"Catcher Matt Nokes has shown the ability to hit with power, throw out would-be base stealers and catch an intelligent game. Demonstrating these skills on a consistent basis has been another matter, as his 1992 season will attest.
But the 29-year-old Yankee does not believe in looking backward. For all intents and purposes, his .224 batting, 22 home runs and 59 RBi performance was an aberration.
'He's got a chance to become a heck of an offensive player. He's 29 years old. The best years of a guy's life are usually between 28 and 32,' says Frank Howard, the Yankees' '92 hitting instructor and first base coach this season.
For the Yankees to compete in the AL East race, Nokes must perform at his 1991 level when he slugged 24 homers, drove in 77 runs, and was second in the league in games caught. His left-handed swing is tailor-made for Yankee Stadium, and he can carry a team when he's hot offensively.
'Last season I said to him 'You haven't even hit the way Matt Nokes can hit and you've still got 20-plus home runs.' When Matty gets hot, he can carry a club offensively,' Howard adds.
And if he does, watch out."
-The New York Yankees Official 1993 Yearbook
"In 1992 Nokes hit .224 with 22 home runs and 59 RBIs.
He hit just .228 in April. He hit his first homer in his 28th at-bat on April 19 against Cleveland (off Rod Nichols). Nokes hit in a season-best five straight games from April 19-24 (7-for-19). All three of his RBIs in April came on home runs, all at home.
Matt hit .233 with four homers and 14 RBIs in May. He was hitting .246 on May 1 but went into a 1-for-20 skid through May 13, dropping his batting average to .198. On May 24 against Milwaukee, he had a game-winning single in the last of the ninth to give the Yankees an 8-7 win.
All seven of his home runs in May came at home. His first road homer came on June 1 at Texas (off Jeff M. Robinson). Matt had a tough June, hitting .164 with two homers and seven RBIs.
On July 1 at Kansas City, he hit a game-winning two-run pinch-hit homer off Tom Gordon. He was hitting .206 with 12 homers and 30 RBIs at the break. On July 20 Nokes caught Shawn Hillegas' 5-hit 1-0 shutout of the A's. On July 28 against Baltimore, he was beaned by a Ben McDonald pitch in the 3rd inning and missed a game because of it. He hit .218 in July.
In the first eight games of August, Nokes hit four home runs, and in August had his most home runs (6) and RBIs (15). He had his best batting average in September/October, hitting .288 (3 HR, 9 RBI). On September 30 at Cleveland, he hit his first triple since May 24, 1990.
Over his final 14 games he hit .356 (16-for-45). He hit .250 with 10 homers and 29 RBIs after the break.
Nokes finished second on the club in both homers and intentional bases on balls (11). He ranked second in the American League in home runs as a catcher (21) to Detroit's Mickey Tettleton and in RBIs by a catcher (57) to Brian Harper (72).
He had a two-homer game in 1992 and now has 11 for his career. Nokes hit career home run No. 100 on May 13 against Seattle (off Hanson), which was also his fifth career grand slam, and his July 1 blast off Gordon was his third career pinch homer. 14 of his first 21 RBIs and 40 of 59 overall were accounted for by home runs. He also drew a career best 37 walks, his best professional total since his 41 for Shreveport in 1985.
Matt hit .266 with a team high 18 homers at home, .188 on the road. He hit .278 with a team best 11 homers in 40 day games, .198 in night games. Matt hit .230 with a team best 17 homers against right-handed pitching, .197 with five homers against lefties.
He hit .263 with runners in scoring position and less than two out and drove in 10 of 24 runners from third with less than two out. He was 2-for-10 with a home run and five RBIs with the bases loaded.
He caught 111 games and made just four errors, ranking fourth in the AL with a .993 fielding percentage. He threw out 25 of 133 (195) potential base stealers. The Yankee pitching staff's ERA was 4.20 (904) innings when Nokes was the catcher.
He signed a three-year contract in January 1992. The contract runs through the 1994 season.
1991 was a solid season. Nokes hit .268 with a team-leading 24 homers and 77 RBIs.
His first home run came on April 13 in his 14th at-bat at Kansas City off Bret Saberhagen. On April 26 at Chicago, Nokes had a game-winning 11th-inning RBI single.
