The New York Mets have two catchers who both have value, and they need to move one of them to meet other needs.
The New York Mets have a fascinating situation with their catchers, and they’re going to be faced with some intriguing questions about them going into the offseason.
Luis Torrens and Francisco Alvarez are the catchers, and if you put their two skill sets together, you’d have a fantastic prototype player at the position. Torrens is a superb defensive catcher and a high-IQ baseball player, but he’s a limited offensive player who gets hot every now and then but really does’t have a lot to offer with the bat.
Alvarez is the opposite of that. He has power to spare, and on paper he has plenty of offensive potential. But he’s poor defensively, and Alvarez is a low-IQ player who constantly makes bad decisions and poor plays that have helped lead directly to at least a half-dozen Mets losses this year.
The Mets did learn a lot about both players this season, though. They extended Torrens at a much higher amount than that of most backup catchers, mostly because he deserved it. The Mets would have been lost without Torrens defensively, especially given his strong work with a young starting staff.
But they also learned plenty about Alvarez as well. The big takeaway is that he’s not going to be the star they thought he might develop into, regardless of how long they wait. He swings from the heels constantly, and if you want to see a player who doesn’t know the strike zone and is bad at challenges, watch Alvarez in the early innings of any given Mets game.
On top of that, Alvarez’s offense has cratered. According to Will Sammon of the Athletic, he’s hitting just .164 with a 41.3 percent strikeout rate, and his OPS has dropped .776 OPS through July to his current number of .702.
As Sammon noted, the Mets could get good value if they move either one of them, so there’s a call to be made here. As a pair, Torrens and Alvarez rate from solid to good, but Torrens is a far better value, especially at the money the Mets are paying for him.
The Mets desperately need power at other positions, and they can get it if they move Alvarez. He could be used to prop up the offense at any number of infield positions, especially if infielder Bo Bichette exercises his opt-out after the World Series.
Torrens is a Gold Glove-caliber catcher defensively, and the Mets could easily pick up another good glove behind the plate or a different offensive catcher who’s not prone to the kinds of mistakes Alvarez constantly makes.
