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According to Joel Sherman in a report for the New York Post, 
the Blue Jays were very close to signing a one-year contract with Paul Lo Duca to be the backup catcher to Gregg Zaun.
The Nationals are also looking at Lo Duca to serve as a back-up, reports Jerry Crasnick in an update for ESPN.com.
…yikes…sorry, paulie…for what it’s worth, from what i can gather out of lo duca’s situation with the Mets, the team’s lack of interest may actually have had less to do with his off-field identity, and mostly everything to do with a) his initial contract demands, b) the Mets urgency to fill the position, and c) the team wanting to find the best possible defensive catcher it could get…and so lo duca was dismissed…
from an all star to a backup like that.. wow though he’ll get more time then the average backup im sure
Omar and the Mets organization destroyed Lo Duca’s career…This is a disgrace……Let’s see how Omar feels when he is dismissed and no team will want him……..
Don’t be absurd. How on earth did they destroy his career?
What????
If you look at posts on this site from when it first started (when the team was REALLY bad) and compare them to now, you might find yourself shaking your head….
Probably why you don’t see many old regulars around here anymore
Mets organization didn’t destroy him, but they did set him up for failure.
Uh, how did they set him up for failure? Paulie’s lack of hitting, questionable game calling (maybe), and poor fielding were his own fault. And the Mets certainly didn’t tell him to put his foot in his mouth on numerous occasions. And they obviously have nothing to do with the fact that he’s advancing in age which kills his desirability. So how is it the Mets’ fault???
They inexplicably moved him from the 2 hole where he thrives. They gave absolutely ZERO reason. His job was to take pitches and move runs not hit monster HR’s. His fielding was fine. Sure both his hitting slipped a bit.
Game calling? That’s total BS. That is the most overrated part of baseball, everyone points to it to prove a point b/c no one can disprove it. Foot in his mouth? That’s the reason why they demoted him, not for any other reason.
Anything else?
Inexplicably? Huh? Thrives? Huh? He had 128 ABs hitting second this year. In that spot, his OBP was .289 and his OPS was .641. That’s worse than what the rookie Jesus Flores had this year at RFK which is even more of a pitchers park than Shea!
As for his fielding, his CS% was just .234 and has been steadily declining every year since 2003. He also had 9 errors this year and 11 in 2006. That’s on the high side. I would say his fielding is average at best. But that’s being kind.
I will agree with you that game calling is very hard for a fan to judge. You can’t easily use CERA. Only the manager, pitching coach, pitching staff, and general manager have a real good handle on this. But consider that the Mets staff fell apart at the end. The staff ERA in September was 5.11. After September 14, there were only 2 really good games pitched by the starters, and Castro caught both of them. The other games were either nightmares or mediocre for the starters.
I doubt Paulie putting his foot in his mouth had anything to do with them dropping him in the batting order. That’s insane to think so. They wouldn’t let something so trivial (relatively speaking) affect their chances of winning games. No, it was his own ineffective hitting.
I still don’t see any evidence that they “set him up” for failure.
LoDuca destroyed his career all by his lonesome. Thank his big mouth, gambling, skirt chasing ways….
Does anyone know if we get a draft pick from whoever signs Paulie?
from what I understand, we don’t.
No we declined him arbitration, which at this point, he might have accepted.
Nice move, Omar you turd… we now have 3 back-up catchers to replace him. Gimme Lo Duca’s intensity any day, at least he gave a damn.
You don’t think that the fact that he can’t get a job anywhere else might mean it was a good move to part ways with him?
we won’t get a pick because we didn’t offer him arbitration. the pick would have been a supplemental pick after the first round.
http://dcbb.blogspot.com/2007/12/blowduca.html
interestingly enough, the perception elsewhere is that LoDuca is an aging catcher who will only decline over the next few years. Fire and grit are nice but he’s not likely to be a good offensive player anymore and he certainly isn’t a good defensive player.
This is insane. The guy hit .272 last season and that was his lowest batting average since becoming a regular catcher. Maybe a lot of teams are placing a higher value on defensive catching.
you said it.
.272 lowest BA of his career
He’s 36
and he’s catcher….
that says it all. He’s likely on the downside of his career.
C’mon – my point is that even at his lowest (by one point over 5 years ago), he can hit very well – way better than Schneider ever did. The Mets threw away a lineup slot.
what makes you think he’s going to maintain what he did last season.?
His BA dropped 30 points. He’s not getting younger and he’s become injury prone. And he’s a defensive liability.
If he was all that don’t you think someone would be offering a contract as a starting catcher and not a back-up?
Put away that stat book and think about it for a second.
