No, I don’t think the Mets just clinched the pennant with the news that catcher Rod Barajas is officially on board. But I do think they managed, for comparitively little money, to improve a starting position significantly in 2010. And that’s terrific news, particularly against an offseason backdrop that has provided very little reason to cheer.

Let’s start with the offense. Barajas posted an OPS of .661 last year. How good is that? Well, Omir Santos was at .688. And if every other indicator didn’t suggest that Santos will come down while Barajas will improve, that would be a problem.

But Barajsd had a .226 BABIP last season, without a huge drop in his line drive rate. Almost certainly, his three-year average OPS of .690- right in line with his career OPS of .691- is far closer to what the Mets can expect in 2010.

As for Santos, his .688 OPS in 281 at-bats last year was well above his career .652 OPS in the minor leagues, in 2,229 at-bats. Between the two stats, the latter seems like a far better indicator of his true talent. And this is reflected by Dan Szymborski’s ZIPS projection for Santos at .631. Baseball Prospectus’ PECOTA has him at .650, with CHONE checking in at .655. Honestly, given his minor league track record, only ZIPS seems close, and over a full season starting, I’d have expected Santos to fail to reach any of these marks.

PECOTA, by contrast, has Barajas at .746- if he hits that well, it would represent the best OPS by a starting Mets catcher since Paul Lo Duca’s .783 back in 2006. It would be plenty of hitting for the position- and unlike Santos, questions don’t exist about Barajas’ defense.

And best of all, it represents a similar- if not more significant- uprgade than that of Bengie Molina, which would have cost the Mets two years and $10 million. For a fraction of the cost- 20 percent, if Barajas reaches all of his incentives, and less than 10 percent of it in guaranteed money- the Mets have solved their catching problem for 2010 without blocking Josh Thole in 2011.

If the Mets could only see that a similar solution at second base still awaits them- Felipe Lopez, sitting in the corner of the dance without a partner- they’ll really be getting somewhere, addressing the black holes on the team, inexpensively on short-term deals. But it’s a start.

Howard Megdal is the Editor-in-Chief of The Perpetual Post. He covers baseball, basketball and soccer for Capital New York, MLBTradeRumors.com, New York Baseball Digest and has written for ESPN.com as well as numerous other publications. He is the Poet Laureate for SBNation New York. His book about Jewish baseball players, “The Baseball Talmud,” is available for purchase on Amazon.com and wherever books are sold. His next book, "Taking The Field", is available for pre-order on Amazon.com and will publish in May 2011.

Howard Megdal

View all posts by Howard Megdal
Howards website

Tags: Felipe Lopez, Josh Thole, New York Mets, Omir Santos, Rod Barajas