Second Best
Why are the Mets looking at James McCann? And an overview of the 40-man roster post non-tender decisions.
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Catcher market: The Mets are in “active talks” with free agent catcher James McCann, per Robert Murray (more in a bit).
Trevor May introduces himself: “One of the biggest things [was] just kind of the buzz around Steve and the purchase of the team, the excitement of all the changes happening,” via Metsmerized.
Pitching coach: Another reason for why May is in New York is his relationship with Jeremy Hefner, who is expected to return as the Mets pitching coach, even though nothing has been announced publicly yet.
Non-tender deadline: New York reached agreements on one-year contracts with LHP Steven Matz (yes, he’s coming back), RHP Jacob Barnes, and OF Guillermo Heredia before the non-tender deadline on Wednesday. They did not tender contracts to RHP Ariel Jurado, RHP Paul Sewald, LHP Chasen Shreve, or RHP Nick Tropeano (more in a bit).
The Catcher Market
If you’ve been following the rumors surrounding the Mets since it was clear that Steve Cohen would become owner of the team, you are probably wondering why we are talking about James McCann right now and not JT Realmuto, or George Springer or some other flashy name.
In fact, this was the text my dad sent me last night:
Why are the Mets looking to sign a catcher whom most casual fans have never heard of and was at best an average backstop for the first five years of his career (-0.1 WAR)?
Remember this guy? Of course you do. Hearing the term “non-tender” this week still gives you nightmares if you’re a Mets fan. Similar to McCann, when the Amazins decided to non-tender Justin Turner after the 2013 season, he was a pretty average, at best, utility infielder (0.8 WAR over his first 318 games). After arriving in Los Angeles, he suddenly became the greatest damn hitter in baseball—or so it seemed.
Detroit Tigers fans are probably thinking the same about James McCann. After he signed a one-year, $2.5 million deal with the Chicago White Sox before the 2019 season, he has turned into one of the best catchers in baseball. His wRC+ (a fancy stat that measures whether a player hits or not) went from 57 (absolutely terrible) to 109 (above league average) in one season. He was even better in 2020.
Look at McCann’s numbers compared to Realmuto since he signed in Chicago.
McCann has gone from the type of player you forgot existed until you were sorting through a box of baseball cards (please tell me some people still do this) to becoming one of the top catching free agents on the market—in fact, the second best behind Realmuto.
While McCann has brought his offensive production to a new level, the number that jumps out in the table above is the defensive metric FRM or catcher framing. The 6-foot-3 catcher had struggled throughout his career to properly frame pitches down in the strike zone, or the place many pitchers need to live to be effective.
But this is another area where he has shown recent improvement. By changing his crouch behind the plate, he has found a lower target point and has improved his framing abilities drastically on pitches low in the zone. You can see in the picture below how he receives a low pitch in 2019 (left) versus 2020 (right) and why one was called a ball and the other was called a strike.
McCann went from ranking dead last among qualified catchers in Runs From Extra Strikes — which converts strikes to runs saved based on the catcher’s ability to gain called strikes on pitches that border the strike zone — to 9th this past year. After receiving the White Sox pitching staff to a 4.50 ERA (vs 4.91 overall) in 2019, his battery mates performed to a 2.82 ERA (vs 3.81 overall) with McCann catching last year.
So we are starting to paint a picture for why the Mets might be considering a catcher who isn’t named JT Realmuto as their next free agent signing.
However, his recent success aside, there are still concerns about McCann’s defense. It’s hard to take much from such a small sample in 2020. Over multiple seasons, McCann has been a terrible defensive catcher. He’s only getting older, and backstops don’t generally age well. I could point you to a fancy aging curve, but logic should be enough to tell you the player who has 95 MPH fastballs aimed at them every night, along with foul tips and backswings, while crouching for multiple hours at a time isn’t the one you expect to be fresh and healthy in their later years.
