There are a number of relevant caveats. The season is only a few weeks old, still a very small sample. And the top, established talent still has yet to start playing in the Dominican Winter League. Some of the pitchers who are currently competing in the league can’t find the strike zone with a compass.

Even so, the performance of Red Sox infielder Yamaico Navarro in the Dominican demands some notice. The 23-year-old has been a force for the Licey Tigers, hitting .273/.400/.500/.900 with four homers in 19 games in his native country. Perhaps even more striking after Navarro walked just twice and struck out 17 times while chasing just about everything in his first major league callup at the end of the 2010 season, Navarro has walked (13) and struck out (13) in equal measure in 80 plate appearances for Licey. He ranks fourth in the league in OBP, ninth in slugging, seventh in OPS and is tied for fifth in homers.

Navarro has a reputation for being an extreme free-swinger, something that he did little to dispel during his time in the majors. Even so, the Sox feel that the major league performance obscured strides that Navarro has made over the last couple of years in the minors in his plate discipline and approach.

“It gets completely overlooked,” said farm director Mike Hazen. “Look at the last two years plate discipline-wise with that guy. Pretty good.”

In 2009, during a season disrupted by surgery to remove a broken hamate, Navarro walked in 7.9 percent of plate appearances while playing at three levels (Short-Season Lowell, High-A Salem, Double-A Portland). In 2010, Navarro walked in 10.8 percent of his minor league plate appearances for Portland and Triple-A Pawtucket.

Given Navarro’s positional versatility (he can play second, short or third) and above-average raw power, the evidence of a more disciplined approach in both the minors and the Dominican is certainly intriguing. At the least, it may earn him a spot at more time to develop. While younger players tend to get sent home once more veteran players arrive in the Dominican Winter League, Navarro’s performance may make it more likely that he will remain on a roster for a greater portion of the winter. That possibility, in turn, could only be helpful to the Sox, as he would have more time to play and more exposure to scouts from other organizations, with the potential of upping his stock as a trade chip.

Some other notable performances from members of the Red Sox in the Dominican:

–Fabio Castro, the diminutive left-hander (listed at 5-foot-7, he may well be shorter than Dustin Pedroia) who struck out a batter an inning for Triple-A Pawtucket this year, has been overpowering in four starts for the Gigantes. He has struck out 37, walked six and forged a 1.17 ERA in 23 innings. The 25-year-old is a free agent.

–Though Josh Reddick has is hitting just .188 with a .579 OPS, like Navarro, he is taking his walks, having collected 10 in 74 plate appearances for the Gigantes.

–Robert Coello has made six appearances (four starts) for Licey, with a 4.79 ERA. He tossed four shutout innings of relief on Saturday. While the 25-year-old started and relieved this year in the Sox system, Boston envisions him as being most likely a reliever when he comes to spring training next year.

–Kris Johnson, the left-hander whom the Sox took as a sandwich pick in the 2006 draft, has a 1.80 ERA in three starts for Escogido. The 26-year-old has suffered through a couple tough years in the minors, having gone 9-29 over the last two seasons, mostly with Pawtucket.

With the Red Sox’ spring training facility closed to media until noon this morning as pitchers and catchers take their physicals, it seemed as fine a time as any to offer the following rainy day story to pass the time:

It did not take Red Sox catcher Dusty Brown long to realize that the culture of winter ball in the Dominican was different than anything he’d seen before.

What can Brown do for the Red Sox?

Brown, who hit .290/.377/.471 last year in Triple-A Pawtucket, joined the Azucareros del Este for the Dominican Winter League season. His team was greeted by a deluge prior to its Opening Day contest, one that seemed all but certain to lead to a cancellation on a field with poor drainage and threadbare tarps.

That didn’t happen. Once the rain stopped, an armada of locals raced to the field with what Brown described as sponges, pushing piles of rainwater onto the infield. After roughly a one-hour delay, the infield dirt was deemed sufficiently clear – at least by game officials – to proceed with the pomp and circumstance befitting a season opener, including pre-game introductions of the two teams.

But this was no ordinary set of introductions. After the players lined up along both foul lines, Brown was caught off guard when a little person raced from the home dugout and sprinted around the bases, wildly waving a flag as he made his circuit. The sight was unexpected enough (though, perhaps had Brown ever made the acquaintance of the late Nelson de la Rosa in the Red Sox clubhouse, it would not have been), but events truly took a turn for the surreal when the vertically challenged individual round third to head for the plate.

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