15 Days Until Spring Training!
On today's continuing tour of non roster invitees, we take a break from pitchers and look at a catcher. Raul Chavez was a recent signing for the Mets to add some depth in the catching position. Going into 2011, it looks like right now that Thole will be the main catcher with Paulino getting some back up time. That being said, the nature of the position is prone to injuries and back ups in the catcher position are always needed. Generally this is a position (the back up back up catcher) that turns over in each organization quite frequency and this year it falls on Chavez.
Chavez will 38 this season and in his time in the majors (11 seasons) he has played major leagues with the Expos, Mariners, Astros, Orioles, Pirates and the Blue Jays. According to his wiki page, Chavez is a defense catcher with a good arm, and not exactly the best bat (but honestly, there are very few good hitting catchers). Here are some useful stats.
Career- .231 BA, .266 OBP, .304 SLG, .570 OPS
2009 (Majors) – 51 G, 159 AB, .258 BA, 10 R, 41 H, 8 2B, 2 HR, 15 RBI
2010 (Minors) – 55 G, 200 AB, .210 BA, 18 R, 42 H, 13 2B, 3 HR, 24 RBI
So, like hinted to earlier, not a lot of offense, but that isn't what Chavez is supposed to be bring to the table. He brings his arm and his glove, and hopefully we wont have to see it, but if we do, there are worst players to come up and provide back up support for the back up.
