1
2012
Why Shouldn’t Shoppach Be The Mets’ Regular Catcher For Remainder Of Season?
An article by 
Much was expected in 2012 for Mets starting catcher Josh Thole. He left Spring Camp with one message from manangement – swing for the fences. The results have been staggering and I mean that in a bad way.
It’s yet another case of where the Mets front office tried to squeeze a square peg into a round hole and not only did this Sandy Alderson and Terry Collins brainstorm fail to produce the intended effect, but Thole connected for just one home run all season long – two less than he had last season. The converted catcher’s slugging percentage dipped from .344 last season, to .289 in 2012. #EpicFail #LOLMets
Yesterday, Collins admitted that their decision to transform Thole into a power-hitting catcher was flawed and regrettable. They now intend to give Thole all the playing time he needs to resurrect his former self – which was the Josh Thole with the .690 OPS in 2011. Seriously?
Adding to this tragic tale of Mets woes is the fact that Thole has been awful defensively and in many ways has regressed in several aspects of his backstop duties.
My question is this…
We’ve seen what Thole could do at his best (ugh) and what he could do at his worst (vomit bag please), isn’t newly acquired catcher Kelly Shoppach the catcher we really need to see more of between now and the end of this season?
Do we really want to give Thole the bulk of the playing time, as was suggested yesterday, just so he can once again become the .268 hitter he was before the Mets messed with his swing back in March?
Who makes these stupid decisions, because I want to know if I should be directing my tirade at Terry Collins or his higher-ups?
There may be a good chance that Kelly Shoppach could be a starting catcher for us next season, but I wouldn’t dare be so bold as to lock him in while only seeing him get some sparse playing time in September.
It’s time to evaluate and start thinking about next season and before I lock up Kelly Shoppach to a two year deal, I want to see him go through the rigors of a regular grind from here on in. I’m talking five starts a week against both righthanders and lefthanders.
So far, I can’t complain about his job as Thole’s backup, but it’s time for a role-reversal. Thole has all Winter to find himself again and become that ,260 hitter with no power and no defense that we all adored.
Right now, all I want to know is if Kelly Shoppach can carry the load as an everyday catcher and what he can do in that capacity both offensively and defensively.
About the Author: Joe DeCaro
I'm a lifelong Mets fan who loves writing and talking about the Amazins' 24/7. From the Miracle in 1969 to the magic of 1986, and even the near misses in '73 and '00, I've experienced it all - the highs and the lows. I started Mets Merized Online in 2005 to feed my addiction. Follow me on Twitter @metsmerized.
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He should be and it should be his job to lose in 2013
I agree, completely.
Solid post, but I wouldn’t worry too much about what Collins said yesterday. He’s always saying one thing and then does the opposite a day or two later. He speaks without thinking. I’d be shocked if Thole continues to get the bulk of the starts.
I agree with Hodges14: Solid Post. I still B*tching that we did not do the DW for Pomerantz and Wil Rosario Rox offer especialy DW coming off a down year and under .200 the second half this year with hardly any RBI’s lately.
Agreed Joe. Thole isin’t the answer. (Unless the question is, Who is the Mets worst Catcher since…Junior Ortiz?) Lol.
Seriously, I don’t like bashing a very bashable front office, or a Manger who’s down, but the Mets keep trying to change who players are…ALL AT THE MAJOR LEAGUE LEVEL! They have a history of this…Juan Samuel…Todd Hundley…Lucas Duda is a 1st baseman forced to play outfield…Daniel Murphy, offensively, a couple season’s ago and again this year defensively…They say history tends to repeat itself. Do the Mets as an organization ever learn from history?
Shoppach is exactly the kind of short term answer the team should be searching for, until the next Carter or Piazza opportunity comes along…or until they develop another masher behind the dish like Hundley, or a kid like Plawecki is ready. The square peg round hole stuff is the perfect example of our team NEVER learning from it’s history anything.
Shoppach’s first’s opportunity in the NL, and he’s relegated to backing up Thole? After showing he is both a competent hitter and receiver? Who makes these kind of foolish decisions? Shame on Collins and Alderson for this foolishness…The Mets will drive Shoppach to signing elsewhere for lesser money and opportunity to catch 120-130 games with another team. Ridiculous…
Junior Ortiz, I remember when the Mets acquired him and he was interviewed on Kiner’s Korner ……………. wow. Mets will find a diamond in the rough, in the meantime let Shoppach show what he can do.
