Contemplating the Crawdads

On 6/6/2007, the Texas Rangers’ front office was working diligently at the 07 Major League Baseball draft. With their first 5 picks, the Rangers selected highly regarded prospects Beaven, Main, Borbon, Neil Ramirez, and Tommy Hunter.

With their 6th pick, the Texas Rangers selected a middle infielder from the Houston area, Matt West.

Baseball America ranked West as the 104th overall prospect that year. The Rangers took him with their 80th pick and later handed him $400k to sign.

West drew the attention of area scouts after hitting .575 with 8 home runs, 43 RBI and 31 stolen bases during his final year of high school in Bellaire, TX. West was also named a member of the first Rawlings Preseason All-America Team.

Matt inked his deal with the Rangers and cashed his signing bonus on 6/19. Two months later, the 18 year-old was handed a 50 game suspension for testing positive on a steroid test.

West’s positive test opened the eyes of every front office in MLB. Before West, a stereotype existed that assumed steroids were only abused by Dominican players and aging stars looking to prolong their careers. The opponents of steroid use always warned us that one day our teenagers would imitate their role models on the field. Matt West fulfilled those prophetic warnings.

After the suspension was handed down, Matt West was asked about the substance he took, “I couldn’t tell you…the name had, like, 50 letters in it, so I don’t know what it was. I was surprised. I was surprised because it was something in my system I didn’t know I was taking. Just a GNC product.”

General Manager Jon Daniels said the news was, “Very disappointing. It just goes to show you that you can never know everything on these guys. We try to do our homework, but the bottom line is Matt was tested positive and Major League Baseball suspended him. We're going to try and work with him to get him through this."

At one point the team did consider cutting ties with Matt West altogether but in the end decided to stick with their second round draft choice.

Matt West is a young guy who still has a lot of potential. Hopefully the rest of his career will not be defined by his teenage mistake.

Let’s attempt to look at the player independent of the suspension.

After signing with the Rangers, Matt hit .301 in 103 AB’s in rookie league. He sported an OBP of .397 but only slugged .388. West failed to hit a homerun in the Arizona Rookie League. The team played West at SS, 2B, and 3B during those 29 games.

After serving his 50 game suspension, West played in 67 games for Spokane (short season). In 240 AB’s Matt hit only .258. His OBP slipped to .367 and slugged only .358. The team penciled in West at third base every game in Spokane. It appears that the organization believes as West fills out, his body type and good arm will be best suited at the hot corner.

The 6’1”, 200lb, 20 year old began his first season at low-A Hickory with a thud. Through 12 games Matt was only hitting .184, however, Matt has exploded at the plate recently. In his last 38 AB’s, West is hitting .368 with an OPS of .944. West’s streak of excellent hitting reached a new level after working with Scott Servais (director of player development) on his batting stance. The two worked specifically on relaxing Matt’s hands. In his last 20 AB’s, West is hitting .500 with an OPS of 1.283.

Defensively, Matt leads the Crawdads in errors with 9 at 3B. I view West as having good, not great potential defensively. He has a good arm and moves well enough, but has yet to look comfortable at 3B.

Due to his age, Matt is still a projectable player. He has good skills across the board. Matt seems like he has potential to become a serviceable fielder, but like many of the young guys in Hickory, the bat will have to carry him.