Reese Kaplan -- The Mets Have Bigger Priorities Than a New Catcher

"You have to have a catcher because if you don't you're likely to have a lot of passed balls."  -- Casey Stengel

While the humor of this statement is certainly valid, there is some truth to the sentiment that sometimes folks undervalue the extent to which a good catcher can impact the competitiveness of a team.  

Now the Mets over the years have had some very fine catchers including Jerry Grote (world class defensively), Todd Hundley (more of a hitter than a catcher once he mastered the PED formula), Gary Carter, Mike Piazza and a handful of others.

Unfortunately, they have also endured a bevy of guys who could catch but not throw, throw but not hit, hit but not help the pitchers behind the dish, and some who were not really excessively good in any of these areas.  That long laundry list of men wearing the tools of ignorance included the likes of Charlie O'Brien, Alex Trevino, Josh Thole, Anthony Recker and a score of others.  

After the horrific 2020 season handled poorly by Mets receivers, the club went out in its post-d'Arnaud era to fortify the receiving behind the dish.  While many were clamoring for the Mets to somehow obtain Realmuto, they went in an entirely different direction to ink free agent James McCann.  

Now when this story broke, many were quick to write him off as a lightweight hitter but highly competent catcher.  The money spent was a bit stiff for a guy who had been a semi-regular for most of his career but way less than an All Star caliber receiver would have netted.  

When you look at his career numbers, he seemed to be trending upwards.  His last full season of 2019 he hit a respectable .273 while clubbing 18 home runs and driving in 60.  To give these numbers even more value was the fact that he was a stellar pitch framer and also quite good at nailing would-be base stealers.  His WAR for that season was a very nice 3.6 which would be valued at nearly $30 million in pay.  His actual salary was a much more modest $2.5 million.  He earned an All Star berth for those efforts.

During the strike shortened 2020 season it's a little hard to read player production and value given the 60-game limit to the full schedule.  His batting average was up to .289 but over roughly a half-season's worth of production he hit 7 home runs and drove in a mere 15.  Multiply those numbers by 5 to get a more realistic view of a regular 162 game season and 35 HRs with 75 RBIs is a big improvement.  

Consequently the Mets probably felt that his offense was most definitely improving while the defense continued to be top rate.  Their 4-year $40+ million contract seemed a shrewd buy if he could keep up the offensive production.  However, 2021 was not like the previous two seasons.  He finished hitting just .232 (a problem that plagued nearly every Mets player this past year), with just 10 HRs and 46 RBIs.  His WAR was a highly improbable -0.2.

So many folks are dismissing the McCann contract as another in a long line of front office failures, the fact is that the man deserves another look with a new hitting coach at a relatively modest $8+ million for the 2022 season.  The hot hitting Francisco Alvarez is still at least two years away, so they are likely to sit tight with McCann who did help improve the pitching which was the primary reason he was brought on board.  When Alvarez takes over, McCann can slot into the backup role currently held by balsa-wood hitting Tomas Nido.  

Going into this off season the Mets have a plethora of problems to solve.  There are outfield questions, second base questions, third base questions, starting pitching questions, reliever questions and front office questions.  Oh yeah, they need a manager and a full slate of coaches (except Jeremy Hefner), too.  I think focusing on the catcher as a top priority given the relative success of Travis d'Arnaud for the World Champion Atlanta Braves is short sighted and shouldn't be the top priority for the Mets.  I can live with James McCann for round two.