By Mike Steffanos December 19, 2020
After listening to some of James McCann's press availability, I came away impressed with the Mets new catcher — at least as a person. I have a pretty good feeling that the Mets pitchers are going to like working with the guy. After a couple of years of reportedly not being very happy with Wilson Ramos, this is a big deal. As for the rest, only time and a chance to see him play will provide an answer to whether or not this was a good signing. He doesn't have to win a silver slugger award to be an asset to the Mets, he needs to hit enough to justify a starting job and do the job defensively and handling the pitching staff.
Ken Rosenthal had a piece in The Athletic that discussed why the Mets ultimately went with McCann over J. T. Realmuto. Mets fans are already familiar with the reasons. Alderson discussed them at Jared Porter's press conference. Basically it was a question of timing. However, Rosenthal cites some unnamed executives and agents who expressed the view that both the Mets and Realmuto made a mistake by not working things out. As I said, time will tell. No doubt this signing represented a gamble on the part of the new front office.
Rosenthal's article wasn't the only one that expressed reservations about McCann. Keith Law also took a rather negative view of the deal in another piece in The Athletic. But there have also been some really positive things written about the guy, too. By all accounts McCann is able to take a clear-eyed look at the areas where he's been lacking and do the work to get better.
There was a piece in the Daily News earlier in the week where the author, Bradford William Davis, interviewed Jerry Narron, who worked with McCann in the offseason of 2019 - 2020 on his pitch framing. This had been a glaring weakness in McCann's game. As far as Narron is concerned, McCann's dramatic improvement in framing last season was no fluke:
"[McCann] deserves every bit of credit for all the improvement he made over the past year. It's rare to see somebody make that kind of improvement...
...I just showed (McCann) a couple of things. He worked extremely hard at it and carried it over...
McCann had previously overhauled his offensive approach and turned his career around after being jettisoned by the Tigers. I'm sure part of what the Mets are banking on with the guy is his willingness to work on his weaknesses and the success he's enjoyed based on that work. I have a pretty good feeling that this signing is going to work out okay for the Mets, as long as he hits enough.
One ongoing concern with McCann that Law identified in his article was his problems hitting right-handers even after his offensive breakout. A significant part of the problem is how often he strikes out against them. In the two years that he put up overall good offensive numbers, he struck out 132 times in 472 plate appearances against righties. That's about 28% of the times he faced them. That's something to be concerned about, and maybe argues for the Mets to try to find a left-handed batting catcher to pair with McCann. Tomás Nido, the backup as things currently stand, is also a right-handed batter.
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There has been a lot in the media recently about the possibility of the Mets trading for Rockies 3B Nolan Arenado. I have to admit, there is a part of me that loves the idea of having the guy as our third baseman for he next two or three years. He's a Gold Glover, and is a right-handed hitting middle of the order bat, which is something the Mets can certainly use.
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