Many of us wanted Francisco Alvarez to be on the Opening Day roster. After seven games, Alvarez gets the call with Omar Narvaez going on the IL. Narvaez has a calf strain and will be sidelined for likely six weeks or more, so this won’t be a case for Alvarez being on the roster for two week and then sent back to Syracuse. He’s here for awhile and the only thing that makes sense is to play him.
Alvarez’ fate at the beginning of the MLB season was sealed as soon as the club signed Narvaez as a free agent. Whatever ultra-slim chance he had to make the roster was sealed by a very poor Grapefruit League season, one in which Alvarez went 3-28 with a .301 OPS.
In 19 PA in Triple-A this season, Alvarez has a .250/.368/.688 line. Three of his four hits have gone for extra-bases. It’s been feast or famine for Alvarez, as in 16 ABs, he has 8 Ks.
It seemed a near-certainty that Brett Baty would be the first of the Mets’ big four prospects to get the call to the majors this year. But Baty is currently slowed by a sore thumb and the injury that opened the MLB spot came by a catcher.
The Mets have had some awful luck in the health department with their catchers here recently. Both James McCann and Tomas Nido spent extended time on the IL the past two seasons, with both catchers being on the sidelines at the same time, which necessitated more playing time for Patrick Mazeika than any of us should have been forced to endure. And now Narvaez here in 2023.
Here’s wishing good health to Alvarez and patience from the fans if he strikes out a bunch in his first few games in the majors. The strikeouts are guaranteed to be part of the package. Hopefully we’ll see the power he’s displayed the past two years in the high minors, too.
I had accepted the Mets evaluation of Alvarez, i.e., that he was not ready defensively. No one in a position to know really disputes that. When they signed Narvaez for 2 years — and then, weirdly, extended Nido — it made me wonder if they felt he was really, really, really not ready. They seemed to be preparing themselves for him not being ready in 2024, too. Or trading him away.
We shall see. But I bet $5 that Nido just became Max’s personal catcher (though no one will say so, exactly).
Meanwhile, they continue to play Mauricio at SS in AAA. Again, are they just looking to trade him away? I can’t make sense of it any other way.
It’s not easy to evaluate defense and I don’t pretend to have some special skill in this area. I guess I would like at it like this:
1. Are the pitchers okay with him back there?
2. Can he make the “simple” plays – can he catch foul pops, field bunts/squibs and make accurate throws to 2B?
3. Does he do a reasonable job with WP and PB?
Certainly, Alvarez had trouble with #3 initially.
In the very, very brief time I’ve seen him behind the plate, he doesn’t look great, he doesn’t look awful. If you want to say that over a full season, he’s 10 runs worse than average, I won’t argue with that. If you say he’s 25 runs worse, I won’t agree with that assessment. And then it’s a question if Alvarez’ offense + defense is superior to what you’d get from Nido. And my opinion is that his offense makes that a no-brainer.
Narvaez has an opt-out in his contract, so if he had a good year in ’23, he was likely to move on for a better deal. Nido isn’t paid enough to eliminate him from being cut if Alvarez is successful and Narvaez comes back for the final year. B-R has Nido for $2.1 million next year.
Unfortunately with the Mets, there’s what they say and what they do. They can talk all they want about positional flexibility with their prospects. But when they continue to play Mauricio in the infield – they’re either saying he’s a trade candidate or they think that any middle infielder can learn to play the OF in just a day or two. I don’t like either answer. You’d think seeing Jazz Chisolm playing CF for three days would have been all the proof you needed…
I think the pitchers’ comfort with the catcher is a big, big deal and none of them are going to publicly bury the kid.
I have not read one person who says, “He’s ready.”
They all talk about improvement and still needing work.
We shall see.
As someone who has stood on a mound and thrown to a variety of catchers — don’t worry, I’m not at all claiming that i don’t suck — I do know that the guy behind the dish makes a big difference. Fans like to imagine that it doesn’t matter, or that it *shouldn’t* matter, but it’s real and it does.
We’ve addressed this from a different angle during the Sandy days. If you are going to build around pitching, aren’t you undercutting your own efforts when you put out a poor defensive team? And if you give guys $40+ million to pitch, are you undercutting their performance by pairing them with . . . possibly the worst defensive catcher in baseball?
I am a fan of Alvarez, and hopeful. But he’s a very big guy and only 21. In the history of MLB, there have been very few 21-year-old catchers of any note. And most of those were very strong defensively.
In the end, if they think he’s not ready, then it’s quite possible that he’s not ready and would be better served by working on things down there. Oh well, the situation has changed.
I think defense matters, especially at that position. Stat guys haven’t figured out how to measure it — maybe it can’t be measured — and so we’re left with things like the highly dubious “pitch framing” numbers.
How do we measure the confidence level that a pitcher feels when a catcher sets up inside? Or when his setup isn’t quite right?
I’m excited to see Alvarez play and my fingers are crossed. There will be good days and bad days. I think he’s going to struggle and that it’s almost certainly too soon.
I find Buck’s comments, re: Alvarez as “backup,” to be pretty bizarre.
What organization calls up their “top prospect” as a backup?
I agree that no one is going to publicly bury Alvarez.
But I’d be pretty surprised if anyone declared, “he’s ready.” If someone went to SYR on a rehab and caught him – maybe. But as an active MLB pitcher, you’d have to be pretty down on your current MLB catchers to publicly declare a prospect to be ready.
It’s pretty rare for a pitcher to publicly knock his catcher. It’s what made the Jake and Noah comments about Wilson Ramos so shocking. Maddux always said good things publicly about Javy Lopez, even when everyone knew he preferred pitching to the backup.
I think I hear what you are saying, but for me, strictly reading between the lines, I’m not getting the sense that *anybody* thinks he’s ML ready defensively. I’m not hearing that level of confidence. “Much improved” is the best I’ve heard, several times.
Alvarez is going to have a chance to prove himself, offensively and defensively. If he establishes himself as a major league player at 21 then we’ll worry about three catchers on the active roster. It will be a nice problem to have. At the beginning, I hope the Mets at least catch him 50% time and sprinkle in some DH at bats. Alvarez’s fate is in his own hands . I think he will do well.
It wasn’t the plan but plans change. Alvarez was not happy about being sent down so let’s see him grab for the ring and show us what he’s got. I’d like a 30HR bat behind Alonso so I’ll gladly split catching assignments and let him also DH. Don’t understand Mauricio still in the infield and left field has to be almost the easiest position to learn to play. You would think he would advocate for a path to the big club instead of playing where he is blocked.
Ohtani! Mauricio could be a part of an offer. Baty and Mauricio for Ohtani.