What's the Mets' plan with Kevin Parada?
What's the Mets' plan with Kevin Parada?
Plus, the Mets may have another fallback to Yoshinobu Yamamoto, and another bullpen option is added to the mix
What’s Up with the Mets? 🍎
Former Mets reliever Ken MacKenzie passed away at the age of 89 (Jay Horowitz)
The Mets announced they’ve signed righty Cam Robinson to a minor league contract with an invite to Major League spring training
Rumor Mill 💨
The Blue Jays have interest in free-agent slugger J.D. Martinez (MLB.com)
Coveted Mets target Yoshinobu Yamamoto met with the division rival Phillies on Thursday (NBC Sports Philadelphia)
Shota Imanaga could be a fallback option for the Mets if they fail to sign Yamamoto (New York Post)
What’s the long term plan with Kevin Parada?✍️
As we approach Christmas and remain firmly in the doldrums of MLB’s offseason, I find myself pondering a mostly undiscussed part of the Mets roster.
Their catching depth.
A conversation about the organization’s catcher position simply cannot be had without talking about Kevin Parada, which makes me ask the million-dollar question:
What is the long-term plan for the Mets’ first round pick from the 2022 draft?
To be honest, I don’t think that’s a question the team even has an answer for at this point.
When the Mets selected the right-handed swinging backstop 11th overall coming out of Georgia Tech, it was with offense in mind. During his final year in college, he slashed .361/.453/.709 with 26 home runs and 88 RBI in 60 games.
As we all know, the general rule of thumb in the MLB draft is to take the best player available regardless of position, draft the best tools if you will.
Even with that in mind, however, the selection of Parada was curious given the presence of Francisco Álvarez in the organization, who at the time was ranked as the top prospect in all of baseball.
A year and a half later, that conundrum is even more prevalent.
Álvarez crushed 25 home runs as a rookie this past season and demonstrated elite defense in the process, firmly entrenching himself as the team’s starting catcher at the Major League level. Parada meanwhile spent the majority of the season in Brooklyn, where he slashed a strong .265/.340/.447 with 36 extra-base hits and 42 RBI in 87 games.
Heading into 2024, veteran Omar Narváez is again slated to be Álvarez’s back-up in the big-leagues. Tomás Nido and Taylor Heineman—both of whom have extensive big league experience—project as solid catching depth to have in Triple-A.
Parada will begin the year as the starting catcher in Double-A, and if he succeeds in Binghamton neither Nido nor Heineman should represent a roadblock if the organization wants to promote him to Syracuse.
But this situation always circles back to the same question the team is going to have to answer before it gets thrust upon them.
How do Álvarez and Parada both exist on the same roster?
The short answer? They more than likely do not.
The Mets don’t have to look any further than their own history to see that these situations can often be detrimental to everyone involved. Eleven years ago they selected catcher Kevin Plawecki in the first round of the 2012 draft. A few months after that they acquired touted prospect Travis d’Arnaud from Toronto in the blockbuster R.A. Dickey trade.
Plawecki was widely considered a legitimate offensive catching prospect, but he quickly found himself blocked by d’Arnaud, and without consistent playing time he failed to produce at the level the team had expected. After four mostly mediocre seasons in Queens he was traded to Cleveland—though by that point his value had diminished so much that the return was not nearly what it would’ve been several years earlier.
I would encourage the Mets not to let history repeat itself.
Parada is a fixture on national prospect rankings and by all accounts has a bright future in front of him. But without a clear path to big league playing time, at this juncture he simply has more value to the Mets as a trade chip than he would as a secondary catcher.
Hot Stove 🔥
The Dodgers and Rays agreed to a trade that will send RHP Tyler Glasnow and OF Manuel Margot to LA in exchange for RHP Ryan Pepiot and OF Jonny Deluca - the trade is contingent upon LA and Glasnow agreeing to a contract extension (ESPN)
Detroit inked right-handed starter Jack Flaherty to a one year contract (ESPN)
The Rangers signed RHP Tyler Mahle to a two-year, $22 million guaranteed contract
The Yankees traded Billy McKinney to the Pirates in exchange for International Bonus Pool money (YES Network)
Slow down with the “Elite Defense”. He was 2nd in PB’s and was 1st in errors by a catcher. He has an absolute cannon for an arm but is more likely to hit the Batters Eye than he is the SS’s glove. His framing is excellent in spots but poor on other parts of the zone. I get being a homer but slow down on the stretching of the truth.
Nice analysis.
There seem to be questions around Parada as a defensive catcher, and I could see that complicating a trade negotiation.