How has the pitching fared this season with Castro and Santos behind the plate? How have they been doing offensively?
Brian Schneider hasn’t been around too much this season (only 7 games so far). So far this season with Ramon Castro the Mets pitching staff has a .252/.326/.382/.708 line (AVG/OBP/SLG/OPS) in 16 games. With Omar Santos, they’ve put up a .268/.350/.383/.733 line in 17 games. A very minor difference between the two so far. If we look at Batting Average on Balls in Play, they’re even closer: with Castro the pitching has a .300 BABIP vs .304 BABIP with Santos. Castro’s Catchers ERA (CERA) is 4.01 vs Santos’ 3.97.
Now in 2008, Mets pitcher in 109 games with Schneider behind the plate put up a line of .254/.334/.407/.741 and had a .292 BABIP. His CERA was 4.11. This year so far in the 7 games he played the pitching has put up a line of .226/.313/.359/.671, a .252 BABIP, and a 3.46 CERA.
Offensively, Schneider put up .257/.339/.367/.706 in 2008. In 2009 so far, Castro has put up .292/.370/.479/.849 and Santos .302/.304/.488/.792. However Castro’s career batting line is .238/.313/.419/.732 while Santos has barely been in the majors and has put up .258/.303/.348/.650 in the minors (9 years!). So if the past is any indication they will come back down to earth eventually.
According to ESPN, with a minimum of 50 Plate Appearances, Castro’s .813 OPS ranks him 8th in the NL with Santos ranked 13th with a .792 OPS. As a team behind the plate the Mets have scored 13 runs ranking them 10th in the NL and a .739 OPS which is 8th in the NL. However that takes into account Schneider’s production. Between Castro and Santos only, they have a batting line of .287/.337/.468/.805 in 94 ABs and 11 runs scored which doesn’t move them much around the rankings, but still makes them better relative to the NL team average. The NL team averages behind the plate are 14 runs and a .760 OPS and 115 ABs.
As far as games go, with 33 games played by the Mets (20% of the season) Castro has played 16 games after having played 52 games each the past two seasons. Will he be able see more playing time and continue hitting the he has? Back in 2005 when he was 29 years old he put up .244/.321/.435/.756 in 99 games which is still slightly better than what Schneider did last year, but he’s now 33 years old. He’s never really had the chance to catch a full season because he’s often injured. This season he’s had some quad problems as well, but hopefully that is all he will experience.
Statistics are courtesy of Baseball-Reference and ESPN which may or may not include Wednesday’s game against the Braves.
