The scene begins where Season 4 left off – Tyrion and Varys on a ship headed out of King’s Landing toward the Free Cities. Tyrion remains in the box in order to avoid detection.

Tyrion: This is humiliating.

Varys: Would you rather be headed for the edge of Sir Ilyn’s blade, my lord? It’s not like you need much space anyway.

T:  Very funny.

V: How do you imagine that all of this will play out?

T: I suppose at this point we have to hope Cole Hamels Daenerys and her dragons will have to save the day, especially if PECOTA Mormont is right and the Yankees White Walkers are really back.

V: You don’t think Blake Swihart Tommen can do it? Your sister told me he might be the first person in 50 years to wear the crown and actually deserve it.

T: He’s too green. And now with Jon Lester my lord father dead, Swihart Tommen doesn’t have the man backing him that everyone is afraid of.

V: Young Blake Tommen still has the Henry Owens Knight of Flowers and the host of Pawtucket Highgarden behind him.

T: Owens Sir Loras is talented, yes, but he’s young and without any real experience to match the hype.

V: What makes you think Hamels Daenerys is a better option? Yes, she has won some battles and sits atop Philadelphia Mereen, but Philadelphia Mereen is not the American League Westeros. And the seat at the top of that pyramid, while treacherous, is not the same as sitting on a throne of sharp swords and dealing with the nest of vipers that is Boston King’s Landing.

T: (pulls out sheet of paper with an ominous odor and pokes it through one of the holes in the box) This is why.

V: (looks at sheet of paper and realizes it is the PECOTA projections for Cole Hamels and other possibilities) My lord, you remembered all this from our Winter Small Council meetings?

T: When one is stuck in a dungeon, one must find some way to survive. But you can see from that list that none of the other options are nearly as good as Hamels Dany. Rick Porcello Stannis might have all the smarts and the backing of the Iron Bank, but he does not have the potential of Cole Dany. Justin Masterson, Wade Miley, and Clay Buchholz The Small Council can’t be counted on to lead kingdom as they have enough trouble with their own problems. Joe Kelly Prince Oberyn had a lot of promise, and he made a lot of promises when he came to Boston King’s Landing. But his 2014 season head just got smashed in by the Mountain.

V: But Hamels Dany has no experience leading in the AL East Westeros, either.

T: But she has his dragons – Cutter Rhaegal, Curve Viserion, and the biggest one Change Drogon – whose fire may well be the only thing that can stop the Yankees White Walkers as they threaten to wipe out the entire world. She has a good fastball Barristan Selmy, a loyal and battle-tested commander advising him. And she has conquered before, something none of the others can claim.

V: I may have another option … one you may not have known existed …

*Spoiler from Book 5 Ahead … but it doesn’t look like this will be relevant to the show!*

T: Go on …

V: Eduardo Rodriguez Prince Ageon Targaryen

T: (gasps)

V: I know, I know. TINSTAAPP He was thought dead. But he comes from the same family of pitchers as Dany, and he may well be someone the fans Seven Kingdoms can rally behind.

T: How is that possible? Where is he now?

V: I’ve stashed him away in the minor leauges Esteros to continue honing his skills

T: Do you think there is a way they could work together?

V: Possibly. But there’s only ever been one ace ruler in Boston King’s Landing. I don’t know if Boston King’s Landing would allow for two aces rulers.

T: So it will be Civil War then.

V: It appears so, my lord.

T: But no one knows about E-Rod Aegon, and it will be hard for the fans to rally around him and depend on him to rule.

V: All heroes begin somewhere, my lord. It is with small beginnings that men turn into Legends. E-Rod Aegon may simply need his turn.

T: I suppose all of this is idle talk until Hamels Dany is shipped to the American League Westeros and we see if his dragons can conquer real competition.

V: Indeed, my lord. Indeed.

T: Can I get out of this box now? Surely, it must be safe.

V: Oh yes, my lord. We have been clear of Boston King’s Landing for some time.

Photo by Jasen Vinlove/USA Today Sports Images

Rhythmically disinclined me had to start from the beginning, using three fingers and taking on the Beginner songs. Every time I moved up a level, I encountered the same process – it would take a substantial amount of time to even perform the easiest songs well, but after a while, I caught on and mastered the rest fairly easily. I never learned how to play an instrument or how to dance anything more difficult than the Shopping Cart, so being able to feel the music was a foreign concept. Starting a new song or level meant simply reacting to what I was seeing on the screen. But something would inevitably click – I never figured how that worked, but it did – and I would be prepared for what was to come. Then my performance substantially improved.

I imagine professional baseball works similarly. Players learn new skills at each level, and they move up once they are adequately prepared to handle the challenges of the next level. But there’s a certain period of time that it takes to get accustomed to that level where everything speeds up and players go into survival mode. Eventually, they should get used to it – the good ones anyway – and everything will appear to slow down. It can be a lot to take in.

