Injuries, injuries, and more injuries is the real story for this guy. If Doumit can stay healthy...watch for him, as he is one of the three standout guys for the Pittsburgh Pirates.

Ryan Doumit made his MLB debut for the Pirates in 2005 as a catcher. His first year he only played 75 games and put up 6 HRs with a pretty medicore .255 batting avgerage, but it was his rookie season. In 2006 he played in 61 games and another 6 HRs and an ugly .208 average. In 2007 he began to look like he might be improving with 83 games played and 9 HRs with a .274 average. Well, he was going in the right direction....

In 2008, Ryan Doumit finally had his breakout year where he played 116 games...his first season having played over 100 games. He hit 15 HRs, had a nice .318 average, and hit 68 RBIs in a not-so-stellar lineup. He also scored 71 runs and had 137 hits with 34 doubles and no triples. This breakout year set fairly high expectations for his 2009 year.

Well, he started off fairly well, untill in mid-April when he broke his wrist. A broken wrist can mess with the swing and effectiveness of the swing for a player. Well, this hurt him mightily. Everything went south from there for Doumit. He only played 71 games because of the injury, he hit 10 HRs, and had a lackluster .250 average. He got 38 RBIs and 31 runs scored with 70 hits, 16 of which were doubles. But not so fast my friend, Doumit hit .346 in September of 2009, showing he might have been making a little bit of a turnaround.

In the first two monts of 2010, I think Doumit will have struggles...maybe only hitting about .260 in April and May. This happens quite often with injuries the year before. But, if he stays healthy, he could easily hit about .310-.320 and hit 20+ homers. This would put him in the top 8 catchers in the league. Although Doumit may not have huge power numbers, he does hit for average and has fairly low strikeout totals, showing nice plate discipline.

Ryan Doumit is one of the three guys to watch for the Pirates in 2010. Those other two are Andrew McCutchen and Garret Jones. But one thing is for certain, Doumit MUST stay healthy for the Pirates to get out of this horrible streak of losing seasons.