Mets GM Brodie Van Wagenen spoke to the press a little bit following the decision to designate Travis d’Arnaud for assignment and call up Tomas Nido.
In that time, Van Wagenen told the press that Devin Mesoraco has “an open door” to return to the organization if he would like to, as tweeted out by Tim Healey of Newsday. However, Mesoraco has been resistant to reporting to the minor league team and that has kept him on the restricted list.
Mesoraco, 30, was acquired by the Mets last season in a deal with the Cincinnati Reds for Matt Harvey. The catcher appeared in 66 games for New York in which he hit .222/.306/.409 with 10 home runs and 30 RBI.
On the defensive side of things, Jacob deGrom started to love throwing to him and eventually even became his personal catcher in 2018. However, he ranked 108th out of 117 qualifying players in FRAA (Framing Runs Above Average).
The final decision during Spring Training came between d’Arnaud and Mesoraco for the backup catcher spot on the team. However, with d’Arnaud recovering from Tommy John Surgery, he was not going to be ready for Opening Day, which really ended up making the team choose between Nido and Mesoraco.
With d’Arnaud expected to be on the 10-day IL for a very short amount of time, the team chose the former considering he had minor league options left while the team would have been forced to DFA Mesoraco upon d’Arnaud’s return.
It remains to be seen if d’Arnaud being DFA’d has any effect on the Mesoraco’s situation going forward, but it is certainly worth monitoring. The Mets also have Rene Rivera at Triple-A Syracuse, who the team brought back on a minor league deal only after realizing Mesoraco would refuse to report to the team after exercising his upwards mobility clause in March and not getting claimed.
