Should Mets Explore Signing Another Catcher?

All in all, it’s been a quiet winter around baseball.

With many team’s suffering revenue losses from the shortened 2020 season and having no fans in attendance, clubs are erring on the side of frugality this offseason.

So far, we’ve seen teams non-tender or designate players for assignment that otherwise may not have been during previous winters, and a majority of the top free agents are still left on the open market.

But for the Mets, they’ve been hard at work since Steve Cohen’s purchase of the team went through in November.

The hedge fund billionaire cleared house from the previous regime and appointed Sandy Alderson as team president, Jared Porter as general manager, and plucked Red Sox assistant general manager Zack Scott away from the team, and made him Mets’ assistant general manager.

The coaching staff has been more or less rounded out, and the team has signed a slew of players to minor league deals in an effort to replenish the upper levels of a farm system that was decimated by the previous regime.

Cohen and Alderson also struck early this winter by bolstering their bullpen with former Minnesota Twins reliever Trevor May, and signing James McCann to be the backstop for at least the next four years.

There’s still much work to be done, as New York could afford to further add to their bullpen, strengthen their starting rotation, and potentially add a big bopper to their lineup. Beyond that, the team will likely add some supplementary pieces here and there to round out the rest of their roster.

Speaking of supplementary pieces, and even though the team has already added a big name catcher this winter, could they add another catcher beyond McCann this winter?

McCann will be taking a majority of reps behind the dish for the foreseeable future, and with Wilson Ramos and Robinson Chirinos gone, Tomas Nido has the inside track to be the team’s primary backup.

Nido, 26, missed a majority of the 2020 season after contracting the novel coronavirus, but has proved to be a serviceable defensive option in a reserve capacity in the past.

During the last full MLB season of 2019, Nido ranked No. 19 out of 123 qualified catchers in catcher defensive adjustment (CDA), and No. 19 in fielding runs above average (FRAA), according to Baseball Prospectus.

The Puerto Rican born catcher is out of minor league options as well, so he will likely get every opportunity to stick with the team during this upcoming season.

However, behind Nido, the Mets’ catching depth chart is rather thin.

On the 40-man roster, the other catching options are Ali Sanchez, who debuted in 2020 with New York, and Patrick Mazeika who spent time with the Mets at the MLB level last year, but didn’t appear in a game.

In the event of an injury to McCann or Nido, or both, the team would find themselves in a hairy position behind the dish.

While the team is certainly not going to strike and sign the top catching option in J.T. Realmuto, there are some decent names available on the open market the team could consider bringing in to fortify their catching corps.

Four names that stick out upon looking at the available catchers are Curt Casali, Jason Castro, Tyler Flowers and Alex Avila.

Casali, 32, has spent his seven year MLB career calling the shots behind the plate for the Tampa Bay Rays and Cincinnati Reds. He has worked mostly in a reserve capacity, but has proven to be effective on a defensive level.

In 2019, Casali was ranked No. 17 with 6.0 CDA and No. 18 with 6.0 FRAA by Baseball Prospectus. In 2020, Casali also ranked in the 78th percentile by Statcast in framing. This was an improvement from the year prior, where he was middle of the pack in that area.

Castro, 33, was seriously linked to the Houston Astros a week and a half ago, and it seemed inevitable he was going to sign there, but talks have gone silent since then.

The 10-year veteran and journeyman type catcher, Castro has been an effective backup catcher in recent years. In 2019, his 3.8 CDA and 3.5 FRA ranked No. 25 and No. 26, respectively.

Castro’s framing in 2020 ranked in the 70th percentile by Statcast, a slight improvement from 2019 where it was in the 63rd percentile. In 2019, he also had 1.6 fWAR, and for his career, has logged at least 2+ fWAR in five times.

Flowers, 35 this month, has spent the last five seasons with the Atlanta Braves after beginning his career with the Chicago White Sox.

Among this bunch, Flowers is probably the most appealing and could likely be had on a one-year pact.

During his last full season of 2019, Flowers ranked No. 9 with 10.7 CDA and 10.3 FRAA, and since 2014 has been good for at least 2+ fWAR each season, including a robust 2017 campaign when he registered 4.5 fWAR.

His framing in 2020 according to Statcast was middle of the pack, as it ranked in the 50th percentile, but in 2019, it was in the upper echelon of the league, ranking in the 93rd percentile.

Lastly, we have Alex Avila, who was a mainstay behind the dish at the beginning of his career with the Detroit Tigers, but has bounced around in recent years.

The soon-to-be 34-year-old had 2.8 CDA and 2.1 FRAA during the full 2019 season while he was a member of the Arizona Diamondbacks, which ranked No. 30 and No. 32, respectively.

In 2020, his framing dropped down to the 31st percentile, but in the two years prior to that, his framing percentile was in the 90s.

Avila is the less sexy of these four options, but might be able to be brought in with less of a commitment.

At the end of the day, the Mets are likely set with McCann holding down the fort and Nido backing him up, but it wouldn’t hurt to have some reinforcements beyond that, especially when there are some low cost but decent options available for the picking.