Severino's advanced mechanics have allowed him to start season quickly

Double-A Harrisburg catcher Pedro Severino made a big splash to begin the season by throwing out seven consecutive would-be base stealers. His range factor, which is his per game average of putouts and assists, is 9.10.

After a slow start at the plate, Severino's bat has heated up. He has gone 9-for-16 (.563) with two doubles and seven RBIs. He had started the season going six games without a hit.

But his arm and his defense have been the buzz to begin the season. Nationals catching coordinator and former major leaguer Michael Barrett has been monitoring Severino's recent progress. Barrett played 12 seasons in the majors, mostly with the Expos and the Cubs.

"This offseason, I studied a lot of film because it's my first as the catching coordinator," Barrett said. "I had heard a lot of great things. I saw him a little bit in spring training last year and a little bit in instructional league, and that's when I really started analyzing his throwing. It is impressive."

Severino's ability to throw out runners trying to steal second has forced opponents to stop running on him as much early in the season.

"The most impressive part is how he gets into a good position to throw consistently," Barrett said. "I think that's what allows him to have the success that he does. He's very consistent in everything that he does. His exchange is really fast and really quick. His lower half and his exchanges appears to always be in sync."

The 21-year-old Severino has added strength to his frame and is listed as 6-foot-2, 200 lbs. He could be that find the Nationals have been looking for to ignite their influx of Dominican players to the majors.

There were 83 Dominican players in the majors to begin the 2015 season, but none on the Nationals' 25-man roster. Signed as an non-drafted free agent in December 2010, Severino has a good shot of being the next home-grown talent from the Dominican to make it to the Nationals.

Barrett said a critical part of the Nationals' philosophy of building a strong baseball organization begins with the relationship between the catcher and the pitcher. Barrett said Severino has embraced this philosophy with tremendous enthusiasm and focus.

"One thing when I got here that I like as a organization that we do is we are educating the catchers on how to embrace and buy into the development process for our pitchers," Barrett said. "I've been impressed with the catchers that have been in the organization that have adopted that mentality and how good they've become at doing it at such a young ages.

"They really follow the game plan and work hard to do little things that I didn't do until later on in my career that they are doing at a young age. They are receptive to learning more about it.

"That's the thing that makes Severino special is that he invests as much time into learning how to manage the game and handle the pitching staff as he does any other aspect of his game. As a young catcher, that is very rare."

Another critical measure of how much Severino wants to be a major league player is his aggressiveness in learning the language and being able to communicate with the coaches and his teammates, especially the pitchers.

"I've only spoken to him in English," Barrett said of his discussions with Severino. "I've talked to him in my broken Spanish a little bit, but he desires for all of us to speak to him in English."

Barrett said Severino has already graduated from their Rosetta Stone Spanish-to-English program that the Nationals endorse for all their Latin players who are learning English as a second language. Barrett said the program is voice activated. It has to be your voice and no one else's. That means each player has to finish the program on their own and cannot cut corners.

"The pronunciation of the words has to be exact," Barrett said. "If you don't get the word correctly, you cannot advance. They have to be disciplined to do that. To me, it shows a strong desire to learn the language and to do more than just speak the minimum requirements."

Barrett said having a catcher like Spencer Kieboom play at Clemson is similar baseball-wise to the coaching and games Severino got while attending the Nationals' Dominican academy. The Nationals have several talented Dominican pitchers in their system. So does that present a communication problem for American players learning a new language?

Players like catcher Jakson Reetz have learned Spanish by total immersion.

"His greatest Rosetta Stone are the pitchers," Barrett said of Reetz. "Getting to know those guys and learning Spanish from those guys is the best thing you can do, and that's what he does. They get to be his teacher."

Tomorrow, I will have Barrett's latest update on the progression of Reetz and how much he has learned in less than a year within the Nationals system.