Good Morning,
A few housekeeping notes:
❶ Feedback from our recent survey made it clear that people would enjoy a weekly mailbag. I was planning on publishing the first today, but I’m going to push that to Monday since we have a new signing to talk about. Thanks to everyone who has already sent some great questions. Reply to this email if you have any others.
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With that, let’s get into it!
I can only imagine what James McCann was thinking wherever he was last night when news broke that the Mets were signing a veteran catcher to a two-year, $15 million deal (including a player option). I’m guessing he felt a bit like Milton in Office Space, wondering if he has been relegated to the “Stapler Room” of the Mets’ roster.
So what are the Mets thinking? Does this mean a trade is imminent?
The Mets aren’t keeping all of these catchers. I mean, that much is obvious. The 40-man roster sits at 41 this morning. Don’t be surprised if we quickly learn the fate of James McCann. We already know they have been shopping him. Even if you believe Francisco Álvarez is destined to DH instead of catch this season, or needs more time in Triple-A, there’s no reason to carry three catchers.
The Mets have incentive to downplay this point before a corresponding move is made, so they are going to pass on information like this:
But that’s not what’s going on here. It’s time to move on from James McCann, and Narváez gives them a left-handed version of him with excellent framing skills to offset his weaker arm, a skill that might matter less with the new rules giving baserunners an overwhelming edge.
What happened to his bat?
After an All-Star appearance two years ago, Narváez production fell off the map. He was batting .300 with eight home runs and a 134 wRC+ during the first half of that ‘21 season. He finished the second half of the year batting .225 with three home runs and a wRC+ that was 42% below league average. Things didn’t get much batter in 2022. His slash line looking eerily familiar to what we have seen from the Mets’ backstops at .206/.292/.305.
Narváez is a strange hitter. If you look at his Statcast numbers, he has never routinely hit the ball hard, even when he was playing well. His average exit velocity was in the bottom-2nd percentile in 2021; his hard-hit rate was in the bottom-3rd percentile. In case that’s somehow not clear enough, 97-98% of major league baseball players hit the ball harder than he did on average and in terms of the frequency of hard-hit balls.
Perhaps no active player follows the Fred McGriff mantra of “all I need is 30 good swings” more than the 30-year-old Narváez. What Narváez has done in his most productive seasons at the plate is maximize his barrels. Those are the optimal swings that turn fly balls into home runs. His 18 and 16 barrels in 2019 and 2021, respectively, neatly match to his two two best power campaigns.
Those 16-18 “good swings” started to disappear in the second half of 2021. His barrel rate dropped from 5.1% in 2021 to 2.4% last season. Combined with his overall poor contact numbers, his expected slugging percentage sagged to .293, after living in the .300s for most of his career.
Based on limited data, Narváez had a very steep average vertical bat angle from 2018–2020, before falling closer to average in 2021 and parts of 2022. Ironically, his batted ball profile doesn’t directly correlate. He hit more lazy fly balls last season than he did with a steeper swing. This is where pitch location enters the equation. Narváez swung more often up in the zone last season, which didn’t prove conducive to driving the ball as when he did damage on pitches low in the zone in 2019.
What value does he still provide?
While he didn’t hit anyone last year, traditionally, Narváez has been a pretty good hitter against righties, something the Mets’ lineup desperately craves.
So if you assume Álvarez will mostly play at DH, leaving the catching duties to Narváez and Nido, you could create a platoon situation that offers an upgrade over last season.
Nido hit nearly league average against lefties in 2022; Narváez has a career 106 wRC+ against righties. If those two combine to hit league average next season, that would be a stark improvement over the 22nd-ranked offense the Mets received from their backstops in 2022.
What about defense?
As many have pointed out already, Narváez is considered an excellent pitch framer, meaning he steals a lot of strikes for his pitchers. Until MLB introduces an automated strike zone, this is a useful skillset on a team with a veteran rotation.
