Memories of Brian Schneider

[Guest Edgy DC]

My accountant just called. He says the value of my case of Schneid Schard just went through the floor.

[Guest metsguyinmichigan]

In that post-trade photo with his wife in New York, he sure looked glad to be here. His wife was really pretty.


That's all I got for the Schneid.

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

Proportion of endorsement opportunities to performance was wiggity whack ("Those other dealers don't know squat.")

I was willing to give him a chance because I recalled how as an Expo he could change a game defensively against the Mets but a major MAJOR disappointment with the stick even against modest expectations, and his D was only OK. Really didn't get enough credit for sucking as much as he did, though probably will be a decent backup.

Cute Wifey.

[metirish]

His D , I remember passed balls, dropped balls and not many hard hit balls.

[Guest Edgy DC]

Seemed to save his one or two hitting surges per year for a period when nobody else on the team was connecting, therefore inflating their seeming meaning.

Somehow escaped the boobirds despite walking off with a lot of money and leaving few contributions behind. Somehow got his act together enough in September to rally with the stick and not finish 2009 on the interstate. Hopefully that cost the Phills a buck or two.

[bmfc1]

September 18, 2008:

Schneider hits two homeruns (of his 9 for the season) against his old team, as the Mets beat the Nationals, behind Johan, 7-2 (and I missed one of the homeruns getting ice cream for my son--what were the odds that he'd hit two in one game?).

http://www.leaptoad.com/mets/gamedetail.php?gameno=7546

[Guest Edgy DC]

Don't forget the belching doofus.

http://archives.cranepoolforum.net/10200/f14_t10200.shtml

[bmfc1]

HA! Thanks for that. I forgot about the doofus.

[metirish]

That was a fun IGT.....

[Guest LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr]

The 2 HR game, I remember. Another HR this year-- a Sunday midseason win, IIRC-- off the Subway facade. Other than that, a shocking number of passed balls for a defensive specialist (especially in early 2008), and Toyota commercials.

Can you think of any other Met in recent memory who disappointed so much given such modest expectations? (I mean that non-rhetorically-- I can't.)

[Guest Edgy DC]

Scott Schoenweiss? David Newhan? Doug Mientkiewicz?

It's not that offense was so bad --- it was pretty comparable to his career norms --- it's that it wasn't accompained by such great defense as all that or by an ability to stay on the field.

Oh, and that it came too little too late in 2009.

[Guest Edgy DC]

The Schneid leaves the Mets...

• 143rd in hits
  
  T141. Al Weis 125
  T141. Ken Singleton 125
  T143. Brian Schneider 123
  T143. Charlie O'Brien 123
  T145. Richie Ashburn 119
  T145. Tim Bogar 119
  
  
  
• 110th in homers
  
  T110. Tim Harkness 12
  T110. Rickey Henderson 12
  T110. Joe Torre 12
  T110. Brian Schneider 12
  T110. Kevin Mitchell 12
  T110. Chris Jones 12
  T110. David Segui 12
  
  
  
• 17th in games caught.
  
  16. Alex Trevi�o 179
  17. Brian Schneider 166
  18. Jesse Gonder 159

[Guest themetfairy]

My memory is that I would try to take as many photos of him as possible because a friend of mine, for some inexplicable reason, thought that he was cute.

[Frayed Knot]

It always seemed that when he started going good he'd get injured and then when he played for a decent stretch in a row he'd stop hitting. That and the part about the defense not being as good as advertised.

Never thought he was a great acquisition when he arrived but he was only occasionally as good as I thought he'd be.

[Gwreck]

At the start of every home game, Schneider would come out from the dugout, walk behind the plate and proceed to deliberately erase the lines that make up the catcher's box. He would do the line to his left and then the line to his right. Often in full view of the umpire. When he was done, he would then start taking the warmup pitches from the pitcher.

I don't see that many catcher's balks called these days so I can't imagine he was particularly worried about that but it somehow always bothered me that he was doing that.