And I suppose catchers have it the worst of any of them. They not only have to learn how to hit at each level, which is enough of a challenge, but they have to learn to handle their responsibilities behind the plate as well. It’s physically taxing. It’s mentally taxing. There’s a ton of preparation, and there’s a ton of information. And it doesn’t get any easier once that player reaches the majors, which is why conventional thinking is that catchers have a really hard time adjusting to the majors. But is that true? And what does it mean for the eventual Blake Swihart Takeover?

Below is a list of “top prospect” catchers (catchers ranked on Baseball America Top 100 lists from 2005-2015) that have made their debuts over the past decade (Note: I used the first season of 100+ PA to at least get presumed consistent playing time. Usually, it was the first season, but there are a couple times where it is the “second” season):

There’s obviously a mixed bag of offensive production from each, from great starts like Buster Posey to OH GOD MY EYES Travis d’Arnaud. Anyone who has paid any attention to prospects knows that players don’t always translate well to the majors. As I mentioned above, that transition is pretty difficult. It is somewhat assumed that players are “developed” once they reach the majors, but they all have room to grow. Yet, I was a little surprised to see that catchers really haven’t seemed to “fall on their face” as a group.

The .251/.302/.400 line isn’t great, but when you compare that against the league average for catchers (below) last season and over the past decade, it’s basically dead-on the league average for catchers. Of course, this is the average for all catchers, and we would expect starting catchers to hit a bit better. And there’s some performance bias in that the guys who fail are going to get fewer PAs, thus affecting the averages less and lifting the whole average (which is why I included the “Average” area where I just averaged the actual BA, etc. numbers themselves – not really sure it does a lot of good but hey).

But of course, what we want to know is what this means for Swihart’s future. So let’s take a look at career numbers:

You’ll notice the overall batting line comes up about 15 points in OBP and SLG, but again, the same caveats about performance bias, etc. still apply. But the general theme applies that these backstops are turning into solid major-league catchers – 12/25 turned into above-average (TAv over .260) MLB hitters and 18/25 turned into at least averageish hitters (TAv over .245). Looking at WARP, I used WARP/600 PA to balance out a little of the bias, and the average WARP/600PA was 1.9, which is basically an average starting catcher. Of course, if a catcher makes a top 100 list you might want him to have a better chance of becoming an above-average hitter than 50/50 or average of about 75%, but when it comes to prospects, there is simply a lot of attrition.

But I would also say that Swihart compares very favorably to that overall list. Why?

– Age: He is basically right on time with the average age of these players. And while he might be a little older, one could make the argument that the additional experience is actually a bit of a positive, considering he’s not that much older. The ages lining up like this shouldn’t be much a surprise, but I’m mostly making the point that he’s not an Evan Gattis-like pop-up on to the scene.

– Experience: Swihart has over 1,250 minor-league PA and three years of patient development. He has performed extremely well at each level, especially the last two seasons, at a young age for each league, and he is not getting “rushed” to the majors like a college catcher such as Matt Wieters. And he’s already at AAA, eliminating some of the attrition of simply having to climb the ladder.

– Prospect Ranking: I hate rankings because they imply a level of certainty that does not really exist, but given that Swihart was just ranked 17th by Baseball America and our own Baseball Prospectus team – 25-26 spots better than the average best ranking for each catcher (the BA Rank column) – he seems to be held in at least slightly higher regard than most catchers on the list. My caveat to that is that I ran a general correlation between BA Rank and TAv for the debuts, and the correlation was -.144 or not at all, really. But it does jump to about -.40 for careers, so prospect ranking seems to matter a little for long-term success.

While common wisdom is that catchers have a tough time transitioning to the majors, they seem to be doing fairly well over the past decade.

– Scouting Report: I won’t go into specifics, but Swihart is well-regarded at the plate and should be at least average behind it. He’s a well-rounded player that is considered one of the top prospects in the game.

While this is all well and good, we are still left wondering what Swihart’s actual future is. Is he the next Jarrod Saltalamacchia – solid but expendable (for an ace *cough, cough*) – or Buster Posey – a franchise cornerstone? As I mentioned above, he seems to have a pretty good chance of being an average or better catcher based on recent history and his placement in on top prospect lists. Of course, Blake Swihart is an individual, and it is basically impossible to predict how he will actually do. But while common wisdom is that catchers have a tough time transitioning to the majors, they seem to be doing fairly well over the past decade, and as long as the Red Sox deem him ready, there don’t seem to be any additional alarm bells besides the normal one for all prospects.

Photo by Kelly O’Connor, sittingstill.smugmug.com