Specifically, Narváez has had success stealing strikes at the bottom of the strike zone. Corbin Burnes benefited from this in Milwaukee. No other pitcher threw a greater percentage of his pitches in the bottom-third of the strike zone or lower than the 2021 Cy Young Award winner.
Interestingly, for the Mets, I recently wrote how Justin Verlander found success last season by pumping fastballs up in the zone. Max Scherzer has a similar approach.
But that doesn’t mean the Mets can’t benefit from Narváez’ framing abilities. Assuming the Venezuelan backstop uses a similar crouching approach next season, both Carlos Carrasco and José Quintana are likely to benefit.
While Narváez has ranked anywhere from the 89th to 99th percentile in framing, he has been on the opposite end of the spectrum in Pop Time to second base. That said, the public Statcast data appears to lack detail on his throws. Looking at his pure Caught Stealing rate, he threw out 10 of 45 base-stealers last season, good for 22%, slightly below league average. As a comparison, McCann threw out 24% of runners last season.
🔻 Bottom Line
Overall, it’s possible Narváez can fit neatly into the Mets’ plans if they are able to find a taker for McCann. With Narváez and Nido, manager Buck Showalter has the option to create a platoon situation that offers acceptable offense and plus defense.
That said, “acceptable” is a loose term. It’s not easy platooning the catcher position, especially if it proves useful to catch Narváez more exclusively with pitchers like Carrasco and Quintana. In the end, we could see much of the same putrid offensive numbers for everyone who wears a catcher’s mask and is not named Francisco Álvarez. But if all works out, and Álvarez starts receiving more often, at least by 2024, this could work as a stop-gap measure with offensive possibility and defensive stability.
🔗 Mets’ Citi Field construction underway to move right-field fence in, by Greg Joyce, NY Post: “Construction is underway on the Mets’ new right field, with a segment of the wall moving in more than 8 feet to make room for a new fan experience, as The Post’s Mike Puma first reported. The fence will be brought in about 8 feet, 6 inches in the nook space just to the right of the 370-foot sign in right center, a segment that extends about 50 feet.”
🔗 What the anything-is-possible Mets still need to add this winter, by Joel Sherman, NY Post ($): “This is what it was like in George Steinbrenner’s heyday. Yankees officials would state they were not interested in a star. Yet a not-insignificant segment of the game wouldn’t accept that. They needed to see a signed contract or a press conference with another team before they truly believed. There was a bogeyman element to Steinbrenner’s Yankees. They were out there stalking. Anything felt possible. Like the Steve Cohen Mets.”
And we close this one out with Brandon Nimmo…
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To me, the signing gives the Mets options, and flexibility, and we'll see how it plays out. Alvarez may or may not start the season with the big club; I think he'll need to earn it in the Spring. Mets are almost certainly dumping McCann -- however, the market for Nido may be much more robust, bringing back something of value. We'll see what happens. Solid move. Nothing earth-shattering.
One note: I long for the day when "pitch framing" goes away. A catcher's defensive ability has always befuddled the numbers people who like statistics. So they've latched on to the "pitch framing" bs as a way to measure and rank defense. As a result, it has become wildly overrated. What is a catcher's relationship with a pitcher? How in sync are they? To what extent is that catcher providing an insight and understanding of opposing hitters? Does the pitcher trust the catcher? And on and on and on. But because no one can quantify those extremely important factors, everybody talks about "pitch framing" as if it's a big giant deal. I mean, okay, yes, being a good target back there, a "quiet" receiver, has value. And to my eyes, in very limited exposure, Alvarez is going to need some work. He's a big guy who kind of stabs at some pitches. This is just an area where the defensive stats are generally useless and misleading. I'm not a fan.
More in depth analysis - LOL - My eyes are spinning with what you provide now - what else possibly can be "unpacked " (used the new word in a sentence lol) ? Also - have no idea what the Mets are doing at catcher. Both Nido and McCann have to go yet they bring in a guy EXACTLY like both of them. I dont see how you win a champiosnhip with such a inportanant position with "no one" playing ctaher that is any good !