Obscure Signings of the Week

While some familiar names like Tony Clark, Brian Fuentes and Scott Proctor picked up agreements this week, a couple of catchers make this week's Obscure Signings of the Week.

Raul Chavez - Catcher - Minor League Contract: Toronto Blue Jays

Raul Alexander Chavez is a 35 year old catcher from Venezuela. The catcher has had a long career bouncing from the minors to the majors and has actually made it into a few MLB games in ten seasons. In those ten seasons, he has managed to get into 212 games and has acquired 512 at bats. In those at bats, he has compiled 115 hits, 16 doubles, 5 homers, 50 runs batted in and has even stolen three bases.

The catcher has put together a career with a lifetime batting average of .223, a lifetime On Base Average of .260 and a Slugging Percentage of .292. Yes, fans, that gives him a lifetime OPS of .552. Wow! How has he managed to keep his career going? One possible clue is that he has thrown out 47% of all basestealers in his career. That's a pretty good average.

Chavez has played for the Expos, the Mariners, Astros, Orioles and Pirates.

Josh Bard - Catcher - One Year Contract: Boston Red Sox

Bard is thirty years old and was born in Ithaca, New York. He played college ball at Texas Tech and has many more at bats in his career than Chavez. His career has been pretty obscure except for the brief time he subscribed to the Bob Uecker theory of catching knuckleball pitchers when he spent part of the 2006 season picking up Tim Wakefield's pitches after they stopped rolling to the backstop.

Bard's lifetime Batting Average, OBA, Slugging Percentage and OPS look like this: .265/.333/.395 and .728. Bard had two decent seasons at the plate for the Padres in 2006 and 2007 in fairly significant playing time. The numbers in 2006 for the Padres were probably his best and might have been in relief for escaping from Boston where he was Wakefield's designated catcher. His ten Passed Balls in only eighteen games for Boston are amusing.

Bard is not the kind of catcher Chavez seems to be. 355 baserunners have attempted to steal on him and Bard has only thrown out 67 of them, a terrible 19% success rate. Mike Piazza, the standard for poor ability to throw out basestealers, finished at a 20% success rate.

Now that Boston has signed Bard again, will he catch Wakefield?

Elizardo Ramirez - Pitcher - Minor League Contract: Texas Rangers

Ramirez is from the Domincan Republic and is only 25 years old. He has already pitched in five big league seasons, though his pitching coaches might dispute that. He has a 4-15 lifetime win-loss record with a hefty 6.40 Earned Run Average in stints with the Phillies, Reds and Rangers. And so he finds himself at a young age already signing minor league contracts and fighting to keep his Major League dream alive.