The Luis Torrens addition highlights the Mets’ new way of doing business

Virtually no player performs within a tight window of productivity over a full season. Instead, they go thru hot streaks and cold spells. One of the challenges for both managers and GMs is to know what’s a cold streak and what’s the current normal for the player. Francisco Lindor here in 2024 is an excellent example. In his first 47 games, Lindor had a .616 OPS. That’s a pretty big sample to be that bad. But most felt that Lindor was too good of a player to be that bad for much longer. And indeed, that’s been the case. In his last 26 games Lindor has a .930 OPS. What Lindor suffered thru the beginning of this year was not his true-talent level. It was an extended cold spell.

One of my frustrations here recently has been the Mets giving long leashes to players nowhere near as good as Lindor. A good example of this was in 2023, when Brett Baty received 389 PA and put up a 66 OPS+ and Starling Marte got 341 PA and put up a 75 OPS+. Neither of those players should have been given a leash that long.

Coming into the season, my hope was that no player on the team would finish with 300 PA and an OPS+ below The Galvis Line. And in the specific cases of Baty and Marte, their leashes should be much shorter than that. Marte sports a 119 OPS+ so there’s no reason to be concerned about him right now. But Baty was struggling again.

Much to my pleasant surprise, David Stearns acted decisively with Baty, sending him back for much-needed time in Triple-A. But this isn’t an isolated incident with Stearns. He moved on from veterans Zack Short and Joey Wendle when they under-performed, too. Now, you might say this is what any other GM/PoBO would have done. And you may be right.

But the way that Stearns has handled the catcher position definitely has been different.

With Francisco Alvarez hurt, the Mets were employing Omar Narvaez and Tomas Nido as their catchers. And both were terrible at the plate, with Narvaez being lousy behind the dish, too. This might have been almost tolerable – given the injury to the starter – if we hadn’t seen lousy production from the team’s catchers so often here recently. Here’s how the Mets’ catchers have done, with the first number being their OPS+ for the year and the second being how that number rates among the production of all catchers in MLB:

2023 – .661 OPS, 89 sOPS+
2022 – .569 OPS, 73 sOPS+
2021 – .568 OPS, 65 sOPS+

We have to go back to 2017 before we see a season with catchers for the club finishing with a triple-digit sOPS+.

In the offseason, the Mets have gone outside the organization trying to bring in backstops to address the catching situation, most recently with Narvaez and James McCann. But during the year, they pretty much stick with internal options. And to be sure, it’s tough for a catcher to come on midseason and learn an entirely new pitching staff. But it’s also tough to see them put up offensive numbers equivalent to a good-hitting pitcher.

With about 10 days before Alvarez was set to return from the IL, Stearns made a move to acquire Luis Torrens. Back in 2021, Torrens had 15 HR in 378 PA and put up a 102 OPS+ but he hadn’t done much since then. He was in the Yankees’ farm system at the time of the trade. The Mets put him on their 26-man roster and DFAd Narvaez.

Having watched Narvaez be a major disappointment in his tenure with the Mets, it was hard to shed any tears over this move. But it still seemed odd, as the easy thing to do would be to wait a few more days and make that move once Alvarez returned. It was impossible to see this move as anything other than a big wake-up call to Nido. It wasn’t going to be business as usual for the team and tolerating rotten performance.

And when Alvarez returned, the Mets DFAd Nido.

Torrens has hit very well in his brief time with the Mets, as he has a 224 OPS+ in 26 PA. If Alvarez and Torrens can reach their offensive potential the remainder of the season, it’s possible the club can have a catching group with a triple-digit sOPS+, which would break a six-year streak of below-average offensive production from their backstops.

It’s been uplifting to see how Stearns has operated with struggling hitters his first season in charge here in New York. He’s given rope to players who deserved it and he’s made moves with ones who didn’t, rather than simply going with the status quo. Stearns hasn’t been quite so aggressive with his pitchers but it’s possible we’ll see some moves there in the near-future.

But the way Stearns has operated has left the Mets in the unusual position of paying three catchers an MLB salary to be elsewhere. The Mets are picking up at least some of the freight with McCann, Narvaez and Nido. While none of these are huge numbers, it’s not anything we would have expected under the previous ownership.

No one should expect Torrens to be a great hitter moving forward. But he offers the possibility to be a much-better hitter than either Narvaez or Nido – and that’s not nothing. The big move has been demoting Baty. My preference would be to see Stearns address struggling and overrated pitchers. But no one will blame him if he focuses on Jeff McNeil next. Stearns has already done so in part, bringing up Jose Iglesias, who has performed well when given the chance. But it’s not impossible that Stearns will look for a different upgrade at 2B if the Mets keep winning between now and the trade deadline.

McNeil has certainly received a good chance to turn things around, as he’s amassed 256 PA and has just a 74 OPS+. Right now, everyone has a theory on what McNeil’s doing wrong and what he needs to change moving forward. My hope is that everyone keeps one thought in mind and that’s McNeil has been hurt worse than anyone by how Citi Field has played as an extreme pitcher’s park. Here are his splits:

H: .156/.223/.195 — .418 OPS
R: .295/.362/.438 — .800 OPS

Instead of running a traditional platoon sitting McNeil against LHP, they should sit him at home games.