[G-Fafif]

I was taking perverse glee in describing all home run totals as "Schneider-Plus" last June 19, since Schneider had zero. Then he lashes one over the right field fence off Andy Sonnanstine and there went that bit.

When nothing else was going on the winter we got him, SNY gave him star trade/free agent treatment with the posing with the jersey and the attractive wife by Radio City and such and it just pissed me off. This is what you do for Carlos Beltran, I thought, not Brian Schneider. Is this our big acquistion? Santana came later.

Huge pinch-hit double off Tom Gordon at CBP, 7/5/08, put the Mets ahead, sparked the ten-game winning streak that launched the Mets into legitimate contention for the balance of the season. He had a beard at the time. Reminded me of the South Park episode in which Cartman wore a beard and became the parallel universe version of himself (which itself was taken from Star Trek). Schneider grew a beard and was suddenly hella good.

Some Phillie writer after we got him referred to him as a "Phillie-killer," so they must be happy today. They paid more attention to him than I did, pre-Met.

I don't think I ever got past the idea that we'd gone from Grote to Stearns to Carter to Hundley to Piazza to Lo Duca -- all-stars all -- to Brian Schneider. He just brought me down. Not totally his fault; I was ready to be brought down, I suppose.

I appreciated the articles that ran in September about he was showing Josh Thole the ropes (though not too many of them, I hoped, lest he get all Schneidered up). He knew he wasn't going to be back, so he was generous. Contrasted with the story in "The Complete Game" about Ron Hodges spitting tobacco juice all over the newly called up Ron Darling's uniform pants, it spoke well for the Schneid. And poorly for Ron Hodges.

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

Contrasted with the story in "The Complete Game" about Ron Hodges spitting tobacco juice all over the newly called up Ron Darling's uniform pants, it spoke well for the Schneid. And poorly for Ron Hodges.

Oh no he din't!

He did? Is that book worth reading then?

[Benjamin Grimm]

I don't think I ever got past the idea that we'd gone from Grote to Stearns to Carter to Hundley to Piazza to Lo Duca -- all-stars all -- to Brian Schneider. He just brought me down. Not totally his fault; I was ready to be brought down, I suppose.
[/quote:2mjg323y]

Well, remember, that wasn't an unbroken chain. There was a bit of a gap between Stearns and Carter, mostly thanks to all the injuries Stearns suffered. Mike Fitzgerald held the position in 1984, and I think Junior Ortiz did most of the catching in 1983.

[G-Fafif]

I don't think I ever got past the idea that we'd gone from Grote to Stearns to Carter to Hundley to Piazza to Lo Duca -- all-stars all -- to Brian Schneider. He just brought me down. Not totally his fault; I was ready to be brought down, I suppose.
[/quote:326xgc2g]

Well, remember, that wasn't an unbroken chain. There was a bit of a gap between Stearns and Carter, mostly thanks to all the injuries Stearns suffered. Mike Fitzgerald held the position in 1984, and I think Junior Ortiz did most of the catching in 1983.[/quote:326xgc2g]

I thought someone might bring that up, and it wasn't unbroken later on either (Hundley took a long time to get to the level we remember him, for example). But by 2008, I took great pride in our star-spangled catching history, and Schneider felt like a letdown from that perspective.

Had high hopes for Ortiz and rather liked Fitzgerald. Carter saved us the trouble of discovering whether they'd ever fully develop as Mets catchers. Schneider was more of a Charlie O'Brien in all that, and I wasn't overwhelmed by the charms of Charlie O'Brien either.

[G-Fafif]

Contrasted with the story in "The Complete Game" about Ron Hodges spitting tobacco juice all over the newly called up Ron Darling's uniform pants, it spoke well for the Schneid. And poorly for Ron Hodges.

Oh no he din't!

He did? Is that book worth reading then?

[Frayed Knot]

There were some gaps between all those hard-hitting backstops, but still that chain was strong enough to spoil a certain pct of Met fans into thinking that a top offensive threat at that position is more or less the norm and Schneider took some heat for not being one of those guys.

