Thursday, December 20, 2012

Andover's Hanigan Among MLB's Best Catchers

Andover's Ryan Hanigan
Cincinnati Reds catcher Ryan Hanigan graduated from Andover (MA) High School back in 1999. He was a three-year varsity starter at Andover and was an Eastern Massachusetts All-Star in his senior year. After college, he worked his way through the Reds minor league system, making his debut in The Show on September 9, 2007. He came up to the bigs for good in 2008—ironically after current Red Sox catcher David Ross was designated for assignment by the Reds. No less an authority than FanGraphs has said that Hanigan "might be the most underrated catcher in baseball". He has a career .275 batting average over six seasons and gets on base at a .370 clip. Defensively, he's thrown out an astounding 48% of runners. He's also one of the smartest catcher in the game, as evidenced by this wide-ranging interview on FanGraphs by Cambridge-based David Laurila. Enjoy.