I don’t know if they were asking him to a ‘power hitter” but maybe instead of the same slap the ball to left field all the time he could start trying to pull an inside pitch.Thole to me just doesn’t have the tools to be a catcher. Considering he was a converted contact hitter that tried to play first base it really seems to be a failed experiment. Even if he gets back to hitting better his ceiling to be a quality catcher to me isn’t going to happen. After watching for a couple of years now he seemed to be a little ‘soft’ and now looks like he’s afraid to play the position. It’s a tough job to play the catcher position and Thole doesn’t look like he has the mental or physical abilities to do it.
“A little soft”
HA! He’s beyond soft, Thole is a China Doll…
This is the same guy who closed his twitter account as soon as he was criticized for poor play….Imagine if he received the twitter messages that were hurled at Rauch….He’d probably commit suicide….Cant get a wuss to play the toughest/grittiest position in baseball. Besides he is BEYOND horrible defensively, Beato was right Thole has pass balls on pitches he should catch easily.
I dont want the young pitchers coming up and throwing to Thole….He’d make them a nervous wreck especially the way he continuously stops the game to come to the mound to talk. He must lead the league in that…
THOLE SUCKS!!!
“This is the same guy who closed his twitter account as soon as he was criticized for poor play”
Actually, that was because people were making death threats to him and his wife and newborn child. But, ya, totally same thing as what you said.
And who thinks a twitter profile determines someone’s toughness?
Donal aka the real spin,
Who said twitter decided toughness spin master???
Death threats???
Thole’s quote regarding twitter, “I thought this was supposed to be fun,”
This was during his loooooooong slump…not death threats but i appreciate you raising the threat level to orange, GW
So Terry Collins and Alderson admit they failed in converting
1.Thole to a power hitter
2.Duda into a RF
3.Parnell into the closer of the future
4.Mejia whom has always been successful as a starter into a relief pitcher
5.Valdespin into a CF
6.Tejada into a lead of hitter whom can steal bases
7.Nickeas into a serviceable backup catcher
8.The bullpen into a success
And last but not least
9.The Mets into a successful team
Imagine how many kids on the farm that have suffered from this FO changing their approach??? Alberto Cordero, Akeel Morris, Juan Lagares just to name a few
“2.Duda into a RF”
A lot of fans bought into Duda playing RF late last season, which was bound to fail as bad as the Daniel Murphy in LF experiment did. Duda is NOT an OF, period.
“3.Parnell into the closer of the future”
C’mon now. We’ve heard about this for YEARS when Minaya was still here. Because of the gas he threw, people assumed he’d easily be a closer. Too bad he has nothing between the ears and the most hittable FB known to man.
“4.Mejia whom has always been successful as a starter into a relief pitcher”
Didn’t Minaya & Manuel do that when Mejia was up here in 2010? Didn’t work then, don’t know why it would’ve worked now.
“5.Valdespin into a CF”
Where were they gonna put him? He stinks at SS and Murphy is taking up 2nd. If you were gonna give him regular playing time, you have to put him somewhere, no?
“6.Tejada into a lead of hitter whom can steal bases”
No one expected Tejada to be a threat to steal. It’s not a part of his game. Although Tejada has taken the ball and run with it batting leadoff, what other options you had at leadoff that’s a solid hitter and a threat?
Duda could be a decent LF but not a RF.
You need to get to the ball quicker in RF to stop them from taking third with the longer throw needed from there.
You don’t need the speed to get to the ball as quickly in LF because the throw is much shorter and doesn’t require a great arm. Most runners will try to take an extra base on a hit to RF.
But they don’t try that too often on balls hit the LF.
“A lot of fans bought into Duda playing RF late last season”
The day the Mets start making moves based on what a typical fan thinks…I’ll burn everything Mets that I own…By the way Mets fans knew Duda in RF was a bad move they were actually calling for Bay to play RF and Duda LF but they wanted Dudas bat in the lineup so they trusted there GM and Manager
Also when did the response to bad moves made by this “NEW REGIME” of Sandy Alderson & co. become,”MINAYA DID IT TOO!!!”
You realize that makes this staff look far worst! Being that they know the failures of the previous regime and yet they still repeat those actions….You just described a stupid person…smh…
FYI Minaya never tried to convert Jenrry to a relief pitcher, what he did was use Mejia as a stop gap and tried to plug a hole in the bullpen with there best pitcher on the farm…which was a terrible shortsighted move….And Sandy and TC tried to do the same damn thing after the pen self destructed…. they witnessed the failure of that move and took it further and tried to make it a permanent move…lol…
I could only respond with this old saying,
“If Omar Minaya jumped off a bridge, would Sandy jump too???”
