Apparently he isn't.
Forgive me if I'm not jumping up and down about the Yorvit Torrealba signing, as I'm generally resistant to change. My feeling was that if Jorge Posada wasn't signable, the next-best option was to Keep Paul Lo Duca. You'll recall that when I did an analysis of who could catch for the Mets in 2008, my ringing endorsement for Torrealba was that he was "better than Brian Schneider." And this move doesn't exactly console me for what happened at the end of the 2007 season.
Baseball-Reference.com lists Torrealba's most similar player as Jason Phillips and it looks like Torrealba is a candidate to join Phillips on the all-slow footed Mets team we drew up a couple years back. Torrealba hit into 19 double plays, struck out 73 times, and hit .201 with runners in scoring position in 396 at bats last season, so that means he's gonna kill his share of rallies. I'll put it this way: I won't be upset any time Ramon Castro draws the start.
That said, Torrealba is a Met now and he's special in his own unique way (like Hobie Landrith, who was the only Hobie in major-league history, Torrealba is the only Yorvit). I'd also like to think he's special because of something that happened on July 27, 2006.
The fourth-place Rockies were playing the first-place Padres, and trailing by two runs with two outs and nobody on against Trevor Hoffman in the ninth inning. Todd Helton singled, to keep the game going for Torrealba, who was batting sixth that day.
Normally in that matchup, I'd take Trevor Hoffman. In fact, I'd probably do so 99 times out of 100 (or, 1 out of 8, as those are Torrealba's career numbers against baseball's save king). Fortunately for the Rockies, they drew the right one. Torrealba crushed Hoffman's first pitch over the leftfield fence for a game-tying home run and the Rockies went on to win in the bottom of the 10th on Jamey Carroll's single against Scott Williamson.
I realize that it's not a lot to go on at this point, but at least it's good to know that Torrealba does have the occasional clutch knock in him. Whether he's got the knock, and the knack to succeed in New York, I guess we'll be finding out.
True Metbealbas know... Torrealba has homered more than once against one major-league pitcher. It happens to be the guy who won the NL Cy Young today (Jake Peavy, 2 HR).
Forgive me if I'm not jumping up and down about the Yorvit Torrealba signing, as I'm generally resistant to change. My feeling was that if Jorge Posada wasn't signable, the next-best option was to Keep Paul Lo Duca. You'll recall that when I did an analysis of who could catch for the Mets in 2008, my ringing endorsement for Torrealba was that he was "better than Brian Schneider." And this move doesn't exactly console me for what happened at the end of the 2007 season.
Baseball-Reference.com lists Torrealba's most similar player as Jason Phillips and it looks like Torrealba is a candidate to join Phillips on the all-slow footed Mets team we drew up a couple years back. Torrealba hit into 19 double plays, struck out 73 times, and hit .201 with runners in scoring position in 396 at bats last season, so that means he's gonna kill his share of rallies. I'll put it this way: I won't be upset any time Ramon Castro draws the start.
That said, Torrealba is a Met now and he's special in his own unique way (like Hobie Landrith, who was the only Hobie in major-league history, Torrealba is the only Yorvit). I'd also like to think he's special because of something that happened on July 27, 2006.
The fourth-place Rockies were playing the first-place Padres, and trailing by two runs with two outs and nobody on against Trevor Hoffman in the ninth inning. Todd Helton singled, to keep the game going for Torrealba, who was batting sixth that day.
Normally in that matchup, I'd take Trevor Hoffman. In fact, I'd probably do so 99 times out of 100 (or, 1 out of 8, as those are Torrealba's career numbers against baseball's save king). Fortunately for the Rockies, they drew the right one. Torrealba crushed Hoffman's first pitch over the leftfield fence for a game-tying home run and the Rockies went on to win in the bottom of the 10th on Jamey Carroll's single against Scott Williamson.
I realize that it's not a lot to go on at this point, but at least it's good to know that Torrealba does have the occasional clutch knock in him. Whether he's got the knock, and the knack to succeed in New York, I guess we'll be finding out.
True Metbealbas know... Torrealba has homered more than once against one major-league pitcher. It happens to be the guy who won the NL Cy Young today (Jake Peavy, 2 HR).
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