Either that or incredible offensive futility just doesn’t get the site hits that it used to. I attribute this to baseball writers being genuinely nice guys. Nor have I seen enough Mathis-bashing journalism this season. He produced one of the great positional seasons in the sport’s majestic history and he continues to strike fear into opposing pitchers through the playoffs. I haven’t seen nearly enough Napoli-praising journalism this season. A decisively contrary approach to Napoli’s, which treats hitting like a slugfest, restructuring the identities of balls so they look like they came from Mr. In fact, that kindness may very well be the gentle technique he displays swinging a baseball bat, carefully avoiding any outward damage to the baseball.
I’m not writing any of this to pick on Jeff Mathis (though I will not cower from it), who by all accounts seems a perfectly kind soul. And it was Mike Napoli whose CERA was a tenth of a run lower than Mathis’, even though Mathis caught the likes of Jered Weaver and Dan Haren. That being said, it was Mike Napoli who threw out a higher percentage of base stealers this season. Though defensive statistics have come a long way, there isn’t much to point to (especially for catchers) that is both telling and consistent. So it is the ultimate irony that Napoli outplayed Mathis on defense this season.ĭefense by and large is the most difficult skill to measure. Being that Mike Scioscia was a defense-minded catcher during his playing days, this should come as no surprise. Napoli’s average or worse defensive skills were probably the main reason the Angels chose to discard him this winter.
Mathis was always the defensive half of the unit. He hit 20+ home runs in each of his last three seasons with the Angels. Syringes.Įven with the Angels, Napoli had a knack for hitting the long ball. You may remember that era, way back when, when players brought three duffel bags with them to spring training. To give this more perspective, know this: Rudy York set the record that season for homeruns in August by hitting 18, surpassing a player named Babe Ruth.
#Mike napoli mlb the show 23 iso#
Napoli’s ISO places him behind only Javy Lopez and Rudy York’s 1937 campaign. His SLG ranks him third all time behind Javy Lopez in 2003 and Mike Piazza in 1997. You could even make the argument that Napoli’s offensive season was historic for a backstop. In fact, he finished with a higher OPS than any major league player except Jose Batista, the odds-on favorite for American League MVP. He led all major league catchers in home runs, OPS, SLG and isolated power (ISO). Mathis failed to eclipse the Mendoza line for the third time in parts of seven major league seasons, steeping his career batting average into the tea-bag-region of. Mathis hit safely on just 43 occasions, 12 fewer times than Mike Napoli produced an extra-base hit. Jeff Mathis managed to leave the yard just three times in 247 at-bats. Once every 12-times Mike Napoli put the ball in play this season, the ball left the field of play–for a home run. Napoli and Mathis went on to prove that April 3 rd, 2011 was no anomaly.
All told, the Rangers ended up with one of the best offensive catchers in baseball, and the Angels and Blue Jays wound up with players who bashed their fans in the face with folding chairs (metaphorically speaking, of course). The Blue Jays then turned around and flipped Napoli to the Texas Rangers for hard throwing (and chair throwing) relief pitcher, Frank Francisco. They traded Mike Napoli and Juan Rivera to the Toronto Blue Jays for underachieving, overpaid outfielder Vernon Wells. This past offseason, Scioscia and the Angels’ front office decided that Anaheim wasn’t big enough for both catchers. It was a platoon that perplexed both fans and sabermetricians alike. Catching gear they shared for the better part of five seasons when splitting the duties for Mike Scioscia. When we remove ethnicity, only Halo-branded catching gear remains.
The middle segment of their Venn diagram encompasses only three logical points.
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