Who is Kyle Geiger?

Back to the lab again.  With just a few short days until Spring Training begins, the blog returns to player profiling.  Ed Nottle and the Rapz have signed what looks to be their starting catcher, Kyle Geiger.  Geiger will be 26 next week ( May 8 ) and comes to Ottawa via the New Britain Rock Cats - Minnesota’s AA team in the Eastern League.

Batting Statistics

Year	Team	Lg	Age	Org.	Level		Pos	Ln	G	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	SB	CS	BB	SO	HBP	IBB	SH	SF	DP	AVG	OBP	SLG	OPS	GB%
2003	Elizabetht	App	21	Min	Rk		c		9	33	1	7	2	0	0	4	0	0	2	6	0	0	0	0	0	.212	.257	.273	530	–
	Quad City	Midw	21	Min	A		c		11	36	4	5	1	0	0	1	0	0	2	7	0	0	1	0	1	.139	.184	.167	351	–
2004	Quad City	Midw	22	Min	A		c		53	189	22	55	8	2	2	25	0	0	15	43	4	0	0	4	3	.291	.349	.386	735	–
	Fort Myers	FSL	22	Min	A+		c		31	82	3	16	1	0	0	7	0	0	7	17	0	1	0	2	3	.195	.253	.207	460	–
2005	Fort Myers	FSL	23	Min	A+		c		81	292	34	75	8	0	6	33	1	3	24	55	7	0	0	1	12	.257	.327	.346	673	–
2006	Fort Myers	FSL	24	Min	A+		c-1b		61	226	27	56	10	0	1	21	0	0	14	40	3	0	1	1	7	.248	.299	.305	604	–
	NewBritain	East	24	Min	AA		c		30	102	5	14	1	0	2	5	1	0	7	33	1	0	2	0	7	.137	.200	.206	406	–
2007	NewBritain	East	25	Min	AA		c		85	276	37	69	17	1	4	35	0	0	17	44	5	0	1	4	8	.250	.301	.362	663	–
Minor League Totals - 5 Season(s)									361	1236	133	297	48	3	15	131	2	3	88	245	20	1	5	12	41	.240	.299	.320	619	–

A career .240 hitter, Kyle appeared in 85 games for the Rock Cats last season and according to our friends at Scout.com, his stock fell a bit from his 2006 season:

Geiger was supposed to have a breakout season for New Britain this season, but after a standout season for the Fort Myers Miracle last season, he struggled with the bat in the Eastern League. Still, he is regarded as one of the better catching prospects in the Twins organization, but could be back in New Britain next season. Overall, he batted only .250, and if he can learn to work the count better, should be a .275 or better hitter.

Still, he made enough of an impact in New Britain that he won the 10th Player Award, which was determined by fan voting.  And as a relative late-comer to the catching position, Kyle offers Ed some much needed versatility.

Kyle Geiger: In high school, my junior year, I played some outfield and DHed a little, but didn’t really catch full time until my senior year.  My senior year, the last home game of the season, I played every position in 1 game. My coach always wanted to do that, but never had that versatile of a player to do it with, so he started me pitching that game, and then I moved all around the diamond in the order of positions every inning.  And since we only played 7 innings in H.S., I played the outfield in the last inning and just moved to the three outfield positions for every out(1 our for left, center, and right).
I also wrestled for 1 year, and played football all 4 years.

Readers of the UOLB will know that our clan has a real soft spot for catchers (e.g. Brandon Marsters, Eli Whiteside, Jason Jaramillo) so we’ll be following Kyle’s Ottawa career closely.