What happened to Lavarnway's power?

I think one theory is he dropped weight to improve his defense and durability.

From memory, he hit one HR in MLB last year and that one was at Fenway, down the left-field line and just over the wall. I remember clips from Pawtucket where he was driving the ball out the opposite way. He is not the same guy regardless of reason.

Good memory:
www.hittrackeronline.com/detail.php?id=2013_4036&type=hitter
wapc.mlb.com/play/?content_id=30335373&c_id=mlb

Thanks, this is great info.

This is what I heard it was on here at one point.  He altered his swing to cut down on strikeouts I believe and it worked but it also drained him of most of his power and it hasn't come back yet.  Just what I heard in the past from here.

I think Jmei pretty much nailed it. Add problems with balls in the dirt and you don't have an ideal mix. If a pitcher can't throw his out pitch you have a problem. All that said, it could just be that they told him to work on taking the ball to RF and cutting down the swing to reduce the strikeouts. The guy may just be doing what he was told to do to improve in the minors and optimizing his game in the majors. If that is the case he has been making progress from all indications. He produced in the majors with very intermittent playing time last year against tough competition. Farrell, as a former pitcher would be particularly sensitive to the need for pitchers to have flexibility in their pitch selection. And pitchers may also be saying that behind the scenes. The guy needs to improve on balls in the dirt.

What does he really have to prove in the minors? It would make sense that he is just working on his game. I don't know for sure but that could be part of this. He specifically looked like he was trying to go to RF a lot more. Seems to have changed his approach a lot. Once in a while he still tries to pop one to LF. He doesn't get many opportunities to do that in the majors but over time he will be able to pick his spots more as he learns the pitching.

If it turns out he's an above average hitter for a catcher with maybe some reduced power he still has a role in mlb if he improves defensively with balls in the dirt, which I bet he continues to do.

I wouldn't be surprised if their are culture issues as well. He is from a different world than most of these guys. I worked construction through college some and was reading Bertrand Russell while mason tending bricklayers. Not much of a conversation there. Such things can inherently cause problems. I don't know of course but he is a different kind of guy in some ways. He may not fit in as well. That can be a factor in some clubhouses. Guys need to be able to relate to each other. This is Jonny Gome's clubhouse. That's pretty clear by now isn't it? Pure speculation and labeled as such but it might be relevant. It would seem that he warranted more PT last year as many of us commented when Ross was down.

Lavarnway has always been a Middlebrooks/Napoli-esque power to all fields hitter who likes to get his arms extended, as opposed to a Cody Ross dead pull power guy. He's always hit the ball to right field well while struggling a bit to pull pitches on the inner half. It's possible the front office told him to try and cut down on the strikeouts (he did have a problem with strikeouts, even during his breakout 2011 year), but he's always been an all-fields hitter.

On the culture stuff-- please, just stop. You have not one shred of evidence for this and are basing it entirely on crude stereotypes. That you acknowledged that it's pure speculation is an improvement; that you still decided to post it is not.

This.

If Lavarnway can figure out how to hit .280 and OBP .350 with just a little power, that's plenty good enough for me on offense as a catcher. I don't really care if his power comes back (though it would be nice if it did.) The question for everyone is always going to be "Is his defense good enough to be at least adequate in the Majors?"

PAWTUCKET