As you all know by now, if you read Erock44 fan post, which you should have, Mike Rabelo was sent to Albuquerque and Paul Hoover takes his place.
Catcher Mike Rabelo was optioned to Triple-A Albuquerque, and catcher Paul Hoover was recalled. He started against the Rays.
"We want Mike to play five or six times a week, get some at-bats and see if we can get him going," said Gonzalez. Rabelo, who had a passed ball and defensive lapse in Sunday's defeat to Oakland, was hitting .201 with three homers and 10 RBI.
Sending Rabelo down isn't a bad thing, as most of us will agree. And probably the worst thing about the Rabelo experience, other than his play, was him being crammed down our throats early on as the primary catcher. I would go into this further but ASponge has it pretty well covered at the South Florida Fan Blog. So go read him.
Hopefully, Rabelo's time spent in Triple-A, he will get his head on straight, regain his stroke at the plate and do a better job of playing his defensive position.
However, for the moment I want to talk about Hoover. Hoover is unique in that he can play the infield or the outfield if required. He has been up with the big club before, and I'm sure the promotion is always special, but it is nothing new to him.
Hoover is a good defensive catcher and how well he hits in the majors is anyone's guess. But the early results aren't bad at all.
I know there is/was a clamoring for John Baker, and I would like to see what he could do myself, but the club obviously doesn't want to start the clock on him and I doubt he has the versatility that Hoover brings.
In other words, Hoover can be inserted into the game at a position other than catcher and if something should happen to Treanor he can easily be moved to the catcher spot. Of course, this may require Fredi to learn there is this guy named Andino on the 25-man. So you never know.
Hoover ought to get some back-to-back starts as a catcher, or somewhere, to see what he can do. It probably won't happen, but is a thought.
And if it doesn't, he can try to unseat Andino as the Rock-Paper-Scissors Champion, but I must warn him, Robert has a lot experience.