Tuesday, January 19, 2010

"Lots of Passed Balls"

As Casey Stengel said, "If you don't have a catcher, you'll have lots of passed balls."

Bengie Molina, who nearly everyone thought the Mets were going for, is now off the market, having been re-signed by the San Francisco Giants.

As things stand, the Mets starting catcher is probably Omir Santos. Which is terrible. Or is it?

Last year, Bengie Molina threw out 23% of would-be base stealers. Santos threw out 30%. Molina OPS+d 86; Santos 82. Molina obviously has much more of track record, but Santos is at a much more favorable place, age-wise.

When you consider that Molina would have cost the Mets more (probably much more) than 4 million dollars more than Santos, I don't think it's a bad choice.

Particularly if they put that money into the pitching staff.

Because with bad hurlers, you get a lot of wild pitches.

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