I had a chance to talk to Josh Thole and Mike Nickeas in the locker room this morning. I’ve noticed that none of the Mets’ catchers in camp use the new goalie-style catcher’s masks, which I’ve found way more comfortable than the traditional helmet-and-facemask combo in my limited experience.

Thole said he found the new mask a bit too heavy, and that he tried it out for a while after he had a concussion but didn’t think it made much of a difference. He said that getting hit in the face with a fastball is going to hurt no matter what mask you’re wearing.

Nickeas said he thought the goalie-style masks offered slightly better vision, but that — and this was something I hadn’t considered — their contours make a ball off the face ricochet back toward the backstop, whereas the traditional version is flatter and so tends to knock the ball forward.

So if you’ve ever wondered about that, there’s that.