Paul “Il Duce” LoDuca, The Greatest Met Catcher?
Copyright c 2006 by Evan Pritchard
You may have thought that the greatest all time Mets catcher was Mike Piazza, or maybe you prefer “The Kid” Gary Carter. Two of the greatest catchers who ever put on a Met uniform (not including Yogi,who was only a manager). But what if Paul LoDuca (whom I will call Il Duce, after Mussolini, another Italian with charisma) turns out to be the greatest catcher to ever occupy the invisible throne behind home plate at Shea? Hey, you never know.
It seems insensitive to talk about any one else right now behind the plate at Shea. Aren’t we supposed to have a year of mourning for the loss of Mike Piazza, complete with sackcloth, hair cutting, and Wailing for Tammuz? Aren’t we supposed to erect a monument between the right and left batter’s boxes in Queens engraved with an inscription that says, “Behold my works and despair” followed by Piazza’s lifetime stats. Let’s say we did and then don’t. and anyway, it would only mess up the visiting catcher’s view of the strike zone.
It goes without saying, at least on Roosevelt Avenue, that Mike Piazza was an exciting player, all those stolen bases…by the other team. His stolen base numbers are up there with Maury Wills, and I don’t mean he’s fast. But he had a certain personal power. I personally witnessed his personal power against the Atlanta Bullies in 2000, when he hit that granny and it was the most frigidly frozen of ropes I had ever seen. Surely he was a man of great power in his day. Ave Piazza!
Mike Piazza will always be remembered for his heroic 2001 season, among others. In that season, Mighty Mike hit .300 in a total of 141 regular season games, with 503 at bats, 81 runs scored, 151 hits 29 doubles, 36 homers, and 94 RBIs. Wow, what a year! Mets fans thought, “It doesn’t get any better than this!”
That is unless you looked over on the left coast and saw that a young Brooklyn-born catcher with the former Brooklyn Dodgers, and the former team of none other than Mike Piazza, in fact his replacement there in 1998 as well as here in 2006, was tearing up the basepaths in similar fashion. That young man grew up to be Paul LoDuca. Let’s do a stat by stat comparison of both players in 2001. Pretty amazing!
In that fabled year, Paul LoDuca had a batting average that was a full 20 points higher than Piazzas, and you can look it up (.320). He scored ten less times but only one less double. He had the same number of three-baggers, zero, not surprising for a backstop. And of course, eleven less homers, which is why Piazza was Piazza, but only four less RBI’s and four less hits, possibly attributable to his batting 43 less times in 16 less games.
Analysts might argue that the ten more homers by Piazza more than equaled the 20 fewer points in the batting column as compared to LoDuca. I agree. Most players willingly give up 2 points on their average for each extra home run during an entire year, maybe more. Plus, those missing 43 at bats are worth at least two homers. And folks who like home runs will like Piazza more than LoDuca. Granted. But let’s not be hasty. There’s more to baseball than batting. We can’t forget about fielding. Can we?
In 2001, Piazza and LoDuca each had the same exact fielding percentage as a catcher, .991, not bad numbers! Where LoDuca blows away Mr. Piazza is in fielding at other positions. Piazza in 2004 had a .982 percentage behind the plate, and a .985 percentage at first base, the only year he split fielding duties. These are weak numbers. In the year 2000, Lo Duca fielded 1.000 (As Yogi Berra would say, that’s pretty near perfect) in right field, 1.000 in left field, 1.000 at third base, and .992 as catcher. Did I say third base? You bet! Can you imagine Piazza filling in for David Wright now and then, turning in errorless ball every game? NO WAY JOSE REYES!
When it comes to filling in a first, LoDuca did that a lot in 2001, turning in a .990 fielding percentage, five points better than Piazza’s first base performance in 2004.
“So what?” You say. “Mighty Mike’s still the greatest! This new guy on the block…he’s just a slice of Piazza…with chili peppers!”
Okay, so maybe LoDuca will never achieve that which Piazza already has earned for himself, a plaque in the Hall of Fame with a Mets hat on. (He’d better not go in as a member of the Sandy Eggo Padres, or there’ll be **** to pay)And LoDuca, with his leg injuries, is now almost as lame a mule as Piazza was last year, so let’s be reasonable. But consider that LoDuca is still four years younger than Piazza, and his yearly salary is $6.25 an hour—I mean six and a quarter mill, with Los Metsos, versus Piazza’s $16 million of last year, and more than the 2 mill in retirement pension Piazza gets with the “Old Granddads” for this coming season. LoDuca has more to prove. Yon catcher has a lean and hungry look. He’s tough, he’s scrappy, he doesn’t dye his hair, he’s a native New Yorker from way back, and does not want to graze in the fields of ripe raspberries at Flushing Meadows by striking out. He wants his last four or five years in the game to make the history books, and not just as “Piazza Lite.” He’s going to play hard.
Mets fans have a lot to look forward to behind the plate, if LoDuca can find a faith healer from Los Angeles who will agree to come and sit with him in the Mets dugout between innings and massage his bandy legs. That’s not a lot to ask. In any case, LoDuca is the wild card on this Mets team. If he even becomes more than a shadow of his former self on the playing field, the entire team will be lifted up by his gung-ho attitude and amazing versatility. The guy was born to be a Met. Let him sit in the best seat in the house, the place behind the plate at “Shea Omar,” where Piazza used to hold court, but now does so no more. Piazza has turned his face to the west. Life goes on. Paul “Il Duce” LoDuca is the new leader. As the great Italian team leader Julius Ceasar once said, "Crede-Te!" (You Gotta Believe!)
Amazine 