We got a nice link from the fellas at the Crawfish Boxes from their article on J.R. Towles, and some interesting points were made:
1. Towles never had a real chance to see if he could hit.
2. It's not like Quintero was lighting up the world, and it's not like Kevin Cash is dominating at Round Rock.
3. This is a move designed to clear the path for Jason Castro.
This may all be true, and the Greg Lucas story makes things a little bit more clear - he couldn't communicate with the pitchers.
No, Towles wasn't ever given a real fair shot, having not even amassed the seemingly-requisite 500 PAs in the Majors. But his Spring Training numbers were surprising, even for a guy who once got 8RBI against the Cardinals. He won the job out of Spring Training - and was given the opportunity to be the C1 come Opening Day - with Quintero playing a couple of times a week. I thought Towles had turned a corner this Spring, having knocked the cover off the ball all through March.
But apparently he didn't, once the calendar turned to April.
Now Lucas' article is really surprising, because I wonder if he had trouble communicating with pitchers throughout his stints in Houston, or did this come up in 2010? It would seem that, if a catcher had trouble communicating with pitchers, his career wouldn't have lasted as long as Towles' has.
We didn't come out here to play tiddlywinks, son.
-Hal Smith
