Naylor Homers In First Plate Appearance Of His 2023 Season

Guardians catching prospect Bo Naylor reaches base three times including his first HR of the year for Columbus

Author:
Todd Paquette
Apr 1, 2023 12:51 AM EDT

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Cleveland Guardians 23-year-old catching prospect Bo Naylor already off to a terrific start to his 2023 campaign. Naylor reached base three times (2-4 R HR 2RBI BB) including a 417-foot solo home run in the first inning tonight for Triple-A Columbus in their 11-to-5 loss to Iowa.

Naylor is coming off a 2022 season in which he hit a career-high 21 homeruns and 51 extra-base-hits over 118 games between Akron and Columbus.

Coming into spring training it was already predetermined that Bo would begin the season at the Triple-A level especially since he missed time in camp playing for team Canada in the World Baseball Classic.

The question now is how long will it be before he gets the call up to Cleveland. Developmentally Naylor is close if not already ready to take the reigns as the Guardians future everyday catcher.

A lot will also depend on how current catcher Mike Zunino is performing at the MLB level. Zunino will be given every opportunity to establish himself as the everyday catcher at the beginning of the season.

Even if Naylor gets off to a tremendous start the only way, I see the team calling him up before the MLB All-Star break is if the team along with Zunino are both struggling offensively or because of an injury.

Bo is the future, and he should definitely be up with the big club at some point this season. For now, all he can do is continue to develop and try to push the envelope forcing the Guardians hands to possibly accelerate the timetable. Tonight, was a good start to making that happen.

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