1/31/15

Mack - 2015 Prospect List - #6 – C – Kevin Plawecki



My rankings is solely subjective and based on nothing more than what is in my head at time I’m writing this. I’ve followed the Mets minor league players for many years and I feel I can recognize talent at various levels of their development. What I have failed at is how to determine when this talent seems to diminish. It’s amazing how many first round picks never make it in this game.

I’m old school, so you won’t seem much SABR-discussion here, I do research and, when I find a good quote or two, I’ll add them to my analysis, but, like I said in the beginning of this post, most of this us subjective.

Let’s get started.

#6 –  C – Kevin Plawecki – 23/yrs old – 6-2, 225 – R/R

           Compensation A pick in 2012 – 35th pick overall

           (left on board – Joey Gallo (39th pick) – AA/A+:  42-HR, 106-RBI)

           2012 – Brklyn – 216-AB, .250/.345/.384/729, 7-HR, 27-RBI

           2013 – Sav/St.Lucie – 449-AB - .305/.390/.448/838, 8-HR, 80-RBI

           2014 – B-Mets/Vegas – 376-AB - .309/.365/.460/825, 11-HR, 64-RBI


What did they say about Plawecki on draft day –

           BA-New York (NL): Kevin Plawecki, c, Purdue: Physical college receiver with fringy to average tools across the board. 

Kevin Goldstein ‏@Kevin_Goldstein - It's not a draft without the Mets over-drafting a college catcher
Baseball America him ranked as the 67th player eligible for the draft.
MLB.com had him ranked 74th.

AA - In a lot of ways, Plawecki is a pick in a similar vein to Gavin Cecchini. They're both guys with contact bats and a good chance to stick at a premium defensive position. You can't find those guys. But while I understood the Cecchini pick, this is more of a headscratcher for me. I have more questions about Plawecki in general. As a defender, he does a lot of things right, but his throwing can be problematic. As an offensive player, he's even more one-dimensional than Cecchini. And he's not as young, so he has less time to learn. I just feel that Plawecki was neither the best player available and that there would be other opportunities to draft catchers nearly as good later on.

Keith Law - Plawecki is the best prospect on a Purdue squad that won the Big 10 title for the first time in 103 years and hosted an NCAA regional for the first time as well. He's a fringy defensive catcher who's better at the mental aspects of the position than the physical aspects, but whose ability to make contact should help him become an above-average hitter for the position. He has a largely linear swing, and while he keeps his weight back well he doesn't use it to drive the ball, instead making a lot of gap-to-gap contact; his swing can get long, which is particularly damaging due to his lack of power, and he'll need to keep it consistently shorter in pro ball. Behind the plate, his receiving is average but his arm is below-average, just not enough to force him off the position. He has an everyday catcher ceiling because of makeup and scarcity at the position he plays.
MLB.com - “Plawecki is an offensive catcher with a lot of ability with the bat. He makes consistent contact with a short swing that allows him to stay in the center of the field. With a contact first approach, Plawecki’s power is fringy right now, but there’s a lot of strength to potentially tap into in the future. While his arm is fringe average, at best, the other parts of his defensive game are more than fine to stay behind the plate. He works with pitchers well, calling his own game. He has good hands, frames pitches and blocks them well. He has the size and body frame you want from a catcher.”


Sure, he’s not the best defensive catcher in baseball, but he has a special bat that seems to getting better each year he’s in pro ball. And, the Mets were obviously not afraid to move the college boy faster than you would ever see with someone at the high school level.

The Mets have drafted some college catcher clunkers in the past, but the first rule of drafting catchers is to stay away from the high school kids. The majority of them do not stick at this position, and they can work out their aches and pains while playing behind the batter in college.


Outlook –


Plawecki is going to be a major league catcher. He will first return to Las Vegas and probably play their until the 2015 all-star break. I’d like to think the Mets would keep him, promote him to Queens, and make him Travis d’Arnaud’s backup… but because of the scarcity of talented catchers in the game, he’s probably going to find himself traded some day for a major prospect chip.


I like him a lot.

5 comments:

That Adam Smith said...

Having two legit young big league catchers in your system is a problem that most teams would love to have. He could be a valuable trade chip, but I think they'll be very, very hesitant to trade him due to TdA's concussion history.

Mack Ade said...

I don't think Plawecki is going anywhere in 2015, other than Flushing to spell a possibly tired d'Arnaud in the fall.

Every team is going to want this kid in 2016.

Charles said...

I agree Mack. I think they want to see what Darno is going to do in the first half and if he is truly behind his first half slump. My guess and what I'd like to see, is a Duda and Pawlecki platoon at first with Pawlecki also catching once or twice a week to give Darno a break.

I think that's the only way this works if they want to keep them both at the ML level at some point moving forward. They will have a lot of options. Especially next off season if both catchers show the ability to hit consistantly at the big league level.

Ernest Dove said...

So I did alittle research (ok it took like 7-10min)
The bluejays, around 2012-13, had 3 catchers listed among their top 15 prospects. And all three were pretty much at AA level or higher with projections as major league caliber.
Perhaps its why they were cool with trading one of them away, some kid named Travis....................anyway fastforward to 2014, I check blue jay season stats and see NONE of those 3 hot prospects were on the major league ballclub.
Long story short keep Plawecki till end of upcoming season. ....maybe TDA starts his reign as a perennial all star, and Plawecki hits like Plawecki in a hitter friendly league. No change in his value and the jays are sad............
Or that kid Travis has health stuff, and Plawecki is now starting on another team and hes the all star.....Mets are then sad.

Charles said...

One was Travis. One was that other one that has pop but struck out a ton and barely hit .200. The other? No clue...

Travis may very well be the real deal. He try does have plus raw power with great bat speed. I don't think Pawlecki will be able to take his job. It's a great problem to have.

I wouldn't be shocked to see Travis get traded at some point because the FO obviously loves Pawlecki and they did draft him. Travis could be a huge, massive trade chip next off season.

However, he and Duda could very well be the only above average bats in this lineup. They may not be able to trade him.