Kelly Shoppach...NOT the Belated Birthday Present I Was Expecting...???

The New York Mets made a HUGE pick-up this afternoon- they acquired catcher Yasmani Grandal from the San Diego Padres for---what??? NOT Grandal? But I thought you said they got a catcher we were rumored to be looking at for a long-time? PLEASE tell me we didn't FINALLY land Benjie Molina 4 years too late? What- it's NOT a catcher named Molina? Well, that means there are only 2 or 3 catchers left in the game to choose from, then...

and the "winner" is:
 

KELLY SHOPPACH, COME ON DOWN- YOU ARE THE NEXT CONTESTANT ON THE METS-CATCHER-IS-WRONG!!

Yes, it's true, the Mets got Shoppach off of waivers, where the Red Sox had placed him, in exchange for the inevitable "player to be named later" - which, who knows, could be the same non-entity we acquired in the Billy Wagner deal (NOT Chris Carter!!) from the Sox in the first place!!

 I know, acquiring Shoppach on August 14th is NOT something worth burning up your twitter feed over; in fact, I can't even consider it a late (by 4 days) birthday present from the team I've been rooting for for almost all of my 48 years. JUSTIN UPTON??? THAT would have been a fitting birthday present...Kelly SHOPPACH??? More like, at this point, more coal in our proverbial stocking.

~Shoppach's numbers vs. lefties this season:

.250 with three home runs and ten RBI in 76 at-bats

~Shoppach's life-time numbers vs lefties:

.270 with 31 home runs and 83 RBI in 492 at-bats 

~Shoppach's numbers vs. righties- career:

 .204 with 33 home runs and 114 RBI in 936 at-bats

Overall, this season he's hitting .250 with five home runs and 17 RBI in 48 games with the Sox as their back-up catcher. He's a free agent at the end of this season, and he only made a bit over a million dollars this season, so the Mets aren't on the hook for any huge numbers.

 

Obviously, Shoppach was acquired to platoon with Josh Thole, forcing back-up Rob Johnson back to AAA Buffalo, if he clears waivers (I don't think he has any options left at this stage of his career.) The acquisition won't really cost anything tangible, but on the other hand, is he really going to give the team anything more than Johnson could have or would have? Especially with the chance for a Wild Card seemingly out of reach? 

 

If this was made as a move for 2013, wherein Sandy figures if he can re-sign Shoppach at a reasonable rate for next season AFTER a successful "try-out" of sorts, then I can understand making this happen. However, as we've talked about here before and will again this Sunday, if this is the kind of deal we can expect for 2013, this team is in a LOT more trouble then we'd like to believe and contending is a word we'd best eliminate from our vocabulary for yet another year...

By the way, for those keeping track, Shoppach has hit .227 with 64 home runs and 197 RBI in 508 career games with Boston, Cleveland and Tampa Bay in his career. He's had one really good season, one pretty good one, and numbers one would expect from a career back-up. So don't go buying Shoppach uniforms just yet...