This offseason the team brought in Rod Barajas to replace Doumit. The former Dodgers catcher will provide solid defense and experience behind the dish, but he also has some pop in his bat. He has hit 19, 17, and 16 home runs in his last three seasons, and seems to be a guy the Pirates will pencil into the 6th spot in the lineup a lot this year.
Now the question arises - how much power will Barajas hit for this season?
I took the landing spots of Barajas' 16 bombs last year and mapped them onto PNC Park (with the help of katron.org. Here's what it looks like:
If Barajas played every game in PNC Park last year, he would have had just seven home runs. Nine of his home runs would have been outs or doubles (assuming he makes it to second), and three of them wouldn't have even reached the warning track.
That's a bit alarming. PNC Park is not a great place for right handed power hitters to call home. That 410 left center is a long ways away and it doesn't get much easier until you get pretty close to the foul poll.
Obviously Barajas is only playing half his games in PNC this year. The rest of the division has much friendlier parks for right hand hitters, which should keep his home run number over ten.
The good news is that Barajas posted a .200 ISO last year. His career average is .176, which says good things about how he's aging. He'll be 36 until September, so he's clearly not a young guy anymore. It's good to know that we didn't see the power decrease last year, but this could be the year that he slows down a step or two at the plate just because of the age. Team that with the new ballpark and we could see a disappointing season for Barajas. You know he's not going to hit for average or get on base a lot, he's a career .238 hitter with a .284 on-base percentage. If he does lose his power, he's going to be a real liability at the dish.
The defense and experience he'll bring probably make it a good move regardless, but I'm really holding my breath on Barajas' offense in 2012.