The Indians have promoted top prospect Francisco Mejia, per a club announcement. Right-hander Evan Marshall was optioned to create active roster space.
Mejia, who’s known most for his bat, was announced as a catcher/outfielder. It’s still unknown just how the team will deploy him in the mid and long-term, but he’ll fill in for backup catcher Roberto Perez for the meantime. Though the team says Perez is not going on the DL — at least, not yet — he is expected to miss some time after being struck by a pitch in the hand yesterday.
Mejia, who made a brief MLB cameo last year, entered the season as a consensus top-twenty prospect leaguewide, with many assuming he would hit his way into the MLB mix sooner than later. Defensively, though, there are far greater questions. Thus far in 2018, he has split his time about evenly behind the plate and in the grass.
While he has worked to find a defensive home, Mejia hasn’t produced to his typical levels at the plate. In 214 plate appearances at the highest level of the minors, he owns a .214/.271/.33 slash. That said, as the team notes in its release, the switch-hitting Mejia has been on a hot streak of late. And he came into the season with a track record and reputation as a polished hitter from both sides of the plate.
While the Cleveland organization gets a sense for what kind of contribution it can expect from Mejia now and in the future, the 22-year-old will accrue MLB service time. He already had 31 days from 2017, and can earn as many as 112 from this point through the end of the current season, so he could profile as a future Super Two qualifier if he stays up for good.
Mejia made the news earlier this season when he brought a lawsuit seeking to abrogate his contractual relationship with an entity called Big League Advance. The litigation will determine whether Mejia is forced to pay a portion of his ongoing MLB earnings.
“Mejia owns a .214/.271/.33 slash.”
And? .33 = .330
“It’s still unknown just how the team will deploy him.”
I would imagine he’s mostly going to catch since Roberto Perez is injured.
Gomes does most of the catching. I’d imagine Perez will head to the DL which will give Mejia a few starts behind the plate here and there, but if I had to guess he’d probably play the outfield.
He’s up due to Roberto Perez getting hit on his right hand on Sunday. Hopefully this isn’t also a showcase for potential trade bait to shore up the pen.
While his .214 BA is alarmingly low, it’s still 84 points higher than Roberto Perez.
Hahahaha….hahahaha….sigh.
My belief concerning his struggles is that, with them moving him around to other positions, his focus is more on learning how to play the field.
Just leave the kid at catcher, dagnabbit.
Every now and then we agree on something, and this is one of those times. Well put.
They thought his bat was MLB ready so if they got him in other positions he’d fast-track his promotion to the bigs. Ironically, through that process they discovered he had holes in his bat after all. From what I saw last season I wasn’t all that impressed with his defense or his attitude and thought the time in the minors and maybe a veteran to take him under his wing to teach him how to be a “pro” was what he needed more than anything.
Unless his pitch-framing and defensive metrics behind the plate are shaky, Tribe should not have moved him around the diamond. It seems like that decision was borne of the mindset that the major league club is set at C for years to come. Gomes is solid defensively and his bat is above average. Perez, however, is right on par with most NL pitchers offensively, and now he’s having this transfer problem that prevents him from even throwing out his fellow catchers on the base paths. Problem is they signed him to that extension (which was really unnecessary especially when Mejia was tearing through the minors), and he’s all but untradeable at this point.
If Mejia makes a significant impact during this opportunity it will be interesting to see what they do when Perez is ready to be activated.
I think it’s a stretch to say Gomes is above average offensively. He has been decent this year and yes he has one silver slugger award, but some awful years are sandwiched in between. Both him and Perez excel defensively though for sure.
My assumption was that he meant above avg for a catcher
Some hitters hit and some hitters can’t hit water if they fell out of a boat
Mejia demoted
That’s a pretty quick turnaround. I don’t think he even made it out of the Columbus city limits before being demoted.