The curious case of Gilberto Reyes

Phil Gurnee ♦ September 13, 2017 ♦ 1 Comment

With 19-year-old Keibert Reyes being promoted to AA this week to help Tulsa with their postseason run I was curious if any Dodger catching prospect had ever made it to AA while still a teenager.

I headed to Baseball Reference and sorted every catcher and their rookie season with the Dodgers to find out the age they debuted with the Dodgers.

The one name that stood out was Gilberto Reyes. He would never exhaust his rookie status with the Dodgers. He made his debut at age 19 in 1983 and he wasn’t just a September call-up. His debut date was June 11th, 1983.  He would be on the roster from June 11th – July 27th and start eight games. He went back to the minors and did come back in Sept but played very little. The Dodger catchers in 1983 were Steve Yeager, the infamous Jack Fimple, Mike Scioscia, Gil Reyes, and Dave Sax.

According to David Young of TrueblueLA, Reyes got the call because of an injury to Mike Scioscia.  Not only was Gilberto Reyes the youngest catcher to ever play for the Los Angeles Dodgers but he also got a ring in 1988 and never played a game in the postseason. Dave knew an interesting story when he saw it.

“I remember what happened to Gilberto Reyes. Scioscia injured his back [in Game 4 of the World Series] and we had gotten permission from [then-Commissioner] Peter Ueberroth to bring Reyes to Oakland. I had him fly in from the Dominican. He flies out–he got there the night of what proved to be the final game. He walks into the clubhouse about the time they started popping champagne bottles. The guy has flown in all the way from the Dominican Republic to get soaked in champagne.”

Year    Age   Tm  PA  OPS OPS+
1983     19  LAD  32 .413   15
1984     20  LAD   5 .000 -100
1985     21  LAD   3 .667  107
1987     23  LAD             0
1988     24  LAD   9 .222  -35
1989     25  MON   5 .400   15
1991     27  MON 229 .546   56
7 Yr   7 Yr 7 Yr 283 .510   46
162     162  162 376 .510   46

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 9/13/2017.

For a catcher who debuted at age 19 he had a very unsubstantial major league career and would end his career with only 283 major league plate appearances. Bill Plaschke doing what he does best, writing about sad stories, and Gilberto Reyes was one of them.

Kevin Pasley debuted with Dodgers at the age of 20 but would only play in one game without getting any plate appearances, and that was in 1973. He also would end up with an unremarkable major league career, getting only 132 major league plate appearances.

This leaves Mike Scioscia as the man to follow. Which we will do next.

Rk              Name Age Year  Tm  PA   BA  OBP  SLG   OPS   Pos
1          Gil Reyes  19 1983 LAD  32 .161 .188 .226  .413    *2
2       Kevin Pasley  20 1974 LAD                        0   /*2
3          Gil Reyes  20 1984 LAD   5 .000 .000 .000  .000 /*H*2
4      Mike Scioscia  21 1980 LAD 152 .254 .313 .328  .641  *2/H
5          Gil Reyes  21 1985 LAD   3 .000 .667 .000  .667  /*2H
6     Dioner Navarro  21 2005 LAD 199 .273 .354 .375  .729    *2
7    Darrin Fletcher  22 1989 LAD   9 .500 .556 .875 1.431  /*2H

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
Generated 9/13/2017.