PIAZZA: TIME TO CATCH ON
Hall of Famer challenges Met backstops d’Arnaud & Plawecki
PORT ST. LUCIE — Mike Piazza expects more. With the Mets building their team around pitching, they need their young catchers to step up their performance this season. Saturday, Piazza said he wants to talk to Travis d’Arnaud and Kevin Plawecki about challenging themselves and each other to get better.
“First off they are great guys. And I think that’s important. They are very solid guys, they take care of themselves and work hard,” said Piazza who is at the Mets’ spring training camp as a special instructor. “There is nothing wrong with looking at Travis and Kevin and challenging them to get better; to play better this year, to improve their performance realistically, not hitting 50 home runs, but exponentially getting more quality out of their at-bats. Get more quality out of the games. Being pragmatic, and realistic, but wanting to get better.”
While the Mets had a chance to sign veteran catcher Jonathan Lucroy, the Mets felt the 31-year-old veteran would not be an improvement over d’Arnaud-Plawecki at this point.
Mets GM Sandy Alderson has repeatedly given the platoon plan as a way to keep them both fresh and healthy.
“We like the potential of both players,” Alderson said earlier this month. “We think the way they grade out against the rest of the league is at least a little above average, and looking at the alternatives available to us, we felt these two guys were our best option.”
Piazza pointed out that the Mets cannot just settle for what they have gotten from the duo. D’Arnaud is a career .245 hitter with a .306 on-base percentage and .406 slugging percentage over parts of five injury-plagued years in the big leagues. Plawecki is a .222 career hitter with a .304 on-base percentage and .310 slugging percentage in parts of three seasons in the big leagues.
D’Arnaud and Plawecki are good friends who work well together on the field. They came into camp prepared to share the catching duties this season, not so worried about their playing time. Plawecki, who had a two-run single in Saturday’s game, said it’s a different situation, but one that he feels is beneficial to both.
“We are both competitors, we both want to win. Same time, we both root for each other…. Yeah, it’s a competition, but it’s a friendly competition,” Plawecki said. “Where I think we can both turn it into positive and benefit from it rather sit there and wish bad things on somebody else. That’s not our character, it’s not in us. We both look at it as a blessing having us both be so young, we can bounce ideas off each other, we can help carry the staff as much as we can and allow them to feel comfortable with us. When it comes to game time, we are both rooting for each other. Ultimately, we both want to win.”
It’s an unusual situation, not just how close Plawecki and d’Arnaud are, but to have two young, righthanded hitting catchers willing to share time. Mickey Callaway has said he is comfortable with it since both have different strengths.
“The good point about our catchers is they both can hit and both cover different parts of the plate which is very good especially if you don’t have a lefthanded hitting catcher and a righthanded hitting catcher,” the Mets manager said. “So we have two righties that cover different parts of the plate and that’s going to allow us to use their strengths against whoever is pitching that day.”
BSIMMONS/DAILY NEWS @MrT @rainnwilson ut Piazza, who is expected to speak with the catchers on Sunday, wants to see them challenging themselves and each other.
“I think they have the experience now, comes from confidence, belief in themselves. You can’t be afraid to take that next step,” Piazza said. “You can’t be afraid to put yourself out there. And it doesn’t mean you haven’t been playing hard. There is a difference between playing hard and playing better and getting results. I am expecting more out of them.
“A team like this, especially with (Callaway’s) philosophy on pitching, there is nothing wrong with challenging them to take the next step.”
With a team built on pitching, d’Arnaud and Plawecki have to expect more of themselves as well.