I am going to try hard not to make jokes about Rob Johnson. I claim to be a Mets optimist but I have been pretty cynical of late. I am sure Rob Johnson is a great guy who works hard and he is just one of many people who will get invited to spring training this year so his signing is hardly an event. Still, his number sucks, they just do. The Mets press release lauded that he had the lowest Catchers ERA (3.22) in MLB in 2009. Overlooking the fact that this "accomplishment" is three years old, I am not sure how much I buy cathcers ERA. I am a huge stat guy and am the first person to but into a new, weird stat but this is just not a thing. I know the ability to call a game is important but catchers ERA does not reflect that and is not a useful stat (or really a stat at all, more of an observation).
In his past two seasons he has posted a .191 and .190 batting average respectively, although he had a super low BABIP of .241 and .261, maybe he will get lucky again and be a .210 hitter. He only posted a positive WAR once, in 2010 with a .1, last year he posted a -.6, which means he was a half game worse than the average triple A replacement. I will certainly hold out for Rob Johnson as I do with all Mets but it doesn't look great. That being said if I was writing this blog in 2009 I probably would have written a snarky post about signing R.A. Dickey and look how great that turned out.
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