Henry Blanco: Mentor to JP Arencibia in 2013?

 

In honour of pitchers and catchers reporting to spring training this week, I thought I'd have a look at some stats and see if I can decipher who will be the back-up catcher for the Blue Jays in 2013. I started with Henry Blanco to see how his career stats portray him. One of the first things I read bout Henry Blanco: December 2nd, 2009 - his brother was shot and killed in Venezuela by kidnappers who were demanding ransom money from Henry. Wow... that's an unfortunate piece to read.  Kidnappers apparently didn't understand what Blanco's MLB salary was, and were demanding much more than Henry had access to.  I couldn't seem to come up with much more specific information; it seems the private matter wasn't especially detailed in the news beyond the initial reports.  My sympathies go out to Henry Blanco and family.

Henry Blanco is a difficult individual to research and summarize due to his sheer volume of experience.  His 15 year career, on 9 different teams, has put him in a tremendous number of noteworthy situations. He's boasted numerous accomplishments to be proud of.  He's caught and mentored some pretty big names, and has had alot of great stuff said about him in every source I looked at. He'll never be a ‘hall-of-famer’, but he'll probably be revered by teammates and counterparts as if he were one. How do you choose which significant points to touch on? I'm going to stick to explaining the key to his role in Toronto, which I think is going to be as a mentor to JP Arencibia.

JP Arencibia, with the off-season dealing of Travis D'Arneaud, has been officially anointed THE catcher for the Toronto Blue Jays.  JP is going to be the everyday guy and, if he's healthy, he'll be expected to play a lot more games in TO this season than he has in any of his past 3. At 27 years old though, with only parts of 3 seasons of experience, JP still has to have some growing-up to do. Not a knock against Arencibia; you just have to realize he’s still  relatively new to the game at the MLB level.  JP seemed to have benefited greatly from having Jose Molina as a back-up/mentor in 2011. Although Mathis was a great back-up, and seemed to be an encouraging mentor, I think Arencibia would benefit more from a mentor that he's not 'competing' with for playing time. Especially with Don Wakamatsu out as bench-coach in 2013, there is a need to have a veteran catcher presence available for Arencibia to turn to.

Henry Blanco has been credited with being a great mentor to other young catchers. He's also known as an expert at handling his pitching staffs. At his age, and the number of games he's played in his recent seasons, I'm sure he's content to just be there to give JP a day off every now and then. He's probably counting on playing less than 50 games in 2013… which is exactly what the Jays need in this back-up role. I don't think the Jays are looking for a guy to handle some of the weight for JP. I think they need someone who will help JP in learning to handle the weight himself.   

Josh Thole, who was catcher for RA Dickey's Cy Young 2012, is still relatively young (26) and is also looking to be an everyday guy himself. He still has an option on his contract, so it makes sense to keep him playing every day in Buffalo. At least as long as Blanco is still willing and able.  Thole will likely serve as the call-up guy for now in the event Arencibia needs to spend time on the DL.

Among the many Henry Blanco enthusiasts has been RA Dickey.  RA has pointed to Blanco as possibly his favorite all-time catcher to throw to.  So it makes sense that Blanco, as personal catcher to RA Dickey, would be playing just the right number of games and allowing Arencibia to handle everything that's not a knuckle-ball.  It's great that Arencibia has been enthusiastic about learning to catch Dickey, but it still makes sense to have Blanco as Dickey's catcher for 2013, giving Arencibia at least every 5th day off.  And maybe Blanco can step in from time to time to assist any pitchers who might be struggling with something.

In terms of what Arencibia needs in support of his full-time status, Henry Blanco seems to be an obvious choice. So long as he is healthy and deemed fit to cover 30-50 games in a season, Blanco looks like he'll be the back-up catcher this year. It looks to me like Anthopolous did an excellent job locating Henry Blanco and bringing him into the fold. One thing missing from Blanco's impressive resume is a World Series Ring (although he has World Series experience with Atlanta). It would be great to see Blanco add that ring to his resume in 2013.