Former Serra catcher Thomas McCarthy named to Posey Award college baseball watch list

The watch list was announced March 9.

“I was super excited,” McCarthy said. “That’s a great recognition to have, and I’m just so grateful to USF for all the opportunities they’ve given me. … It was a really great honor.”

A 2017 graduate of Serra, McCarthy is in his first year serving as USF’s starting catcher. He has yet to establish regular playing time, however, being hampered by a foot injury he sustained in the Dons’ season opener at UCLA.

After starting the year on a 0-for-16 skid, McCarthy recorded his first hit of the season last Friday against Pepperdine. USF dropped the three-game series opener 16-2. It was his first start since March 7 after missing four games. It also marked the ninth straight loss for the Dons, their longest losing streak since 2015.

“He’s been banged up, so you haven’t seen much from him this year,” USF manager Nino Giarratano said prior to Friday’s West Coast Conference opener against Pepperdine. “But we’re getting ready to start conference play … so we’re trying to get him back healthy this week and see what he’s capable to do to help us.”

With McCarthy back behind the plate Saturday, however, USF snapped the losing streak with a 7-6 victory.

“Oh, it was great,” McCarthy said. “We knew it was going to be a tough one, we were going to have to grind to get that first win after losing however many we lost straight. … Hopefully we can carry that momentum into the next couple weeks.”

McCarthy is part of remarkable legacy of Serra catchers from the 2010s. Three former Padres backstops — Collin Theroux, James Outman and Cameron Barstad — are currently playing professionally. A fourth Serra catcher, Michael Tinsley, played professionally from 2016-18.

“I think when I was at Serra, it was just the mentorship,” McCarthy said of the school’s amazing run of catchers. “We’d have program-wide practices with the freshman team all the way through the varsity team. And you’d just get to see the grind the guys go through.”

For McCarthy, that guy was Outman, who graduated in 2015 and is now in spring training camp with the Los Angeles Dodgers as a non-roster invitee.

“He was my mentor,” McCarthy said. “I would always go to games and watch him because he was really good back there. And, honestly, I just think it’s the mentorship … and the older guys are giving the younger guys nuggets. And the younger guys are just listening to them because those guys have so much respect for them.”

Giarratano credits former Serra manager Craig Gianinno for much of the Padres’ success. After leaving Serra midseason in 2017, Gianinno joined the USF staff in 2018 as director of player development. He now has a lead role in recruiting for the Dons.

“Oh yeah, obviously we’ve worked closely with him and recruited a lot of his players,” Giarratano said. “So, when we got a chance to snag him and make him a part of this organization, we did. He’s made us a better organization over the past four years.”

And Giarratano credits Gianinno directly for McCarthy’s success.

“I think [McCarthy] has played against some really good competition and he comes from a really good coach,” Giarratano said. “You get a lot from the athletics side and you get a lot from the education side (at Serra). And he knows how to compete at a good level. His mind is what separates him, and how he runs a game is what separates him.”

USF has had its share of standout catchers in recent years as well. McCarthy’s nomination to the Posey Award watch list marks the fifth straight year a Dons catcher has garnered the honor. Most recently, Robert Emery was nominated in 2019 and ’20. Emery is another WCAL product out of St. Ignatius, who signed a pro contract last year with the San Francisco Giants as an amateur free agent.

“That guy’s awesome,” McCarthy said. “He really worked hard. He was a huge mentor of mine throughout my first three years at USF.”

Emery was a junior in 2020 with one more year of college eligibility.

“[His departure] opened the door for Thomas to catch every day here at USF,” Giarratano said.

This, in turn, opened the door to McCarthy being reunited with an old Serra teammate in USF’s opening series with UCLA. With McCarthy behind the plate, Bruins left fielder Pat Caulfield stepped to the plate in the second inning.

“I said: ‘I really like your walkup song,’” McCarthy said. “He said: ‘Thanks bro.’

“Just a really cool moment to share together.”

The Buster Posey Award will be announced June 7. The honor was formerly known as the Johnny Bench Award through 2018, when current Giants catcher Joey Bart out of Georgia Tech was the recipient. In 2019, Oregon State catcher Adley Rutschman became the first player honored with the award after the name change.