Is There A Catcher Controversy?

Mike Napoli played last night for the first time in over a month while recovering from a pulled hamstring. In his absence, Jeff Mathis has performed really well. No player should lose their job due to an injury, but I wouldn't be surprised if the two split the catching duties the rest of the season.

It's not that Mathis has played that much better, it's just that the Angels believe he has a higher ceiling than Napoli. And the Angels love playing with the long term in mind.

Both catchers were in spring training in 2006 when the 23-year old Mathis beat out everybody for the Angels Opening Day starting catcher job. Mathis wasn't ready and proved it to everybody by hitting just .103 (4-for-39) before Jose Molina and Napoli took over the catching duties. More frustrating was that Mathis didn't do a good job defensively. He has been named the Angels' Minor League Defensive Player Of The Year three times, but wasn't ready for that at the Major League level either.

With Mathis being sent back down, Napoli came in and hit .286 (40-for-140) with a .990 ops before the All-Star Break last season. It seemed like Napoli was the catcher of the future; the guy that everyone expected Mathis to be.

Then Napoli had a bad second half. He hit just .122 in August and finished the second half hitting just .164 (21-for-128) with an ops of .624. Meanwhile, Mathis continued to work on his game and hit .289 at AAA Salt Lake.

The starting catcher competition was opened up again this spring and Napoli won the job. Napoli played well this season. He was solid defensively and was hitting .253 with an ops of .805, before his injury. Meanwhile, Mathis was struggling offensively at Salt Lake hitting just .244, 45 points lower than last season.

Despite Mathis' lack of offense in AAA, the Angels felt confident enough with him as a back up that they traded their veteran backup catcher Jose Molina to the Yankees on July 21st. One week later, Napoli injured his hamstring stealing second base and the job was handed to Mathis.

With nobody looking over his shoulder, Mathis was able to relax. Maybe being relaxed was the difference. He has done a great job defensively, saving wild pitches left and right. Offensively he has struggled until this past week. In the last seven games, he has gone 11-for-26 (.423) with 5 multi-hit games and has raised his average from .200 to .246. He has also hit 3 home runs this past week.

Right now, I think the Angels will have the catchers split time to give Napoli a chance to get back to game speed. So the controversy will be put on hold.

However, come game one of the playoffs, we'll see who starts at catcher and let the debate begin.