Phillies: Should Andrew Knapp take over as starting catcher?
Cameron Rupp has been the starting catcher, but is mired in a slump. It’s time for Andrew Knapp to take over as starting catcher for the Phillies.
With the 2017 season already lost for the Phillies, it’s time to see more from those that haven’t had a great amount of opportunities.
One such player is catcher Andrew Knapp, who is hitting .244 with a .740 OPS in 86 at-bats. Certainly those numbers aren’t extremely impressive, but starting catcher Cameron Rupp has been undoubtedly worse.
Rupp posted solid numbers last season, hitting .252 with 16 home runs and a .750 OPS. He began this season hitting .222 in April with a single home run and 20 strikeouts in 54 at bats.
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Rupp hit three home runs in May, but his average for the month was only .213. June has been even worse, hitting only .152 with 15 strikeouts in 33 at-bats.
All the while, Knapp was spelling Rupp from time to time and doing a respectable job. He hit .304 in 23 at bats in April and .242 in May. Knapp has also struggled like the majority of the team in June, but he’s clearly put together a better season than Rupp, and at 25 years old appears to have a bigger long term upside.
Likely only the most die hard fans knew much about Knapp before this season. He was drafted by Philadelphia in 2013 in the second round out of the University of California, Berkeley.
In 2015, Knapp hit a combined .308 with 13 home runs and 84 RBI at High-A and Double-A. Last season at Triple-A Lehigh Valley, Knapp posted a solid .266 average with eight home runs and 47 RBI.
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Losers of 11 of their last 12, little has gone right for Philadelphia in its abysmal 22-46 season. Not surprisingly, they are at or near the bottom in most batting and pitching categories. They are on pace to finish with only 52 wins, their worst since the 1945 team that went 46-108. It’s clearly time for Knapp and other young players to see more action to determine if they are the future of the club.