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.

5) Kevin Plawecki

Kevin Plawecki also spent four seasons in Flushing and was named the opening day starter in 2018.  He was their first-round draft pick back in 2012.

Plawecki never played more than 71 games as a catcher in a single season but those were the couple of years where the Mets were platooning at the catcher’s position.

Take away the one season where Palwecki played in only 37 games, his batting average in the other three seasons never exceeded .219 and got as low as .197. Plawecki, in 2018, threw out only sixteen of the seventy base runners to attempt a steal on him giving him a twenty-three percent caught stealing percentage which was under the league average.

In 2019, the Mets shipped Plawecki off to the Cleveland Indians for Sam Haggerty and Walker Lockett.

4) John Buck

John Buck spent just one season with the Mets. He was traded to New York along with Noah Syndergaard from Toronto in the RA Dickey trade we brought up before.

Buck started in the majors in 2004 with the Kansas City Royals and throughout his career played for seven different teams. His one season in New York though he found himself as the starting catcher on opening day in 2013.

For the one season here in New York, Buck played decent for the Mets. He hit fifteen home runs, knocked in sixty RBIs but his batting average was just a mere .215.

Buck had a good arm behind the plate though when in 2013 he threw out thirty percentage of base runners that attempted a steal. That thirty percentage was above the league average.

Buck was traded at the trade deadline that same season with Marlon Byrd to the Pittsburgh Pirates who were battling for a postseason berth and they did just that while securing a win in the wild card round.

3) Rene Rivera

Rene Rivera has had a back and forth carer with the Mets. He first signed with the team in 2008 but was then released. He signed again with the Mets in 2016 and was released again during the 2017 season. Rivera signed with the Mets once more in 2019 and he is currently still on the team.

Now with all that being said Rivera still found a way to be the opening day starter in 2017. At the time Travis d’Arnuad was supposed to be the everyday starter but for a few years, he was dealing with constant injuries which opened the door for Rivera.

Rivera wasn’t a huge bat in the lineup even though in his short time he hit eight home runs and had twenty-three RBIs in the 2017 season. Rivera was more known for his play behind the plate.

In 2017, Rivera threw out thirty-six percentage of base stealers which was well above the league average that year at twenty-seven percent. Rivera always had a caught stealing percentage of thirty percent or higher.

With the good play behind the plate, the struggled bat of Rivera is what couldn’t make him an everyday starter but is a decent backup to have for some teams.

1) Wilson Ramos

Wilson Ramos, also known as “The Buffalo”, has been the Mets starting catcher for the past two seasons. He was one of Brodie Van Wagenen’s signings which most Mets fans loved when he did since Ramos was a former all-star not too long prior.

Ramos was brought in to be a big-time bat in the Mets lineup and he did just that in his first season. He hit fourteen home runs and brought in seventy-three RBIs to go along with his .288 batting average. It was awhile since the Mets had a hitting catcher like that so he was definitely appreciated by most fans.

His second season was a rough one as it was a rough season being shortened due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Where he played in forty-five of the sixty games this past season, his average dropped to under .240 but that wasn’t the worst of it for Ramos.

This past season we saw multiple times of Ramos having trouble tagging players out at the plate more because of his turnaround speed and reaction time. It cost the Mets greatly in games especially one missed tag ending in a walk-off loss when the throw from Conforto beat the runner by multiple feet.

Ramos was a good catcher to have for the two seasons and he was the best of recent catchers for the Mets, but when you look at what they put out there it wasn’t saying much.

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As we see from 2011 the catcher’s position has not been a strong point for the Mets and it has been very rough to watch. Is it too much to ask to finally just have a catcher that can do both behind the plate and in the lineup? Well with Steve Cohen in town now and a couple of names out there for the Mets to look into, the wait might not be much longer.