry 3 C’s on the 25 man roster.