Obtaining depth at the catching position within the farm system was a priority for the Valencia front office this past draft. Two of the four catchers drafted have worked their way through the minors and now are on the AAA roster with the Mars Martians.
Bernd Helwich was drafted in the 7th round. Scouts currently have Bernd with a 40 overall current rating and a potential overall rating of 45. The 20 year old started in A ball for a short 11 game stint where he hit .333 with a .394 on-base percentage. Bernd then moved on to AA for 22 games hitting .242/.306. Bernd has had a slow start in AAA where he is hitting .220/.252 but with his ratings the front office feels like he should grow into handling the AAA level of pitching.
Bradley Russel, who was drafted at the end of the 1st round with a supplemental pick, had a slightly longer tenure with the A level Redwood City Rockets where he played 20 games. During that time, the 21 year-old Bradley hit .352 with a .446 on-base percentage. Bradley then moved onto the AA Jamestown Comets where he hit .322/.426 over the course of 31 games. Bradley has just been moved to the AAA farm team this past week, but his current overall rating of 40 with a potential overall rating of 55 suggests that he should be able to make the leap.
At this point it looks like Russel is going to catch two-thirds of the games while Helwich will catch the other third. Russel can also play first base while Helwich can also play third although they are pretty rough around the edges at the other positions.
With these two now in place in AAA, they should have time to develop as Luis Gonzalez still has three more years left on his contract of roughly $3.5M per year. As Luis is on pace to have his third consecutive 2+ WAR season, he is earning his keep with that salary and the Valencia front office will probably not be in a huge rush to move him unless the price is right.