If the Mets don’t want to get into the Realmuto sweepstakes, either because they have concerns about his long-term value or don’t want to forfeit the draft pick compensation, they are pretty much stuck with McCann, since they desperately need to improve their catcher situation and the next best option is older than me (38).
Sandy Alderson has said multiple times that he doesn’t want to trade for upgrades because the organization is trying to preserve their limited depth rather than depleting one area to help another.
An argument could be made that signing McCann as a bridge to top catching prospect Francisco Alvarez is a more prudent move than handing out a ridiculous long-term deal to Realmuto. However, Alvarez needs at least two more full seasons for his glove to be big league ready and reports are suggesting that McCann could be coming on a four-year deal.
There is risk with every free agent signing. It will be interesting to see what the average annual salary would be for McCann, who is 30-years-old and has only been a plus catcher for one season and 31 games during a shortened 2020 campaign.
But I wouldn’t be too disappointed if the Mets end up with the second best catcher on the market instead of the first. They are going to land one of the big name free agents this offseason; I would bank on that. By signing McCann to a reasonable deal, it leaves the door wide open for them to go crazy on someone else.
40-Man Roster Update
I went a little longer on McCann than I was originally planning, so I will save some of my non-tender thoughts for next week. However, I do want to give an update on where the 40-man roster stands coming out of Rule 5 and non-tender decisions.
There’s a lot going on in this table, so let’s talk about what is important: pay attention to the stuff in red. That will tell you which players are slipping out of team control, or said another way, players who are out of options (so can’t be sent to the minors without passing through waivers) and who are set to become free agents after this season. I suppose I could have used red instead of grey on the N/As in the service time column, but these are players with greater than 5 years of service time who aren’t generally used as “shuttle” players between the majors and minors anyway.
Looking at the Mets 40-man roster leaves a few impressions:
Flexibility: They don’t have a lot. Look at the pitchers in the right column. There are no lefties in the bullpen. And Robert Gsellman is the only reliever who can be freely sent to the minors beyond Edwin Diaz. There are ways around this. Both Jacob Barnes and Miguel Castro could be incentivized to accept an assignment (if they weren’t claimed) due to their salaries (it’s also unclear if Barnes’ $750,000 contract is non-guaranteed, which would give some more flexibility before the season begins).
40-man Depth: Depending on how high you are on Franklyn Kilome, there aren’t any top prospects from the farm system in AAA or on the cusp of making the active roster. The Mets have graduated an impressive string of young players from Sandy Alderson’s first stint with the team, but there is now a huge gap.
Active-roster talent: There is still work to do to beef up the outfield, catching position, starting rotation, and potentially the bullpen.
Money, Money, Money: Depending on the estimates you use for arbitration-eligible players and minor leaguers, the Mets have roughly $63 million to spend before they have to worry about the luxury tax. That might not even be a factor in Steve Cohen’s thinking, which only emphasizes the point that they have a TON of money to spend.
I wouldn’t say there were a lot of jump-off-the-page surprises from the Mets’ non-tender decisions. The last time they non-tendered a player was in 2015 with Wilmer Flores. They decided to move on from four players this year. The name that caught most people’s attention was left-hander Chasen Shreve, who was good last season (3.96 ERA and 12.2 K/9 rate), and was also the only left-handed reliever on the 40-man roster besides Daniel Zamora, who has only pitched 17.2 innings above Double-A (all in the majors).
The Mets clearly wanted to save 40-man roster space for free agency, which is now stocked with added non-tender players, and perhaps for the Rule 5 draft. They have six open roster spots as we head into December.
Steven Matz agreed to a one-year, $5.2 million non-guaranteed contract before the non-tender deadline. It makes complete sense to bring Matz back for all of the reasons stated above. The Mets need pitching depth, he still has options remaining, and they could always decide to move on from him pretty close to Opening Day with a small financial penalty.
Ok, we will leave it there for now. Plenty more to come on Monday. Have a great weekend!
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That catcher move passes as the smell test of a alderson move - and LOL