I will add (and I know most will disagree) that Lo Duca added at least as much to the Mets on the field as Pedro has so far.
Yes count me among the disagreers. LoDuca was marginal over his 2 years — pretty good in 06 (though more luck than anything else), fairly mediocre in 07. He has no power, bad arm, and got hurt a lot (last year). Pedro, on the other hand, brought instant credibility, many wins, and Carlos Beltran. Yeah, I get it.
I think it’s all silly. Pedro has won 27 games in 3 seasons with the mets for the approx. 35 million that he has been paid. Another poster wrote that proof of Lo Duca’s decline is that his batting avg. fell around 45 points. He batted .277 this season after.318 in 06. In 2001, he batted .320 and the following season, he batted .280, so I don’t really see this as necessarily an older catcher in decline. Not to the extent that he should fall in ML teams eyes as far as tonight’s posts are stating and that his possible signing situation might turn into. There are plenty of catchers that can’t throw out a lot of runners – most of them. Posada just signed that huge deal and allowed ONE HUNDRED AND TWO runners to steal in 07 and threw out only 32 – much worse than Paulie. Schneider’s defensive numbers are better than Lo Duca’s but if you want to talk about decline, look at his throwing out basestealer’s numbers. And in regard to Pedro, I wrote *on the field” contributions which doesn’t include getting us Beltran.
hilarious! your favorite brooklyn boy is going to be a back-up catcher. go ahead…blame his age, crap defense, big mouth, and bad playcalling on minaya and los mets
ya know…is it so crazy to think that Minn. Yanks, and Mets could consider a three way trade? benefit to Yanks–Sawx dont get Johan. Benefit to Mets–uhhhh, duh. Benefit to Minn. yanks seem to fit better with what they want. I have NO idea how the pieces could fit together, but the motivation makes sense, no? Or am i just CRAZY?
first I heard of it. tell me more?
He’s agreed to be a back-up? And to Gregg Zaun? WTF?
The Mets said LoDuca wanted a 3 year deal and he got a 1 year deal. Liars.
who lied? I’m sure he did want a 3 year deal. He just had to take a 1 year deal when that was all that was offered.
i think its hilarious that loduca thought he was gonna get more money than he got this year…
had he really wanted to play for the mets next year, he would’ve agreed to do a 1 year deal at the same salary as this year
( 6 mil )
he needs to fire his agent…there was no market for him…the mets simply said thanks…
now with all that being said, they could trade shneider…non-tender estrada and offer paulie a 1 yr deal but thats unlikely
sry, no basis at all in fact…just an original thought. Hope omar can think outside the box as well.
i’m a lo duca fan, but he dug his own grave with the mets. he complained publically for the last few months of the season. the wilpons hate negative attention to a point that it borders being paranoid. whining coupled with the drama about the young girls and gambling led to this.
mets let lo duca go along with dumping milledge and mota b/c they don’t want any drama next year. i would have kept milledge, but i understand what they’re doing
But they traded Milledge for a guy who said he wants to warn non-christians like jews that they are going to hell. So, literally his philosophy is that the Wilpons are going to hell. Hey, that’s a real moral and drama upgrade over Lo Duca. It’s just a style over substance type of clean-cut image facelift.
and if the wilpons are religious jews they believe that ryan church and other christians or gentiles are not chosen by g-d.
welcome to religion. church wasn’t attacking any group or being anti-semetic. that’s ridiculous. i’m the last guy that wants to defend one of these over-the-top religious $%&#, but come on.
[...] Comment on Buzz: Lo Duca and the Blue Jays by VCarverBy VCarverBut that’s being kind. I will agree with you that game calling is very hard for a fan to judge. You can’t easily use CERA. Only the manager, pitching coach, pitching staff, and general manager have a real good handle on this. …Comments for MetsBlog.com – http://www.metsblog.com [...]
that is hot; what else do they want?
What do we give up? Sounds pretty vague and goofy.
I don’t know why I’m bothering to respond to Murti’s babblings, given how off the mark he’s been all week, but:
Detroit just shipped out a young OF and a young LH SP, both considered “sure things”, plus a bunch of other prospects, one of whom was highly regarded. They have NO holes in their rotation or lineup, so they don’t need ML talent.
If they want to cut payroll, Schneider for Pudge is a good swap; for Willis, though, expect to replace Maybin — probably with Gomez, maybe with F-Mart — and give them a future SP and a current RP.
That gets us to Schneider, Mulvey, Heilman and Gomez for Pudge & Willis. Now, since every Met fan alive would do that trade in an instant, it probably doesn’t work for the Tigers…
more BS?