Manuelball: Platooning Thole
Mets catching prospect Josh Thole will make his big league debut this afternoon behind the plate in Colarado. As far as September callups go this ranks some way behind Buster Posey but is a rare event to look forward to in what has been a pretty dismal season for Met fans.
A prospect making his big league debut is always something quite exciting. It is understandable, therefore, that Met fans have been frustrated at not yet seeing Thole despite his being with the major league team since Tuesday. Jerry Manuel's decision to keep Thole out of the lineup against left-handed pitchers has drawn criticism from some but is his decision justified or is it another case of Manuel being over cautious when it comes to lefty-lefty matchups?
I take my cues here from the always fantastic Amazin' Avenue, where Eric Simon wrote on Tuesday:
A prospect making his big league debut is always something quite exciting. It is understandable, therefore, that Met fans have been frustrated at not yet seeing Thole despite his being with the major league team since Tuesday. Jerry Manuel's decision to keep Thole out of the lineup against left-handed pitchers has drawn criticism from some but is his decision justified or is it another case of Manuel being over cautious when it comes to lefty-lefty matchups?
I take my cues here from the always fantastic Amazin' Avenue, where Eric Simon wrote on Tuesday:
Jerry Manuel has hinted that Thole might be limited to playing against righties, which of course doesn't make any sense because:
...(d) Thole is hitting .333/.392/.395 vs lefties and .327/.397/.436 against righties.
So, Thole actually has better numbers against lefties in AA ball this year than he does against righties. To expand on this, according to minorleaguesplits.com, Thole, overall, is hitting .328/.395/.422 in 380 at bats at AA Binghampton this year.
114 of these at bats have been against lefties, compared to 266 ABs versus righties. So you have a smaller sample size to work with in his ABs versus lefties. You can only guess that Thole may perhaps occasionally have been pinch-hit for against leftie relievers late in games or been given a day off against lefty starter pitchers, indicating his AA coach may have a Manuel-esque aversion to lefty-lefty matchups. The discrepancies in the spltis are relatively minimal as we can see:
You can understand Manuel limiting Thole's playing time in some respects, regardless of what sort of numbers he put up against minor league leftys as he may find it hard enough just to adjust to major league pitching full stop. It is, however, hard to argue with Eric Simon when he writes "Thole might be part of the answer and should get exposure to all pitchers". The Mets hope Josh Thole will be, at least, their backup catcher of the future and he is undoubtedly the best catching prospect in the whole system so why not throw him in at the deep end and at least see how he fares against lefty pitching?
I await with baited breath Thole's debut tonight and hope that someone, somewhere can come up with a good nickname for him, cos I can't.
114 of these at bats have been against lefties, compared to 266 ABs versus righties. So you have a smaller sample size to work with in his ABs versus lefties. You can only guess that Thole may perhaps occasionally have been pinch-hit for against leftie relievers late in games or been given a day off against lefty starter pitchers, indicating his AA coach may have a Manuel-esque aversion to lefty-lefty matchups. The discrepancies in the spltis are relatively minimal as we can see:
OBP: .392 v LHP/ .397 v RHPbut would perhaps excentuate over time. To get a better indication of how Thole will fair against lefties over time we can look at his career splits (again, taken from minorleaguesplits.com):
SLG: .395 v LHP/ .436 v RHP
OPS: .787 v LHP/ .833 v RHP
v LHP (319ABs): .317/.399/.376Once again we see that Thole has better numbers against lefties but has seen considerably less plate time against southpaws than their righty counterparts. What we can basically take from these numbers is this conclusion: Josh Thole looks to be at least competant against LHPs but his playing time against them appears to have been limited. This could be down to organisational hesitance in using a young lefty hitter against lefty pitchers or simply because of the ratio of lefty to righty pitchers in the leagues he has played in.
v RHP (995 ABs): .284/.375/.378
You can understand Manuel limiting Thole's playing time in some respects, regardless of what sort of numbers he put up against minor league leftys as he may find it hard enough just to adjust to major league pitching full stop. It is, however, hard to argue with Eric Simon when he writes "Thole might be part of the answer and should get exposure to all pitchers". The Mets hope Josh Thole will be, at least, their backup catcher of the future and he is undoubtedly the best catching prospect in the whole system so why not throw him in at the deep end and at least see how he fares against lefty pitching?
I await with baited breath Thole's debut tonight and hope that someone, somewhere can come up with a good nickname for him, cos I can't.
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