Nokes hit .276 with five homers and 11 RBIs in May. He hit all five of his May homers in 56 at-bats. He was behind the plate on May 1 at Oakland when Rickey Henderson stole his record-breaking 939th base but did catch Rickey stealing twice in that game. From May 11-14, Matt hit home runs in three straight games for the third time in his career (the other two times were in 1987). He hit .293 through the first two months of the season.
He continued his even pace in June, hitting .270 with four home runs and 12 RBIs. On June 12 at Minnesota, he made his first start against a left-handed pitcher.
On July 6, Matt went 2-for-4 with two homers and a career-best six RBIs. At the break he was hitting .286 with 13 homers and 43 RBIs. July was his best month power-wise, as he hit .273 with seven home runs and 23 RBIs, including three two-homer games.
Matt had a two-home run game on August 1 against Minnesota and at the end of the day was hitting .284 with 20 home runs and 58 RBIs for the season. He would hit just .155 with four homers and 19 RBIs over the final 55 games.
On September 23 at Milwaukee, he hit a grand slam off Mark Lee, the fourth of his career and the first by a Yankee since June 24, 1989 (Mel Hall). Over the second half of the season, Matt hit .251 with 11 homers and 34 RBIs.
He tied with Tettleton for most home runs among major league catchers. The total was the second highest of his career (32 in 1987) and was the most by a Yankee catcher since Elston Howard hit 28 in 1963 and the most by a left-handed hitting Yankee catcher since Yogi Berra hit a club record (for catchers) of 30 in 1956. Nokes led New York with five two-homer games, all from July 6 on, after having a career total of five two-homer games entering 1991.
Against right-handed pitchers, he hit .270 with team highs in home runs (17) and RBIs (54). He hit a team-best (tied with Mel Hall) 13 homers at home.
Nokes caught 130 games (112 starts), the most by a Yankee receiver since Rick Cerone in 1980 (147). He ranked second among American League catchers in games caught (Tony Pena, 140), total chances (744) and putouts (690), and seventh in the AL in fielding (.992). Nokes threw out 31 of 129 (24%) potential base stealers. The pitching staff ERA was 4.47 (1001.2 IP, 498 ER) when he was catching.
In 1990 Nokes was acquired on June 4 from Detroit in exchange for pitchers Clay Parker and Lance McCullers. At the time of the trade he was hitting .270 with three home runs and eight RBIs over 44 games. Of his 44 games, 15 were starts as a catcher and he threw out four of 14 baserunners.
Matt joined the club on June 5 in Boston and made a start at DH that evening, going 1-for-3. His first home run as a Yankee came at the Stadium on June 17 against Toronto off Todd Stottlemyre. His second came on June 21 at Toronto, a three-run pinch-hit blast off Duane Ward, followed on June 23 by another off Stottlemyre and a second pinch-hit shot on June 26 at home off Milwaukee's Chuck Crim.
On July 7 at Minnesota, he started in right field, his first start there since May 26, 1987. At the break he was hitting .278 with five home runs and 18 RBIs over 29 games.
Matt reached a season high batting average of .305 (6 HR, 21 RBI) on July 18. He hit six home runs in his first 95 at-bats as a Yankee after getting three in 111 at-bats for the Tigers. On August 29 in Baltimore, he hit the first of back-to-back home runs with Kevin Maas, his eighth and final homer of the season.
His overall 1990 batting average of .248 was his lowest for a season since becoming a regular in 1987. His 136 games played for Detroit and New York were the most he has ever played in a major league season.
Nokes hit .308 in day games and .317 on turf. He hit .239 with all eight of his homers and 30 of his RBIs against right-handed pitching, .200 (2-for-10) with two of his RBIs against lefties. He started 63 games (C-37, DH-25, RF-1).
In the 37 games he caught, the staff had an ERA of 4.96 (314 IP, 173 ER) and he allowed seven passed balls. He caught 10 of 41 (24%) potential base stealers.
Nokes was selected by the San Francisco Giants out of high school in the 20th round of the June 1981 free agent draft. In his first year of professional baseball he hit .226 at Great Falls and in 1982 hit .215 in 82 games at Clinton. In 1983, Nokes hit .322 with 14 home runs at Fresno and in 1984 hit .289 in 97 games at Shreveport.
He started the 1985 season at Shreveport season and hit .294 in 105 games, earning a September promotion to the Giants. Matt made his major league debut on September 3 against Philadelphia and went 2-for-4. He hit his first home run on September 9 at Houston. He played in 19 games and hit .208.