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

Eh, as I said above I think Schneider got off relatively easy from fans & media. His struggles were lost amid all the other bad news.

[Guest Edgy DC]

On The Complete Game:

The idea of relating each chapter to a different inning doesn't work as well as you'd like. It all jumps around, and Darling jumps around within them like a broadcaster going off on a tangent --- eloquently, but extracontextually --- when the game gets slow.

The book is his game, though, so it's odd that he should get lost in it.

The book has some good stories about Met characters and the layout of the catacombs under Shea, but it doesn't make for a great cover-to-cover read. Feel free to jump around.

Two cool factamaloids:

• Darling used to prepare for each start by pounding coffee in the hours leading up to the game. (Who knows how he dealt with the pee cramps.) When the clubhouse in Montreal one day didn't have any coffee, he fell into a nap on the trainer's table. The bullpen coach woke him up and say, "Hey kid, you have a game." He woke up sharp and pitched well, and he switched his pre-game regimen to napping.
  
  
  
• Starting pitchers are supposed to be the first guy out of the dugout in the first inning. The guys in the lineup all look to the pitcher and he gives them the cue, whether it be a steely determined nod or a pithy "Let's be careful out there"-type mini-pep talk. I think Dahling's was "Let's get it right today."

[G-Fafif]

I don't know that Schneider struggled, at least not in his quest to live up to his standard. Schneider the past two years was pretty much what he was his entire career, just more so.

His 162-game average via Baseball-Reference:

10 HR, 62 RBI, .251 BA, .323 OBP, .374 SLG

His 169 games as a Met:

12 HR, 62 RBI, .244 BA, .323 OBP, .356 SLG

Schneider was Schneider.

[Benjamin Grimm]

I remember how he'd always keep his pack of cigarettes rolled up in the sleeve of his t-shirt.

[Guest Edgy DC]

Regarding the All-Star Backstop Continuum, as has been stated, nudged into the hypens of the Grote-Stoins-Carter-Hundley-Piazza-LoDuca continuum was a wedge of Hodges, a pinch of Fitzgerald and some shavings of O'Brien. We even had Rick Cerone as our most representative starter for a season there. So hopefully Thole can take his place in that run in your memory and make you bury the Schneid under another hyphen.

[Frayed Knot]

I don't know that Schneider struggled, at least not in his quest to live up to his standard. Schneider the past two years was pretty much what he was his entire career, just more so.

His 162-game average via Baseball-Reference:

10 HR, 62 RBI, .251 BA, .323 OBP, .374 SLG

His 169 games as a Met:

12 HR, 62 RBI, .244 BA, .323 OBP, .356 SLG

Schneider was Schneider.

[G-Fafif]

Good defense in a catcher forgives a so-so bat. But it was so-so defense, at least nothing that stood out as spectacular (the stats say four passed balls; the mind's eye has multiplied that). The pitcher-whisperer aspect of catching didn't seem to be there either; did anybody definitively find his rhythm because he was throwing to Schneider? Now and then Pelfrey, but then he'd catch him the next start and Pelf's mind would wander per usual (more on Pelf than Schneid, but so much for magical powers of catchers). If the rest of the lineup had been healthy and clicking in 2008 -- consider the loss of time and/or production for Alou, Church and Castillo plus Delgado's terrible first half -- I think you could pencil in a defensive mainstay five times a week eighth in your batting order and not worry.

[ashie62]

His D , I remember passed balls, dropped balls and not many hard hit balls.[/quote:3mgolrlu]

That about sums it up

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

I'm sure I'm not the only guy who remembers how Schneid in better days could be a real force defensively -- not with his arm or his pitch-calling, necessarily, but as the kind of catcher who took charge of the infield, hustled after bunts, blocked the plate, made the other team really work for whatever they got as much as a catcher could. I distinctly recall even pointing that out one time in a game thread many moons ago. That's the Schneid we never saw here, I guess aches and pains had something to do with it.