Does anyone remember ...?

[nymr83]

Brian Schnieder?
what about Omir Santos?
Josh Thole?
me neither.




this guy is smacking them like he's Piazza and its the Steroid Era.

[seawolf17]

I'd like to be the first to retroactively go on the record and say I told you all that I wanted this guy signed as soon as free agency started this offseason.

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

[Frayed Knot]

He's making outs at a rate unlike Piazza (about 75% of the time) but fully half of his 18 hits have gone for XBs including 7 of those 9 over the fence.
Overall that out rate isn't a great trade-off but both backstops have been providing the defense we never had with MP, aren't (IMO) ever going to get from Santos and probably not Thole either, and were hoping to get but never came close to with Schneider.

Neither one is a long-term solution but are plugging holes this season so far at least.

[ashie62]

As far a Barajas goes, if it ain't broke don't fix it.

[MFS62]

If anyone's going to criticize anything about the Mets so far this year, they'll have to spare the Rod.

Later

[Guest attgig]

swinging with the uppercut:
http://www.fangraphs.com/graphs.aspx?playerid=45&position=C&page=9&type=full

= flyball outs or home runs.

Sounds like a good strategy for someone who's there for his defense. and the statisticians can say that his babip is far below the major league average, so he's actually better than what he is now.

The way he's swinging now, it seems like he'll most likely eclipse last year's mark of 19, and possibly hit his career high of 21. I'll take that for the catcher spot, no matter how low his ave/obp is.

now if he can start throwing some runners out now....

[Ceetar]

To be fair it's only been like 6 runners that he hasn't thrown out right?

If he's gonna provide clutch power, I'll take it for sure. I saw someone tweet earlier that the Mets Catchers didn't have a home run for like the last 40+ games last year or something.

[Guest Edgy DC]

He's not throwing guys out, but neither are they running on him, so we're not really losing there. My concern is that clutch power surges aren't as sustainable as other offensive skills, of which he has few.

[Ceetar]

Edgy DC wrote: He's not throwing guys out, but neither are they running on him, so we're not really losing there. My concern is that clutch power surges aren't as sustainable as other offensive skills, of which he has few.

Indeed, and not getting the runner in on a sac fly the other day was disappointing. If he continues to play good defense and hits better than our catchers have in the last two years, really that's all I was looking for.

[G-Fafif]

Before we decide he isn't Rod Barawesome, the man needs a suitable nickname. Ten of them are considered and discarded here.

[Fman99]

I like Rod and his .230 with power over Schneider and his .230 with no power, thanks.

Gary mentioned yesterday that in the last 66 games of 2009 the Mets got zero home runs from the catcher's position.

[Guest LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr]

attgig wrote: Sounds like a good strategy for someone who's there for his defense. and the statisticians can say that his babip is far below the major league average, so he's actually better than what he is now.

Not all BABIP regresses to the mean, though. Fly-balls tend to drop in at rates lower than those at which ground balls sneak through infields; IOW, those who hit 'em/those who allow folks to hit 'em tend to see lower BABIP numbers than their gopher-murdering peers (think Ollie P's BABIP as compared to Brandon Webb's, which tends to hover around .300).

Of course, Barajas' BABIP right now is .177 (as compared to his career BABIP of .251) so either he's due for some bump-up there, or he's nothing but extreme uppercuts now (which, frankly, would explain the rise in his HR/slugging numbers).

And how's about "BarMan," as in "serving shots?"

[Guest Edgy DC]

It doesn't say much, but Punchy is working for me.