On October 7, 1985, he was traded with pitchers Dave LaPoint and Eric King to the Detroit Tigers for pitcher Juan Berenguer, catcher Bob Melvin and a player to be named later (pitcher Scott Medvin in December 1985). Recalled from Nashville on September 22, 1986, Matt made his AL debut on September 24 against Toronto. He had a three-game hitting streak from September 25-28 (6-for-10, .600). He hit his first American League home run on October 5 at Baltimore off Ken Dixon.
In 1987, Matt batted .319 with 20 home runs and 51 RBIs in the first half and was named to the American League All-Star team. He struggled early in the second half (18-for-102, .176) but rebounded strongly in a 19-game stretch from August 26-September 18 (28-for-67, .418). His two-out eighth-inning RBI single off Cleveland's Tom Candiotti was the only Tiger hit in a 2-1 Detroit victory on September 2.
He belted two grand slams: on April 30 off Mike Cook at California and on September 26 off John Cerutti at Toronto. He clubbed two home runs in a game three times: against Texas on May 25, at Boston on June 7 and at Toronto on September 26, a game in which he collected six RBIs.
Nokes became the first Tiger rookie to hit 30 home runs since Rudy York, also a catcher, hit 35 in 1937. He was voted Tiger Rookie of the Year by the Detroit sportswriters.
He was third on the squad with 16 home runs in 1988. He appeared in 122 games, making 103 starts behind the plate. He improved his percentage of throwing out would-be base stealers dramatically, catching 31 of 81 (38%) after nabbing 18 of 71 (20%) in 1987.
Nokes hit two home runs and collected five RBIs in an 11-6 Detroit victory at Boston on April 7. He was 4-for-8 with three homers, four runs and five RBIs in back-to-back wins against Seattle on April 30 and May 1; Nokes single-handedly beat the Mariners, 3-2, on May 1, driving in all three runs and hitting two homers off Mike Moore.
He enjoyed an eight-game hitting streak from June 8-19 (13-for-30, .433) and on June 19 had four hits against Toronto. On August 4 against Boston, he was 3-for-3 with a double, a home run and two RBIs in an 11-6 Tiger victory. Matt batted .320 (32-for-100) from August 18-October 2, raising his batting average from .227 to a season-ending .251.
In 1989, Matt had five home runs and 16 RBIs in April. He homered and had four RBIs against Seattle on April 25, and on May 29 stroked his third career grand slam off Eric King at Chicago. It would be his last homer until September 22 against Boston.
His season was interrupted on June 16 when he tore the medial collateral ligament in his left knee in a 9th-inning home plate collision with California's Chilli Davis. At the time of the injury, Matt was among the team leaders with seven homers and 29 RBIs. He returned to action on August 5 after missing 41 games. He injured his right shoulder on August 30 and was limited to designated hitter duty for the rest of the season. He batted .286 in 33 games as a DH.
He had two four-hit games, both against Boston, on June 14 at Fenway Park and on September 23 in Detroit. In 51 appearances as a catcher, he threw out 19 of 57 (33%) baserunners.
Matt played baseball and basketball for Patrick Henry High School in San Diego. As a senior, he batted a school-record .429 and was both captain and team MVP. As a junior, he led both the baseball and basketball teams to city titles. Matt also played both Little League and Babe Ruth ball. He played against future big leaguer Sam Horn."
-1993 New York Yankees Information Guide
Led Pioneer League in passed balls (19), 1981.
Led California League catchers in double plays (9), 1983.
Led Texas League catchers in double plays (6), 1985.
Led American Association catchers in errors (13), 1986.
Named catcher on The Sporting News American League All-Star team, 1987.
Named catcher on The Sporting News American League Silver Slugger team, 1987.
Tied for American League lead in home runs by a catcher (24), 1991.
-1993 New York Yankees Information Guide
Matthew Dodge Nokes "Matt" (C) #38
Born October 31, 1963, in San Diego, California, where he resides. Height: 6-1, weight: 210. Bats left, throws right.
Married, Kristy Myers (12/8/84), and father of Kory (6), Hannah (4) and Heather (2).
Major league service: 6 years, 49 days. Opening Day age: 29.
-1993 New York Yankees Information Guide
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