Tomas Nido

Player Data: Age 25, B/T: R/R

Primary Stats: 50 G, 144 PA, 4 HR, 14 RBI, 7 BB, 37 SO, .191 BA, .231 OBP, .316 SLG, .547 OPS

Advanced Stats: .232 BABIP, .227 wOBA, 40 wRC+, 46 OPS+, -0.7 bWAR, -0.5 fWAR, 1 DRS, 2.4 FRM

Free Agent: 2025

2019 Salary: $556,300

Grade: D+

2019 Review

Tomas Nido was long considered one of the Mets top catching prospects, making an appearance in the All-Star Futures Game back in 2017. Nido went on to make his MLB debut at the end of that season and would play with the big league club sparingly in 2018 as well.

This year marked the first year that Nido spent the entire season with the New York Mets as their backup catcher. Nido has quickly garnered the respect of the Mets pitching staff, with the starters strongly preferring to pitch to him rather than Wilson Ramos.

Unfortunately, Nido still has not proven that he can hit big league pitching, as he was statistically the worst hitter on the team. According to Fangraphs, Nido had the lowest wRC+ for any Mets batter that received at least 100 plate appearances. In fact, Nido’s 40 wRC+ was actually the 17th worst mark in all of baseball for players with at least that many plate appearances.

The only month of the season in which Nido produced offensively was in June, at a time in which the Mets played to a 10-18 record. Nido hit .275/.310/.350, with 11 hits in 40 at-bats. Only one of those hits was for extra-bases, as Nido hit a home run against the Chicago Cubs on June 23rd. Outside of June, May was the only other month of the season in which Nido hit above the Mendoza line.

Generally speaking, teams really don’t expect much out of their backup catcher offensively. Most backup catchers are instead supposed to be defensive specialists, which to Nido’s credit he was in 2019.

Nido caught 341 2/3 innings this season and produced one defensive run saved. Fangraphs has a stat that measures a catcher’s pitch framing ability called FRM (Catcher Framing Runs Above Average). Nido’s 2.4 FRM was far better than Wilson Ramos’ -7.6 FRM. Ramos was also worth -13 DRS, showing the steep decline in defensive prowess when he was behind the plate.

2020 Outlook

Tomas Nido is supposed to be the backup catcher of the future (if there is such a thing), but if he is going to fill that role he has to produce more offensively.

The Mets love Nido’s work with the pitching staff and pitch framing ability behind the plate. Still, he needs to find a way to lift his offensive production closer to league average if the Mets are going to keep him in that role for 2020 and beyond.

New York has two of their top 30 prospects that are catchers in the upper levels of their farm system. Ali Sanchez is another defensive-minded catcher, who finished the season with a promotion to the Triple-A Syracuse Mets. While he did not hit well in his 11 games with Syracuse, Sanchez hit .278/.337/.337 across 71 games in Double-A prior to his promotion.

Patrick Mazeika spent all of 2019 with the Binghamton Rumble Ponies in Double-A, his second-straight season at that level. Mazeika hit .245/.312./.426, while finding his power stroke setting career-highs with 16 home runs and 69 RBIs.

With the impending promotions of Sanchez and Mazeika, Nido will needs to find his way soon. If he continues to struggle to hit at this level, Nido could very well find himself as a DFA candidate next season.

By: Ryan Finkelstein