Mike Napoli: Breakout Or Bust?

There has been a lot of talk about Mike Napoli this off-season.  People see his numbers last year and believe that he could become a 30 HR option behind the plate.  They see him as a potential Top Five catcher, and one that you should want to have on your fantasy roster.  My thoughts?  First let’s look at his statistics, then we’ll get to it:

227 At Bats
.273 Batting Average (62 Hits)
20 Home Runs
49 RBI
39 Runs
7 Stolen Bases
.374 On Base Percentage
.586 Slugging Percentage
.307 Batting Average on Balls in Play

First of all, that average is skewed.  Prior to the All-Star Break Napoli was hitting .204 over 142 AB.  He had struck out 32.39 percent of the time.  His best month was May, when he carried an impressive .222 average.  Ouch!

It was after a shoulder injury shelved him, limiting to five AB in July, that Napoli returned with a vengeance, including a .453 average in September.  Over the seasons final two months he posted an unworldly BABIP of .472, which caused his overall average to rise to the solid number he finished with.

I know, baseball is a game of averages and things tend to even themselves out over the course of an entire season, but I’m just not buying this.  Not even a little bit.  Napoli is a career .248 hitter.  Over his minor league career he was a .257 hitter.  There is just nothing in the track record to suggest that he has the ability to hit at a .270 minimum pace over the course of an entire season.  I’m not going to say that it couldn’t happen, but I surely wouldn’t count on it.  I’d much rather be pleasantly surprised then bitterly disappointed.

The power is a completely different story.  It is for real, though maintaining his ‘08 pace will be difficult.  Let’s take a look at his HR/FB rates from his three seasons in the major leagues:

• 2006 - 17.2 percent
  
• 2007 - 13.7 percent
  
• 2008 - 23.5 percent
  

Quite a jump, right?  He does hit a lot of flyballs, something he has shown since he made his major league debut.  I’m not going to suggest that his 52.5 percent last season is unrepeatable, despite the fact that it would have been the highest number among hitters last season had he had enough AB to qualify.  For his career, his number is at 50.2 percent, so the potential is there.

Still, the HR/FB rate that he posted would have put him fourth in the league, behind only Ryan Howard (31.8 percent), Jack Cust (29.7 percent) and Adam Dunn (24.2 percent).  Napoli can be an extremely good power source, but I’m not sure I believe him in the same breath of those players.

If the flyball rate stays consistent, even if his HR/FB rate drops a bit, he still could hit 30 HR with regular playing time.  That’s sets off a whole different question—will 2009 finally be the season that he plays everyday?

Over his three seasons in the major leagues, he has never appeared in more then 99 games, which came back in 2006.  He set his career high in AB that season as well, with 268.  Injuries have played a role, but the presence of Jeff Mathis is also a concern.  Mathis has always been viewed as the Angels’ future catcher, being ranked by Baseball America as the team’s No. 4 prospect prior to 2006, ahead of Jered Weaver and Joe Saunders.  That should tell you the type of talent scouts have seen in him.

Of course, his .195 career batting average (he hit .194 in 283 AB last season), should be considered a detriment to his playing time.  He’s going to get starts, Napoli has to sit down a few times a week, but is it going to be more of a platoon or just a reserve role?  That’s tough to predict, because if Mathis is showing signs at the plate it certainly could develop into more of an even split in playing time.

So, with all that said, how do I see Napoli performing in 2009:

.247 (84-340), 21 HR, 58 RBI, 54 R, 6 SB, .294 BABIP, .353 OBP, .485 SLG

I have him striking out 105 times, good for a strikeout percentage of 30.88.  I also have him walking 52 times, good for a walk percentage of 13.27.

I know the buzz everyone has for his power, but it’s just not there for me.  I would have liked to have seen him hit more doubles last season, but he had just nine.  

I can’t count on all of his borderline flyballs to continue finding their way over the fence, instead of coming up just short (going along with the decrease in HR/FB rate I’m expecting). 

Couple that with his average and playing time concerns, and he’s just not among the elite catchers in my eyes.  That’s not to say that he doesn’t have value, because in two-catcher formats he’s absolutely worth owning (I ranked him No. 14 in my rankings).  I just don’t see him as the Top Five option that others believe he could be.

What do you think?  Am I being too harsh?  If you believe in him as a top catching option in 2009, why?

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