Colorado Rockies catching prospect Dom Nunez building on remarkable 2015

Scottsdale, Ariz — Numbers don’t always tell the full story, but in the case of Colorado Rockies catching prospect Dom Nunez they practically scream it.

In his first 48 games for Low-A Asheville in 2015, Nunez hit .216/.280/.251 for an OPS of .531 and even struggled a bit behind the plate. In his final 56 games, Nunez posted an eye-popping line of .335/.444/.607 for an OPS of 1.050. He hit all 13 of his home runs in that second half and ended up walking so much that he finished the season with just two more strikeouts (55) than walks (53) and impressed scouts so much that he received dramatic upgrades to his perceived defensive value.

There was only question I could ask Nunez with such a stark contrast; what the hell happened at the All-Star break?

“I made the adjustment to stay in my legs not drift so much out toward the pitcher,” says Nunez. “I just let my hands do the job. Stick to my strengths. It goes from there.”

So there absolutely was a physical adjustment which clearly paid dividends, but Nunez says the most important part was mental.

“Confidence is number one. When you’re in a slump like that it’s hard to get confidence. But you have to find it anyway you can. Whether its in the cage, whether it’s in BP, playing games with other guys. Just get back to competing again.”

Or y’know, obliterating the South Atlantic League.

A lefty power bat who knows how to work counts and draw a walk is a luxury every team since the beginning of baseball would get excited about, but anyone who has seen Nunez before could see the potential in the bat. What is far more encouraging is the strides he made behind the plate.

I asked if he thought those evaluations are accurate. “Yeah, I do,” he says. “Definitely at the beginning, learning new pitchers was difficult because a lot of the guys I was catching, I hadn’t caught too much. As you catch them three, four, five times, you start learning their tendencies, learning where they like to throw, learning where they miss, and how to get them back to where they need to be.”

It’s telling that his first thought about defense wasn’t about measurable catcher skills and was all about working with and handling the pitching staff.  “That’s number one,” he says “That pitcher on the mound.”

But his ever-growing rapport with the pitchers in the system and an advanced understanding of what a catcher’s full job description entails are not why scouts upgraded Nunez.

“I’m just catching the ball better,” he says. “[I’m] making strikes look like strikes and making sure they are called strikes. The borderline ones you try to get as many as you can. And then blocking the baseball I thought is where I improved the most.”

And there is still plenty more development to come.

“This off season I worked on a bit of arm strength,” says Nunez. “I feel great behind the plate throwing the baseball so I’m looking forward to that going into the season.”

For Nunez, though, he is and will always be a team player. It’s nice to focus on and improve his own game, but he comes to the ballpark every day to win and help his teammates get better. That attitude emanates from him at all times.

“It was awesome,” Nunez says of the year his team had. “I think the chemistry in the clubhouse and the coaching staff, it started from the top down. Behind the plate that makes it easy.  It’s easy to lead a team like that. Everybody wanted to win, we’re playing for the scoreboard and that’s huge.  If every night you are playing for the scoreboard, it makes the games a lot of fun.”

A perpetually energetic and cerebral left-handed-power-hitting catcher with the athleticism to play middle-infield and the wherewithal to make such a dramatic in-season adjustment is a commodity few teams have. I’ll say it; he reminds me of a young, more athletic and compact version of Joe Mauer. Of course, there is a ton of time left in his development but all the tools, including the most important one between the ears, are there.

If Dom Nunez can perform in 2016 at two-thirds the level he did in 2015, I won’t be the only one making such outlandish comparisons and the only question will be if he is a consensus pick for the Top 100, or Top 50, prospects in baseball.