The Mets could trade catching prospect Travis d’Arnaud to try and acquire a big bat according to Andy Martino of the Daily News.
Some Mets people are really high on catching prospect Kevin Plawecki, writes Martino, and this pretty much sums up what I’ve been saying for a while now.
The question now is if teams will look down on d’Arnaud who didn’t exactly hit the ground running in his debut. Throw in the fact, whether it’s deserved or not, that he’s missed far too much time due to injuries over the last three years.
The injury concern isn’t an overstatement as even Sandy Alderson alluded to it last month and said because of his inability to stay on the field he intends to sign a solid backup this offseason.
Plawecki, of course, is someone I’ve always been very high on. As far back as April I had no problems considering trading D’Arnaud if the right bat presented itself.
The 22-year old backstop, hit .305 with a .390 OBP last season with 38 doubles, 8 home runs and 80 RBI in 125 games between Single-A Savannah and Advanced-A St. Lucie.
Our minor league analyst Mitch Petanick wrote extensively on this two days ago. Plawecki, now ranks higher than Wilmer Flores according to Baseball America who had him ranked as the Mets’ fifth best prospect.
Kevin Plawecki struck out a mere 77 times in his professional career while Nimmo struck out 131 times alone in in 2013. While Nimmo had 71 walks (ridiculous), Plawecki had about 30 more hits than Nimmo. Plate discipline is about patience, but it also comes with a higher propensity of striking out, as Nimmo displayed. Plawecki also only struck out 29 times in three seasons at Purdue. That’s serious strike-zone judgment.
Plawecki is currently two years younger than d’Arnaud and their numbers play out similarly in the lower levels of minor league ball – it wasn’t until the jump to Double-A where d’Arnaud started to show the power. In fact, Plawecki hit for higher average, had fewer strikeouts, and just as good of power numbers through A-ball as d’Arnaud had.
The Mets have to take a chance at some point. They can’t wave a wand and wish for things to get better. They can’t pawn off players like Lucas Duda and Ike Davis and think some team is going to throw Carlos Gonzalez or Jurickson Profar at them.
Sooner or later they will have to make a commitment to winning and bringing in better quality position players. That’s either going to cost money or prospects.
The bottom line is that the front office needs to get this team winning again. Whether it’s d’Arnaud, Flores or any other prospect that’s traded, if it makes us better in the short and long term, I’m on board with it.
