When we picked up Manny Pina (along with LF Tim Smith) in the Dan Gutierrez trade last year, I wasn't very excited.  He had just posted a 703 OPS at AA.  This year he posted a 732 OPS at AA which doesn't sound that exciting.  But check this out:

Year  ISP  BB% BABIP

2009  .124 5.4% .294

2010  .161 9.8% .259

Using minorleaguesplits.com's nifty little tool, it adjust Pina's OPS to a little over 800 when factoring 'luck' into the mix.  Manny's defense has always been considered good.  But his ISP has been increasing year by year--so it look like he's getting stronger.  We'll see if he can maintain that spike in his walk rate (so far at AAA it's back around 5% in 40 PA).  He's hitting really well at AAA so far with a 902 OPS. 

It will be interesting to see where Pina is at in 2011--he could be ready to be a backup to Kendall--but of course he needs to play more than once every two weeks.  Having a young catcher step and be ready to start would be big because it would let Wil Myers move to the OF and come up sooner.