Rod Barajas Signs With Mets

before going after Barajas.

It’s an upgrade over Santos. I don’t know if that says more about Barajas as a player or the Mets as a team, but he is an upgrade. They got better. Barajas/Blanco won’t kill you. If you’re going to hit poorly at least defend behind the plate.

As for all around players, where does that come in? I never said Blanco and Barajas weren’t better defenders at their position than Betancourt was for his. The problem is that it’s not possible for your glove to make up for a .258 OBP, and Barajas is old and only getting older. He’s a disaster as a hitter, his skills don’t complement Blanco’s, and the Mets are happy to pay him between 1 and 2 million dollars.

It’s absurd on the face of it.

I was talking about them as hitters, for the sake of getting perspective on how ungodly bad this signing is.
I gave and give credit to both sides of the Mets platoon as being decent defenders. The context was offense.
Good luck arguing with yourself, though.

“Is Barajas a great catcher? Not at all. Is he a decent for a catcher? Absolutely”

Except that, absolutely, he’s not a decent catcher. His career OBP is terrible. Last year it was worse. It was .258. That’s obscene. It’s just about impossible to do. To be a “decent” catcher, to overcome a league worst type OBP, he’d have to save around 40 runs with his glove. Since the difference between the best and worst catchers is around 12 runs on defense, there’s simply no way that Barajas is “decent”.

Pretending that I compared their defense doesn’t—of course—mean I did. What I pointed out was that Barajas was and is a ridiculously bad hitter whose skills, such as they are, do nothing at all to complement Blanco’s.

“Also, Barajas had a .229 BABPIP, which is significantly below his career mark of .253, so while his OBP won’t be good next year, it should be a lot better than .258”

Well, it should, except for the part where it won’t. He’s turning 34. His career OBP is .284. Hs OBP is going to get a lot better? You’re wishcasting here. You cannot want a guy with that OBP starting on a contending team. It’s beyond irrational.

almost beyond belief. There’s nothing reflexive about it. The moves the Mets made in 2006 were remarkably good and I’ve said so. The moves the Mets made this offseason have been just pitiful. Try to stop blaming the messenger. I’m not the idiot who couldn’t get a single platoon right this offseason.

Santos is a little better hitter versus righties, the pitchers we face 120 times a year and in most relief situations. Also, while it’s difficult to determine catcher defense, Santos seemed a little above average last year.

Look, I think Santos just had his career year and should have been traded for a prospect or package for something—anything—to a GM who doesn’t look much at minor league stats. But when you decide that with all of Henry Blanco’s weaknesses the best thing to do is get his clone (except that his clone just fell off a cliff with the bat), you’ve blown one of the major issues that needed to be resolved this offseason.

You’re defending the last-ditch grab of a left-left defense-defense platoon, where neither guy can get on base at a .300 clip? Really?

According to the statistics we have catcher defense is less important than any other position. The variation between the best and worst catchers is a dozen runs. In the OF, it’s as much as 35 runs. If you count guys like Adam Dunn and Manny Ramirez it’s higher than that.

What numbers do you think a bad hitting catcher puts up? At what point, if not these, do you consider a catcher’s hitting unacceptable for a team that should be aiming to contend every year?

…it’d look just like RBI Baseball, with all those rectangle-shaped neckless guys shuffling around.