A little dropoff is not unexpected when a player is promoted to Double-A, and Romano still remains a solid prospect. He gets a 3 . 35. His final numbers were brought down by playing through a late-season wrist injury the flip side is that tall catchers don't develop very well, probably because the biomechanics of squatting and standing takes a lot out of their knees. That's what you call a bad year, as much for the Orioles for making such a stupid trade as for Werth, who is still a legitimate prospect. He struggled to hit .228 in Double-A and was briefly demoted back to A ball, but he continued to draw walks and showed the first flashes of power.
Tall catchers are riskier.
Tall catchers who don't hit for much power are unacceptably risky. Tall catchers who don't hit for much power playing for an organization that doesn't know its ass from its elbow are riskiest of all. Werth's performance was essentially the same between 1999 and 2000, and ordinarily that would earn him a grade of 3. Frankly, his numbers last year were so good that they're hard to take seriously. More pertinent, though, is that Meyers was able to repeat his success in Double-A from 1999, showing that while a pitcher's stuff is still the most important piece of information when evaluating a young pitcher, performance, even in the low minors, matters too.