Paul Articulates – An Offensive Performance Behind the Plate

I have to give credit to Mack for this one – he got me going when he said, “I can’t come up with any short term solution behind the plate”.  He knows, as do all of us Mets fans, that this years’ catching duo of James McCann and Tomas Nido have had horrible performances with a bat in their hands.  One can only describe it as a weakness from the batter’s box when their cumulative slash line is .140/.203/.211.  Both have been consistently slotted ninth in the lineup, and I have wondered aloud if Buck should DH for the pcatcher instead of the pitcher.

So here are the hard facts as of Monday’s completed games:

•    McCann was hitting .125 with a .250 slugging percentage.  His contributions to the offense have been two singles, a double, a homer, 3 HBPs and a sacrifice fly in 12 games played.

•    Nido was hitting .160 with a .160 slugging percentage.  That’s right – no XBHs.  Is this the same guy we saw in spring training?  He has zero walks and 11 K’s in 25 at-bats.

This kind of offensive performance is, in a word, offensive.   Should we bring up Patrick Mazeika given his MLB experience?  Nope – he’s hitting a pedestrian .226 in AAA with no XBH.  In fact, he is now sharing time behind the plate with Nick Myers in Syracuse because of his lack of offense.  How about number 1 prospect Francisco Alvarez?  He is scorching the Eastern League (AA) pitching with an OPS of 1.089 but his bat is ahead of his defense – he has much work to do on blocking balls in the dirt and managing a pitching staff before emerging from the dugout at Citi Field. 

So Mack is right – there is no short term solution behind the plate.  But the question no one is asking is, “Do we need one”?  The Mets are in a unique position this year (for a NY team not wearing pinstripes) in that they have a loaded lineup and have been very capable of scoring runs without production from their catchers. 

Offensively, the Mets are first in hits, tied for first in runs scored, and third in batting average.  Those stats include the boat anchor of a stat sheet they are dragging along from the two catchers. 

Defensively, both “McCannon” and Nido are playing very well.  McCann leads MLB catchers in defensive runs saved this year with 3 and Nido has 1.  The Mets as a team are second in the NL in throwing out runners. Their caught stealing percentage (33%) is only behind a St. Louis team with some guy named Molina.  Both catchers appear to have a great rapport with the pitching staff, and the staff ERA (2.59) is third in MLB while staff WHIP (0.99) is second in MLB.

The ultimate goal of a team during the regular season is to score more runs than their opponents more times than the other teams.  That gets you a great seed and a home field advantage in the playoffs.  With almost a month behind us, the Mets are doing just that – good pitching, good defense behind the plate, and scoring enough runs to win games.   So far they have succeeded with only a defensive contribution from their catchers.  We all know the season is long, and a good first 18 games are not enough to project a successful season but the trend is very good.  And speaking of long seasons, there is plenty of time for either McCann or Nido to break out at the plate.  Mets hitting coach Eric Chavez was heard saying he thought McCann was one of two players that he expected to start hitting well soon so stay tuned.  But for now, my suggestion is to play the hand we have.

[Editor’s note: right after this piece was written, McCann went 3-4 against St. Louis]