The coming conundrum: Travis d’Arnaud or Kevin Plawecki?

It’s often been said that it’s a good kind of problem to have when as a baseball team you have a surplus of high end talent at one position.

I tend to agree with that statement in most cases because usually there are workable ways to trade your surplus to fill an area of need or create a platoon (when one position player bats right and the other one left) or move one player to a different position.

Certainly the Cubs and, to a lesser extent, the Mariners are going through this at the moment. In the case of the Cubs they have a solid young shortstop in Starlin Castro and perhaps the top shortstop prospect all of baseball in Addison Russell. If you dolly back a few months you could add the names Javier Baez and Arismendy Alcantara to their shortstop collection. The latter two are falling out of favor due to Baez’s tendency to strike out and Alcantara’s poor start which has exiled him back to AAA Iowa.

The Mariners had a competion at shortstop which was won by Brad Miller over Chris Taylor before Taylor got injured.

But let’s talk Mets and specifically what options are open to them once Travis d’Arnaud gets back from the DL.

It is looking like Kevin Plawecki will have shown himself a more than capable major league catcher. Meanwhile d’Arnaud started to blossom last season and was off to a very good start in 2015 before his injury. I won’t touch much on Anthony Recker since in my opinion he is a barely acceptable backup catcher. For that one game per week he plays he is on a par with most teams’ #2 backstop.

The first order of business for the Mets is to decide whom their catcher for the next few years should be. Looking at what Plawecki and d’Arnaud did in the minors when they were each 22 and then 23 years old you see they both have a solid hit tool but d’Arnaud’s numbers are clearly better. For my money if you are just selecting one guy to be the team’s #1 catcher then that guy has to be Travis d’Arnaud.

If you agree that Plawecki has proven himself to be a capable major league catcher then it serves no purpose sending him back to Las Vegas for further seasoning. So the choices become:

1- Give him Recker’s job and make him the backup catcher.
2- At either the major or minor league level have him work out at another position or positions.
3- Trade him to a team that is looking to upgrade itself at catcher.

Let’s analyze each option.

In #1 the Mets are better the one day per week that d’Arnaud is not starting since Plawecki is an upgrade over Recker. Doing this will undoubtedly stunt Plawecki’s growth as a player. He will get about six plate appearances per week (game day plus maybe a rare pinch-hitting opportunity). He will not get the exposure to the entire pitching staff that is so needed for a young catcher to develop the game calling part of his game.

In short this is just wasteful.

In option #2 you see if Plawecki can develop skills at any or all of the other positions except shortstop and centerfield. His basic athleticism leads me to think that he could develop into a capable corner guy at 1b, 3b, LF, and RF. To some extent that just makes him what Eric Campbell already is. You could likely find him one or two starts each week somewhere. Maybe this allows the team to create a bit of a platoon in RF with Granderson facing the righties and Plawecki the lefties.

I think this is a better use of the player than would be option 1 but above average young catchers are a rare commodity and this utilization of Plawecki still seems to me to be unsatisfactory.

Option 3 would seem to be the best idea if the team had a big hole to fill and could match up with a team looking for a sizeable upgrade at catcher with surplus in the need area.

For the most part the Mets have most positions covered. They have to be thrilled with Lucas Duda at 1b, the captain David Wright is going nowhere so 3B doesn’t need help. Every indication is that Dilson Herrera will be ready to be the full time 2Bman within a few months. The outfield of Cuddyer, Lagares, and Granderson is not something that needs to be tinkered with. And outfielders Michael Conforto and Brandon Nimmo are percolating up for the next couple of outfield openings.

So this leaves shortstop, starting pitching, or relief pitching as the only thing to look for in trade for Kevin Plawecki.

In my opinion trading this top prospect for a reliever or even two would be foolish. We all know how quicksilver relievers are and how few of them can be counted on to be good for several seasons in a row. Meanwhile the trade partner acquires its catcher for the next five to ten years.

Starting pitching could be a place to go except that this is considered a strength area in the Mets farm system. If Noah Syndegaard and/or Stephen Matz are anything like what we think they are the Mets are too deep at this position to make a trade of Plawecki for still another starter a smart move.

This leaves us with shortstop, naturally. Some think that Wilmer Flores is and can be the answer. I don’t. But even if you buy into the notion that Plawecki must be traded for a starting shortstop the question would be which team has a good enough shortstop and does that team need Plawecki as an upgrade.

Now that the Cubs have moved Addison Russell to 2B it may be that their shortstop surplus has dried up. Plus Wellington Castillo, their catcher, is not so bad that he needs to be replaced.

The Mariners could spare Chris Taylor but their #1 catcher is Mike Zunino who is still considered a good young catcher himself.

And that’s where we must leave it. Sandy Alderson gets paid a lot of money to deal with problems. He will have to earn his keep with this one.