Apparently the first-base competition isn’t the only open one in Mets’ camp this year. According to Brian Costa at the Star-Ledger (with hat-tip to Matt Cerrone), Omar Minaya has deemed the Opening Day catcher’s job up for grabs between Omir Santos and Josh Thole.

Again, I don’t want to read too much into anything, since Spring Training hasn’t even actually started yet. But if I can hope that the first-base stuff isn’t true, I’ll hope that this catcher stuff is.

I know the conventional wisdom says Thole needs at least a half season more to learn the job in Triple-A. But I wonder why, if Thole is going to learn how to catch somewhere in 2010, he can’t do it at the big-league level.

After all, Cerrone has been reporting all offseason how he hears that Mets pitchers don’t much care for pitching to Extra-Base Omir. And while I don’t love getting into the buzz game nor put too much stock in the nebulous “game-calling abilities” so often credited to veteran catchers,  I’ve heard the same thing (quite likely from the same people).

So if they’ve got one guy the pitchers don’t like throwing to after a full season behind the plate with little offensive upside, and another guy the pitchers haven’t yet thrown to with a little bit of offensive upside, why not opt for the latter and hope he can learn on the job?

A midseason call-up for Thole, while it would provide him with some time for Minor League seasoning, would also mean he’d have to get accustomed to the whims of all the Major League pitchers on the fly. And the Mets’ pitchers have a whole lot of whims.

Obviously that’s not all there is to catching, of course. Santos actually scored pretty well in Driveline Mechanics’ attempt to rate catcher defense earlier this offseason. In a small sample, Thole wasn’t as great, though he didn’t entirely embarrass himself either.

Joe Janish — a guy who knows a whole lot more about the position than I ever will — has maintained all offseason that Thole is nowhere near ready for prime time.

Still, I imagine Joe was holding Thole up in comparison to potential free-agent options and not just to Omir Santos. And since luminaries like Bengie Molina, Yorvit Torrealba and Rod Barajas are not walking through that door, it strikes me that Thole might now appear the Mets’ best option to start the season.

Moreover, Thole hits left-handed — something Jerry Manuel himself identified as important earlier this offseason. The addition of Jason Bay to a lineup that already included David Wright and Jeff Francoeur made the team’s batting order pretty heavily right-handed, especially if it will include Santos. Thole gives Manuel another option to break up the righties in the lineup, and, more importantly, another hitter who might not represent an automatic out.

That’s no guarantee, of course. Thole hit well in his brief audition with the big club in 2009 and can boast a .379 Minor League on-base percentage, but his 59 plate appearances in the Majors were his first above Double-A.

Still, it probably won’t be hard for Thole to offensively outperform Santos. Not only did the latter post a brutal .260/.296/.391 line last year, but since he actually bettered his career Minor League OPS, there’s reason to believe he was playing a bit over his head.

So it boils down to whether Thole will be able to hit enough to make up for the defensive difference with Santos. I don’t know that he can, but I’m sure it’s worth considering.

We shall see, I suppose.

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Josh Alper calls Omar Minaya “the Optimism Killer” at NBC New York today because of Minaya’s recent suggestion that Daniel Murphy and Mike Jacobs are in an “open competition” for the first-base job, something I’ve weighed in on here already. Alper writes:

If you’re willing to put a scrub like Jacobs into an open competition with a player that you already know, why wouldn’t you go after a halfway decent player? Or, getting really crazy here, signing a righty bat to platoon with Murphy so that you limit Murphy’s downside and make the Mets a better team? We won’t even bother wondering why there’s no such challenge provided for Luis Castillo at second base.

Alper’s post is a good read and he makes some good points. And I’ve seen similar around the blogosphere today — a general sense of worry that Mike Jacobs, Mike .297 on-base percentage Jacobs, could beat out Daniel Murphy, Daniel means-business Murphy, and end up the Mets’ starting first baseman.

I know Adam Rubin’s excellent blog post today sparked some of the talk, too. And Jacobs is appearing on Mets Hot Stove on Thursday, so that should fire up Twitter once more.

Still, I’m guessing it’s nothing. I’ve never met Jacobs, but I’m betting he’s a nice guy and a good quote, and so writers and show producers without much other material to work with are lining him up for conversations. So we’re hearing his name a lot.

And Rubin’s story is a great one. The bit about Pedro throwing a fit when the Mets tried to send Jacobs down after a pinch-hit home run, with Dae-Sung Koo as the villain? It’s a must read. Of course Rubin wants to recount that story. He’s a writer — he is paid to tell stories.

Maybe I’m in denial, of course. Maybe this is really some sort of nefarious plot by the Mets’ uber-savvy media-relations department to implant Mike Jacobs into our unsuspecting minds, forcing us to fall in love with him in spite of his offensive and defensive shortcomings.

Color me skeptical. Smart money says Murphy’s still the guy and Minaya used the term “open competition” out of some combination of wanting to light a fire under Murphy, not wanting to denigrate Jacobs — who has been a Major League regular for most of his career — and not knowing what else to say.

That’s what I’m hoping, at least.

Of course, if you believe the “Mets are foisting Mike Jacobs upon us” conspiracy, you also recognize that I work at SNY and thus am part of the machine. And in that case, clearly this post is just misdirection meant to distract you from the Mets’ actual genius master plan to load up their lineup with guys with tiny on-base percentages and no range.