How I Learned To Forget Mike Piazza And Love The Mets

By Pat Andriola
Posted Wednesday, March 21, 2007

As Spring Training rolls to an end, most Mets are anxiously awaiting the start of the 2007 season. For years, there was one thing certain of the Mets lineup heading into a season; Mike Piazza would be batting third. But, as the team enters it's second season without it's former brightest star, fewer seem to notice now than before. I wouldn’t even put it past most Mets fans to feign not knowing where Mike Piazza is even playing these days (he’ll be DH'ing for the Oakland A’s). Is it sad that most fans aren’t missing the Met legend, whose battles with Roger Clemens, ability to get on base, and incredible power will most likely have him as the first hitter to enter the Hall of Fame with a Mets cap? Not at all.

Mets fans' amnesia for Mike Piazza should be embraced as a sign of the Mets strength in the National League. Mike will always be remembered fondly, but he still won’t find his way into relevant Mets talk when the Mets begin play in 2007. Ironically, the main reason for all this may be thanks to Mike’s replacement, Paul Lo Duca.

There’s no easy way to do it. The next starting shortstop with the Yankees could be known as “Not Derek Jeter” and the same goes with the replacement of any great sports star. All the new player can do is play his way out of being hassled for not being the former player. Luckily for the Mets, that is exactly what Paul Lo Duca has done.

Coming over from Florida in a trade that sent pitching prospect Gaby Hernandez to the Marlins, Paul Lo Duca walked into the Mets clubhouse right away and made his mark. Throughout the season he hit will enough and threw out more than 1 out of 10 runners to be embraced by Mets fans. Maybe it’s the because he’s 5’10 at 185 lbs. Maybe it’s because he goes up to the plate with “Saturday Night Fever” roaring from the loudspeakers, or maybe it’s just the “tough-guy” persona the Italian kid from Brooklyn carries, but whatever the reason, he has been embraced by Mets fans.

Of course, personality and good looks alone won’t cut it in New York (just ask Todd Pratt…), you also have to be one of the best players in the league. Lo Duca might not have produced Piazza's gaudy numbers, but he hit well out of the 2-hole for the Mets in 2006. He had highest OPS outside of the 2001 season, when he was in the top 20 for the MVP voting. He also threw out 32% of baserunners, while hitting the most doubles of his career.

Coming into the 2006 season, many people realized what Paul Lo Duca brought to the Mets’ clubhouse aside from raw statistics. Baseball Prospectus was down on his numbers, but commented that Lo Duca would “be the scrappy, popular esophagus of the club".

The New York media might also like Lo Duca because of the attention he brings. In the middle of the 2006 season, Paul and his wife got a divorce after rumors escalated that Paul had an affair with a teenage girl. In the off-season, John Thomson talked about not signing with the Mets in part of Lo Duca, saying that “as far as just looking at Paul Lo Duca across the field, I'm not really into how he acts behind the plate. I know a bit about [Toronto catcher] Gregg Zaun, and I know he wants to win and he's not going to let anything get in his way to do that, and I like that.” Thomson’s comments brought even more controversy, as he questioned Paul’s drive to win.

While the New York press savored the moments when Mike Piazza dyed his hair blonde, publicly criticized his move to first base, and held press conferences announcing that he was a heterosexual, Lo Duca was able to provide more than his share more than his fair share of back page fodder.

A year older, Lo Duca might yet suffer a mild decline in production, but Baseball Prospectus’ PECOTA only sees him losing about 15 points in OPS and .3 points in WARP (Wins Above Replacement Player). But sabermetrics aside, LoDuca is just hoping to embark on the 2007 season and attempt to bring to the team the same things he brought in 2006; a solid bat, a nice glove, and some pizzazz. While he might not be here past 2007, Lo Duca has still given Mets fans a very important gift - the ability to forget.
 

Professor Pat Andriola would like to further clarify that intangibles aren't really his favorite statistic (he likes WARP-3 the best), and so he hopes his fellow sabermetricians don't yell at him for using words like "fiery" and "pizzazz". You can check more of his writing at his Mets blog, www.SheaFaithful.com.