The Tomas Nido contract and the practicality of carrying three catchers

Here is the first paragraph in an article written here back in 2014, entitled, Mets change slot philosophy with 2014 Draft:

Prior to the 2012 Draft, MLB instituted a new policy in how it handled the signing of amateur players selected in the June affair. With these new rules in place, it was hard to determine what the best strategy to employ was going to be. My preference would be to go above the slot recommendation with your top two picks and look to make up the difference later. In his first two drafts, Sandy Alderson went in the exact opposite direction.

The article went on to discuss the players the team gave both fewer and more dollars than slot recommendations. Even in 2014, it looked like the Mets whiffed on these overslot guys. Not much has changed eight-plus years later. One of the “success” stories of that early draft philosophy of going cheap early to give above-slot bonuses later was Tomas Nido.

Drafted in the eighth round in 2012, Nido was given a bonus $113,100 dollars in excess of the slot recommendation. The Mets drafted Gavin Cecchini in the first round of that year’s draft, partly because he agreed to an underslot deal. The Mets bypassed Lucas Giolito, Corey Seager and Marcus Stroman, among others, to pick Cecchini. It was maddening at the time and it doesn’t look any better with hindsight.

Meanwhile, Nido didn’t exactly rake his first few years in the organization. And with Travis d’Arnaud, Kevin Plawecki and others in the minors ahead of him, it didn’t look like a very bright future. But then 2016 happened. Playing in Hi-A St. Lucie, Nido hit .320 and won the FSL batting title. Overnight he became everyone’s favorite prospect.

Well, almost everyone.

He placed 34th on my top 50 list for 2017, behind Patrick Mazeika so you know my opinion of him wasn’t very high. Here was the blurb that was attached to his name: “Breakout year in 2016 fueled by a .935 home OPS. Road numbers look suspiciously like his pre-2016 numbers.”

Sure enough, he failed to duplicate 2016’s offensive numbers going forward. But he kept climbing the ladder and eventually ended up on the shuttle between the majors and minors before establishing himself as a defense-first backup catcher.

Maybe backup catcher isn’t the most-glamorous position in baseball but Nido has parlayed it into a two-year deal, giving him job security that most eighth-round picks would kill for if given a chance. Bully for him, even if the contract makes it harder for the Mets to carry a top prospect right away in 2023.

It’s difficult to describe my feelings for Nido now. Don’t like him, don’t hate him – just ask that he help in the development of Francisco Alvarez and if he does that, anything else he gives will be a bonus. But as a proponent of seeing Alvarez in the majors sooner rather than later, re-upping with Nido is at least a tiny roadblock in Alvarez’ path to the Opening Day roster.

Now, for Alvarez to do that, the Mets would need to carry three catchers, something that almost no team does these days on anything more than a temporary basis. It wasn’t always that way. Back in 1973-74, the Mets had Duffy Dyer, Jerry Grote and Ron Hodges. It occurred to me that might be the last time the Mets opened the season with three catchers on the roster.

Turns out we don’t have to look that far back to see the Mets with three backstops. In the Covid year of 2020, the Mets went north with Wilson Ramos, Nido and Rene Rivera. Of course, rosters were set at 30 players at the start of the season, so it needs to come with an asterisk. Now the question is: At what numerical roster size do the Mets prioritize three catchers?

The proliferation of middle relievers made the third catcher virtually extinct. The 30-man roster brought him back. Is there room for a third catcher with a 26-man roster? Us Alvarez backers certainly hope for that to be the case.

It’s almost impossible to carry three catchers without at least one of them being an offensive plus. And having ones bat from both sides of the plate is a help, too. The Mets will have both of those things in a potential 3-catcher group, with Alvarez providing the offense and Omar Narvaez adding a LHB to the collection.

We’ve been back and forth over the pros and cons of having Alvarez on the Opening Day roster. Is it better for him to split time between C and DH and get 350 or so PA while getting coached by Glenn Sherlock and getting to witness firsthand how Narvaez and Nido operate or is it better for him to go to Triple-A where he can get full-time work as a catcher and not miss out on any development time, either offensively or defensively? It’s a question on which reasonable people can disagree.

If we assume that the Mets will have a 13-13 split between position players and pitchers, that means working with a four-man bench. You have the eight position player starters and the DH for your first nine and then the bench. The Mets almost certainly have three bench slots locked up with Nido, Luis Guillorme (also an early above-slot bonus guy) and Tommy Pham. It’s possible that the final spot comes down to a battle between Alvarez and Darin Ruf. And that battle comes down to philosophy at least as much as production.

Generally speaking, the Mets prefer youngsters to succeed at a level and then give him a mid-season promotion, rather than challenging the player with an initial spot at the higher level. It’s not necessarily a flawed philosophy. At least as long as you’re not keeping stiffs at the higher level just to make the youngster prove it, while the stiffs are given quasi sacred cow status.

Are Pham and Ruf stiffs? That’s another point where reasonable people can disagree, although perhaps with less wiggle room than with minor league promotion policy.

My philosophy is to play the odds on any and all roster decisions. Is it more likely that a non-elite veteran will bounce back from a down year in their mid-30s or that a highly-rated prospect will succeed with just 199 PA at Triple-A?

The Mets called up Andres Gimenez without any time at Triple-A and he responded with a 1.2 fWAR in 49 games and last year he had a 6.1 fWAR. They called up Jeff McNeil after 221 PA in Triple-A and he posted a 2.9 fWAR in 69 games. They promoted Michael Conforto with no Triple-A experience in 2015 and he responded with a 1.9 fWAR in 56 games.

This is not meant to imply that there are only success stories when promoting guys with limited Triple-A experience. Amed Rosario is certainly a guy who didn’t experience immediate success. Rather, this is a challenge. Name me three veterans in their mid-30s (or older) coming off down seasons who posted a 1.2 or greater fWAR with the Mets since 2015, when Conforto made his mark. That 1.2 is the lowest total among the three rookies mentioned above.

Off the top of my head, the last veteran on the Mets to bounce back from a poor season in their mid-30s was Marlon Byrd in 2013. As a 34 year old in 2012, Byrd had a (-1.1) fWAR. The following year with the Mets, he put up a 3.3 fWAR in 117 games before being traded. It should be noted that Byrd was busted for PED use in both 2012 and 2016 and that his results in 2013 should be looked at with at least some skepticism.

It’s my opinion that Alvarez is ready to contribute right now and the Mets would be a better team with him getting PA rather than Pham or Ruf. In order to do that, they’ll have to be willing to buck convention and carry three catchers. It’s long been a tenet of mine that MLB teams are better off doing what’s best for them, rather than what every other team in the league is doing. Who cares if every other team in the majors carries a LOOGY if your lefty relievers are terrible? Likewise, the Mets shouldn’t care one bit if no other team carries three catchers in 2023.

Their concern should be what gives them the best chance to win.