Torrealba Almost A Met
It looks like plan B won out for the Mets catching situation. It’s been widely reported that Yorvit Torrealba has agreed to a three year, $14.4 million deal. When a guy who batted .212 away from hitter friendly Coors Field and only threw out 17.6% of the baserunners attempting to steal against him makes nearly $5 million a year I get the feeling someone is trying to tell me I made a wrong career move. Though the also rumored re-signing of Ramon Castro to a two year deal gives me confidence in the number 2 catcher (who is likely to get more playing time) I fail to see how this really improves the team at the position. I can only guess that outgoing starting catcher Paul Lo Duca had some differences with management that caused the team to take the opportunity of his expired contract to show him the door rather than re-sign him and deal with the issues directly.
About the catching situation manager Willie Randolph said “Paulie is the kind of player that knows how to win and gives me all he has every day. But at the end of the season everyone reevaluates where they are…. I thought he (Lo Duca) brought a lot to the table this year, but that doesn’t mean that you hold onto a guy because of that. You hope you can bring other guys in that maybe can pick up that slack. But each year is totally different.”
About Torrealbe Randolph had this to say: “I like the way he receives the ball. There are not a lot of catchers that really throw above average in the market, so everyone is in the same boat, basically. And he’s, what, a .250, .240 hitter? Really, you look at most of the catchers out there, they’re pretty much in the same boat. There are not too many Johnny Benches, that’s for sure.”
So Torrealba is headed to the Mets and Lo Duca will probably end up replacing him with the Colorado Rockies. If Lo Duca end sup in Colorado I look for him to have a career year.
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