<The article below discusses some of the considerations that Rod Barajas would bring to the Mets.  Shortly after the writing and posting of this article, the Mets signed Barajas to a major league deal–go figure.  Here’s wishing Barajas continued solid defense and a better OBP than .258>

Can you feel it in the air? Yes, it’s that time of the year and the start of the season is just a little over a month away. Since pitchers and catchers reported earlier this week, I thought it might be a good time to evaluate all of the catching options the Mets have this year. Let’s see, there’ rookie Josh Thole. And there’s…hmmm… Omir Santos of course. And…well…um…oh, yes…oh no, not him, he got traded to the White Sox. Oh yeah there’s Henry Blanco. And then, well…I guess there’s Chris Coste. And supposedly the Mets might be close to signing Rod Barajas to a major league contract which would mean that the Blue Jays would receive a compensation pick although at the time of this post that has not happened yet. And, well, that’s it…that’s everyone.

It would be a monumental understatement to say that none of these catchers will be mistaken for Mike Piazza. The combined batting average of all 5 of these players (we’ll throw Barajas in there just for kicks) in 2009 was .240 with a total of 34 home runs. Barajas in fact supplied 56% of that power. Thole had the highest batting average at .321 but with only 53 Major League AB’s and none in AAA, it would be difficult to hand over the full-time catching position to someone so green although he seems to have potential to handle the bat well.

No matter how you slice it, the Mets don’t seem destined to fill the catching spot with any kind of offensive threat. So going into the situation with those realistic expectations, the Mets would do well then to choose the best defensive catcher of the bunch. After all, the catching position is primarily a defensive position and most teams are willing to forgo the bat in favor of a backstop that handle the staff, throw out base runners, provide strong defense and call a solid game.

With a shout out to Sabermetrician Chuck Rosciam, he developed a formula for rating catchers based upon their overall defensive abilities. He took into account the catcher’s stamina to consistently catch games, their ability to throw out runners, their fielding percentage, the ability to be a handle bunts, head’s up game play (double plays and passed balls) and finally the ability to call an effective game. He then took all six of these elements and combined them into one overall rating by which to measure the catcher’s overall defensive effectiveness. While I won’t get into the nitty gritty of his calculations (you can read more about it here), much of the formula is based upon looking at how the individual catcher in question measures against the other catchers on his team and then looking at how he compares against the catchers in the league as a whole.

So before we delve into looking at how the Mets catchers fair against this system, let’s take a test run and look at a proven defensive catcher that is one of the best in baseball: Yadier Molina. We’ll take a look at each of the 6 elements, giving some description on the context and then use Molina as the bar by which to measure the other Met catchers by. Yes, it’s a high bar but we’re throwing offense out the window, right?

• Stamina– Molina caught 82% of the innings the Cardinals played last season; a very high percentage showing great endurance. If we take that percentage and divide that into the N.L. innings average (1444), Molina scores a rating for stamina of 5.68.

• Good Glove– This is pretty straightforward. We’ll simply take Moilna’s fielding percentage**of .995 and divide that into the league average for catchers of .993. A rating of 1.00 will indicate that the catcher is right on par with the league. Anything over that is above average. Molina scores a 1.02 in this category. **Chuck Rosciam formula actually takes the catcher’s independent fielding percentage (IPO), but for simplification, I used the regular fielding percentage. My apologies to Chuck.

• Good Arm– As you can guess this measures the catcher’s ability to throw out those nasty base-stealing thieves. Molina was successful throwing out these culprits almost 41% of the time compared to the league average of 29%. This gives him a rating in this department of 1.40 well above a rating of 1.00 which would be right at the average.

• Ball Handling– To be clear, this measures the catcher’s ability to record an out on bunt plays, not anything more risqué. As you would imagine, Molina was right there with the best of them at 86% of the time getting the out on a bunt against the league average of 87%. Slightly lower than the average, but still good which gives him a rating of .99.

• Heads up plays– This measures the catcher’s ability to make heads up plays such as being quick to react and reducing the amount of passed balls or making double plays. The number of passed balls and double plays by the catcher are weighted against the league. Molina scored an 8.27 in effective game play.

• Game Calling– This measures the catcher’s ERA against the other catcher’s on his team. When Molina was catching, pitchers produced an excellent 3.48 ERA. When he wasn’t behind the plate, the Cardinal pitchers’ ERA evaluated by almost a full run to 4.47 when any other catcher was calling the pitches. If we divide the other catchers’ ERA into Molina’s, he scores a 1.28 where once again 1.00 would be the average.

The finally step to get a raw score for Molina is to multiple the results together for each of the steps (i.e. stamina score * good glove score * good arm score etc.). Molina’s net result would be 85.86. An outstanding score!

Which brings us to the Mets. You probably have a queasy feeling in your stomach right about now and might feel the need to grab a couple of antacids. I’ll wait while you get some………………………………………………………………….. still waiting ……………………………..OK?

Let’s look at how the prospective Mets catchers did when using this same rating system. Once again will throw Barajas into this mix. The table below doesn’t break down each catcher’s individual percentage in the category but rather just gives the rating of each category and finally the raw score.

Stamina is obviously heavily influenced by playing time and Barajas is the only catcher on the list above that had consistent playing time in 2009. The rest of the catchers were essentially no more than back-ups. The majority of the catchers had better than average throwing arms with the exception of Coste who also calls a poor game calling along with Blanco. While Thole appears to be a promising prospect, he really has too little experience to really get a true measure on his defensive skills.

With whom the Mets currently have on their roster it would seem that Santos and Blanco would be the best choices from a defensive standpoint but both were unimpressive offensively. Santos batted a mediocre .260 with a .298 wOBA, while Blanco’s average was less at .235, with a slightly better wOBA at .310. Neither should be expected to offer much offensive punch, and defensively it’s pretty much a coin flip as both don’t come anywhere close to a catcher the caliber of Molina. Interestingly, Barajas would seem to be the better choice from a defensive standpoint as he rated a very respectable 53.08 with an above average arm and solid game calling skills which one would think would be of prime importance considering the Mets pitching woes last season. With the Rangers also listed as one of Barajas’ potential destinations, the Mets should push a little harder to ensure they are able to secure his services. It’s true they will be getting nothing more than a career .240 hitter who has some decent power, but for $1M-$1.5M for the year, he may the right choice to split time with Santos and provide the experience and defense the Mets need. After all beggars can’t choosers and in this scenario between the Mets and Barajas, it’s difficult to know who is the beggar and who is the chooser.