Mitch Garver is good at hitting. He’s not just good, he’s one of the best hitters in baseball. And he’s a catcher. So today I’m going to be breaking down Mitch Garver’s sensational 2019 season.
On June 7, 2013, Mitch Garver was drafted to the Twins in the 9th round of the MLB draft. He spent 5 years in the minors before he was called up to the Twins in 2017. And while he only had 46 AB, a slashline of .196/.288/.348 with 0 HR wasn’t the ideal start. The funny is that he had more triples (3) in 2017 than he did in 2019 (1).
In 2018, Garver still hadn’t found his power strike as in 302 AB, he slashed .268/.335/.414 with 7 HR. Luckily, he recovered in 2019.
His 2019 slashline was .273/.365/.630. He had a slugging percentage of .630! That was Travis Demeritte’s OPS in 2019! In 311 AB, Garver hit 31 HR. He was platooned next to Jason Castro, but still.
Garver batted in rather odd places for a catcher. His most common spot in the lineup was leadoff! In his first at bat of the game in the leadoff spot, he hit 3 HR in 21 AB. Against LHP, Garver had a 1.170 OPS. He was a monster, getting hits and home runs at will. So now that we know that he was good at offense, was he any good at defense?
Catcher is a very important position. That’s why they usually aren’t good hitters, they just spend too much time working on defense. But when Garver put up numbers like that and had above average defense (barely), that’s when you know that Garver has broken the game.