Please STOP using Minaya as an excuse for Alderson….No one ever used Duquette as an excuse for omar.
typical Mets decisions….its really crazy that they never seem to know what they are doing.
new regime, same old BS
My understanding of the recent revelation that the team asked Thole to pull the ball more was that they asked him to do so midway through the season not since Opening Day. Other than that I agree with Shoppach getting a bulk of the games for a look see if the Mets are seriously considering signing him.
I love how Collins stated a few days ago that Shoppach was auditioning for 2013 and that he needed PT in order to audition. Then KS goes out and helps them take 2 of 3 in Philly (remember, our “goal” is to finish ahead of them!) and now Thole goes back there to get more PT. Wishy-washy is what you have to call this team and their decision making, at least in the most positive spin that you could possibly use. It’s almost as though they’re searching for failure instead of striving for success. ARRRRRGGGGHHHH!!!!!! When will this franchise ever learn????? (Hint: only when the Wilpons sell the team b/c the one constant in the poor decisions over the years has been the presence of a Wilpon in the decision making process, regardless of who the GM or manager is).
Can’t say I know anyone other than you who said they adored Thole, but your premise here is the same thing wrong with society in general today. If you fail…..blame someone else. Josh Thole is a professional and has been around long enough to know his capabilities. If management asked him to go out of his comfort zone and change his approach, he should have recognized it was not working in a few weeks and scraped the idea. But let’s face it, his all around play does not warrant a starting MLB job regardless of his hitting approach.
The Moral of the Story Terry should learn here is if you want more power in your lineup get a power hitter and don’t try to turn a singles hittter into one.
We should play Shoppach for the rest of the season if for no other reason than what was the point of getting him in the first place if they didn’t want to take a good look at him for consideration of re-signing?
If they do it had better be a two year deal because these one year deals are pointless!
While Shoppach has some positive attributes I don’t believe he is the answer unless he rededicates himself to being a sound defensive catcher. Can’t say he calls a great game because every game I’ve watched he seems to be getting signals from bench as to what to call. Does he remind anyone else of a Mackey Sasser in the making with his complete inability to get the ball within 5 feet of second base on a throw? He blocked the plate I get it, he hit a homerun, check, but the rest of his game has been horrible. Do I think he has the tools, yes, but he needs to really work on his footwork and he needs to do a better job at CONSISTENTLY getting into the proper position to block balls in the dirt. He shows flashes of being a capable defender and he seems to work well with Harvey but I think that Mets fans are paying too much time comparing Thole to Shoppach rather than independently evaluating him. The better idea is to attempt to trade for a young catcher. May be see if they can package Wilmer Flores and others for Travis D’Arnaud or someother high impact catching prospect.
He may not be the answer but he sure COULD be a better guess than Thole has been.
Try him out now and see what he can do!
Solid points and worth consideration
I think everybody knows at this point in his career what Shoppach is. They could’ve already made a decision to offer him a contract for next year and possibly decided to give Thole more at bats to get his bat going to make him more attractive to other teams for a trade in the offseason. If he gets his bat going he might be attractive to another team with the extreme shortage at the position. I just hope he’s not on the team next year. He’s an awful defensive catcher and even at his best, his offense isn’t enough to carry that defense at such an improtant position.
Unless the decision has already been made to release or trade Thole, there’s something to be said for giving him a chance to get out of his funk so he doesn’t go into the offseason 0-for-the last two months.
Oh come on Joe. Are you back on the Koolaid again? Lets completely ignore the fact that Shoppach is 32 and a career .228 hitter who only caught 100 games in a season once back in 2008.
He’s almost an exact statistical replica to Rod Barajas who the saberheads ran out of town. But now all of a sudden they have a soft spot for his clone simply because of the GM that acquired him.
Even their Caught Stealing and Fielding Percentages are an exact match. The only difference of course is that while Barajas has been a proven everyday catcher and has seven seasons of 90+ games caught, Shoppach has only ever been a backup and he won’t get better at 33 next season.
1) Unlike Barajas, Shoppach doesn’t go MIA after a few months into the season. Forgot that little part about Barajas’s run here?
2) You expect him to be here for any longer after 2013? You’re better than that, Maniac. Nevermind the .228 career hitter crap. Shoppach is here mainly for defense because our “starter” provides little to none of it. His bat is a plus, considering he has saved our ass multiple times already, including tonight.
Once we get a younger, more adequate catcher than Thole, Shoppach will be reduced to backup again and eventually will fall to the wayside. Right now, what other choices do we have? Nickeas? Johnson? Hahaha.