Mets: Ranking each Opening Day starting catcher of the last 10 seasons

The catcher is the smartest player on a baseball field where they are the ones watching the whole game and calling it for their pitchers. For the New York Mets, this has been an issue.

The New York Mets were blessed to have guys like Gary Carter and Mike Piazza, both Hall of Famers, spend parts of their career in a Mets uniform. Both were loved by the Amazin’ faithful and they put everything on the field every single game.

The Mets though of late have not had the best of luck with the catcher’s position in quite some time now. We’ve seen numerous players call games for Mets pitchers of recent time and each one had different flaws.

As we head into the 2021 season we are unsure of who the starting catcher on opening day is going to be whether it is a current player on the roster or if they decide to sign one of the available free agents.

Since 2011 the Mets have had six different players start at catcher on opening day. Six different ones in ten years! The most consecutive years any of the catchers had was only three years and here we are going to break each of them down.

6) Josh Thole

Josh Thole is at the bottom of this list for the Mets and with as bad as the catcher’s position has been, that is saying very bad for Thole. Thole spent four seasons with the Mets where he was named the opening day starter in 2011 and 2012.

In his first two years, he didn’t much play but in 2011 and 2012 he played 100-plus games in each season. Even with all that playing time those two years, Thole struggled to put up decent numbers.

In 2011, Thole hit three home runs, knocked in 41 RBIs, and had a .270 batting average. He then followed that up the next season to only hitting one home run, only twenty-one RBIs, and his batting average was below .235.

Following the 2012 season, the Mets traded Thole in the big RA Dickey trade that landed them Noah Syndergaard and two other catchers we will see on this list later on.