Rob Brantly, C

[emkayseven]

Jon Morosi @jonmorosi
Spoke with one scout who believes Brantly has a higher overall value than Turner. #Marlins did well in this trade.

I'm just trying to understand why this scout is excited about him. If it's "I just like him" whatever. That's not what he said, though.
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Glenn Geffner @GlennGeffner
Talking to several scouts & execs with various organizations,Turner may be the headliner in trade, but Brantly is a BIG piece for #Marlins

I'm just trying to understand why these scouts and execs are excited about him. If it's "We just like him" whatever. That's not what they said, though.

[Bobbob1313]

Cool!

[nny]

Remember when the Tigers were going to regret losing Mike Rabelo?

You can find a quote about how awesome any player will be from a delusional scout.
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Think Gregg Zaun

Gregg Zaun could walk.

[emkayseven]

Former Tigers catching prospect Rob Brantly made it pretty clear Wednesday night as to why the Miami Marlins were so adamant that he be included in Monday's trade.

Brantly singled off the wall in his first at-bat with the New Orleans Zephyrs, the Marlins' Triple-A affiliate, and finished with three hits and three RBIs in his Zephyrs debut.

Batting seventh, Brantly's two-run single in the fourth cut Omaha's lead to one and the 23-year-old catcher followed with a line-drive single in the sixth. He added another run in the eighth, too.

Brantly, who joined the Marlins’ organization in a trade Monday with Detroit, finished 3-for-4. He started the season in Double-A Erie before his promotion to Toledo last month. He's now batting .269, splitting time between the Mud Hens and New Orleans.

http://www.mlive.com/tigers/index.ss...drives_in.html

also:

Rob Brantly, leading off the Zephyrs’ third, was hit by a 1-2 pitch from Chris Dwyer, but plate umpire Stu Scheurwater, ruling that Brantly didn’t attempt to get out of the way, didn’t let him go to first. Zephyrs Manager Ron Hassey argued the call, and Scheurwater ejected him. The ejection was Hassey’s first this season.

http://www.nola.com/zephyrs/index.ss...w_orleans.html

[dim]

Dude's a major leaguer now. Hayes to AAA.

[HUGG]

Hah, we didn't even wait til September.

[Miamarlin21]

I don't understand this. He's not Rule V eligible until next off-season. What I am guessing is one of two things will happen.

1. Next year Brantly will play Vs. RHP and Buck vs LHP. (Buck is a career .245 hitter vs. Lefties but has done worse against them this year.)
2. Buck gets traded or released.

I highly doubt they would call him up now just to sit on the bench next year or waste a unnecessary option next year to send him down to New Orleans.

[emkayseven]

Ozzie Guillen likes Rob Brantly fine. He thinks in the long run he'll be a productive major leaguer. Guillen also said that under optimal circumstances, Brantly would still be developing in the minors.

"This kid is very, very not ready to be here," Guillen said.

"This kid has a chance to be a good player. He brings a lot of enthusiasm. He wants to learn. He's got a couple of hits out of the way. I think he's going to get more confidence, but we have to be careful with him.

"Is he going to be good? Yes. He's going to be better, a lot better. Right now, he's very raw."


Making his sixth start Friday since the Marlins promoted him from Triple-A New Orleans, Brantly went 2 for 4 and just missed his first homer, settling for a double off the right-field wall. Guillen said the 23-year-old Brantly and 22-year-old battery mate Nate Eovaldi weren't on the same page.

"You will see mistakes like, 'What's he doing?' That's not his fault. That's my fault for playing him and our fault for bringing him here.

"In the long [term], yes, he's going to be a great player. How long it's going to take, we've got to figure out. I don't think people in Miami should be too excited about having this kid here. I might be in trouble for this, but it's the truth."

One scene in the finale of The Franchise shows team president David Samson telling Brantly how owner Jeffrey Loria insisted the Tigers include him in the trade for Anibal Sanchez and Omar Infante. He just turned 23 last month and before this season Brantly hadn't played above advanced Class A.

"We have to be patient," Guillen said. "We have to teach him. This kid has a chance to be a special kid, on the field and off the field. He's hungry. He's got a passion of the game. He's got a feel for the game."

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/sports/m...,6591176.story
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LOS ANGELES -- After receiving catcher’s gear for his fifth birthday, Rob Brantly didn’t wait to strap on the equipment the first chance he had to play in the backyard with his friends.

He wore it to bed — face mask, shin guards, chest protector and all.

“I was so excited that I slept that night in my catcher’s gear,” Brantly said. “It was pretty much history from there.”

The Marlins are hopeful the 23-year-old rookie from Temecula, Calif., continues wearing the gear for years to come. Brantly was a key element in last month’s trade with Detroit in which the Marlins also received pitcher Jacob Turner in exchange for Anibal Sanchez and Omar Infante.

Even though Turner comes with loftier credentials, owner Jeffrey Loria demanded that Brantly be included in the deal. John Buck, who has one year left on his contract after this season, has been a disappointment offensively, and Brantly has shown at the minor-league level he can swing the bat.

“I’m having the time of my life right now,” said Brantly, who was called up from Triple A New Orleans after hitting .365 with a pair of homers in 14 games with the Zephyrs.

Brantly is so excited about his chance to play in the majors that when the team was in Denver last week, he showed up hours before the rest of the team, just to soak up the atmosphere.

“I showed up at the park at 10 a.m. one day to get my lift in,” said Brantly, a workaholic. “I was going to leave, but the locker room was so sweet that I decided to hang out, sit in the lounge chairs, and soak it all in.”

When his teammates found out, they gave him a hard time.

“They’re capitalizing on every rookie mistake I make,” he said.

Brantly said that ever since his grandfather bought him his first mitt, he has devoted almost every spare moment to becoming a better player. He worked on his swing for hours on end playing soft toss in the family garage and begging his pals to pitch to him on local sandlots.

He made his varsity high school team as a freshman catcher and earned a scholarship to the University of California-Riverside, where he spent two years before going in the third round of the 2010 draft.

“When I got to college, that’s where I realized the defensive part of the game is more important than the offensive part,” Brantly said. “The whole reason you’re behind the dish is to put your pitcher in the best position to succeed.”

Brantly, who was behind the plate Friday when the Marlins opened a three-game series against the Dodgers, has had his moments in brief playing time so far with the Marlins. He has gone only 2 for 17 at the plate, was picked off first base on Wednesday in Arizona and was charged with two passed balls in the same game.

Afterward, pitcher Wade LeBlanc defended his young battery mate, saying he’s not the easiest pitcher to catch and that Brantly got better as the game went on.

“That’s the first game he’s caught me, the first time I’ve thrown to him,” LeBlanc said. “I have a lot of different things I do as far as sequencing, and that’s probably not the easiest thing to catch onto the first start. But he did a really good job of getting on the same page as I was on.”

http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/08/2...#storylink=cpy

[MiamiHomer]

He's made a nice impression so far with the (SMALL SAMPLE SIZE) 60 something PAs he's had.

.278/.361/.481/.842
11.5%/16.4% BB/K
25%/40.9%/34.1% LD/GB/FB
.310 BABIP

[emkayseven]

me likey

[Namaste]

And he has some OUTSTANDING abs

[Fishfan79]

He isnt John Buck, that is good enough for me

[Namaste]

Is John Buck still on pace to have the lowest BABIP in the history of everything?

[HUGG]

It's up to .249.

He's hitting .314/.380/.514 since August 1. Maybe this platoon type deal will work.

[Fritz]

No es terible.