The Angels signed catcher Francisco Mejia to a minor league deal, according to reporter Miriam Luz. The deal includes a spring training invite.
Mejia, 28, put up a .227/.258/.400 batting line in 160 plate appearances for the Rays this year. He split time behind the dish for Tampa Bay with Christian Bethancourt, logging 381 innings. Mejia hit the IL in late July with an MCL sprain, an injury that cost him about a month. Upon his activation in August, the Rays instead chose to designate Mejia for assignment, sticking with Rene Pinto as their backup catcher. Mejia then accepted his outright assignment, so as not to abandon the remainder of his $2.155MM salary. He then elected free agency in October.
Signed out of the Dominican Republic in 2012, Mejia broke out as a bat-first switch-hitting Indians prospect in 2016. Prior to the 2018 season, Baseball America considered him the 20th best prospect in the game, while MLB.com had him at #11.
In July of 2018, the Indians traded Mejia to the Padres for relievers Brad Hand and Adam Cimber. Mejia made the Padres in 2019 as the backup to Austin Hedges, though by the end of 2020 he was optioned to Triple-A. In December of 2020, Mejia was again traded, this time heading to the Rays with Luis Patiño, Blake Hunt, and Cole Wilcox for Blake Snell. Mejia and Patiño, the principals in that trade, have fallen far in these three years. Patiño was claimed on waivers earlier today, returning to the Padres. Snell, meanwhile, reached free agency, won his second Cy Young award, and was reported yesterday as an Angels priority by Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle.
Mejia paired up with Mike Zunino to form the Rays’ catching tandem in 2021. He posted a .260/.322/.416 batting line in 277 plate appearances, providing the best offense of his career to date. In 2022, with Zunino on the injured list, Mejia led the Rays and set a career-high with 638 1/3 innings caught, despite injuries of his own.
Though Mejia is still relatively young, he generally hasn’t impressed defensively and his highly-touted bat never materialized. Logan O’Hoppe holds the starting catching job for the Angels, and Mejia will have to supplant Matt Thaiss for the Halos’ backup role. The Angels shipped catcher Max Stassi to the Braves earlier this month along with David Fletcher, who then flipped Stassi to the White Sox. It’s been a quiet offseason otherwise for Angels GM Perry Minasian, who has seen Shohei Ohtani depart and has thus far added three relievers in Luis Garcia, Adam Cimber, and Adam Kolarek.
Obligatory Ohtani’s replacement comment….
Not sure this is any less obnoxious than the people who just do the comment.
Say the thing, Bart.
Haha great reference!
I didn’t do nothing
Stassi replacement. #3 catcher behind O’Hoppe and Thaiss.
Man, remember when this guy was a “can’t miss” prospect that was going to be an All Star for years to come. What happened? Was he not given a real chance as a starter or was he just not good enough?.
The Padres played him quite a bit, but he stopped hitting. I’m sure injuries came into play.
He had 576 PA as backup catcher in 2021-2022 for the Rays and even hit decently. He is just a horrible catcher.
He had a 65 game hitting streak in the minors in 2016 and suddenly the Brewers were willing to trade Lucroy for him, but that got shot down by Lucroy.
And Lucroy fell off the face of the earth as well.
Didn’t I block this guy?
That stat always comes to mind when I see his name
baseball is a funny game. Lots of times we can look back and see warning signs (Brandon Wood’s strikeout rate in the minors) and others we can’t.
I was excited to see Meija in SD but he just never popped.
Even at the time people saw the signs with Wood. The year that Baseball America had him as the #3 prospect they also had him flagged along with others for their “bust alert” segment, for the exact reasons that he ended up a bust
People can say they saw things with Wood, but I can tell you, they didn’t. When Aybar and Wood were battling for Shortstop in Spring training many many moons ago, I was the only one on the board who preferred Aybar.
I was ripped without mercy.
I loved Aybar.
I was never excited about Brandon Wood. The moment I saw him hit I rolled my eyes. He just looked like a little guy and was very boring looking at the plate. I know that sounds superficial but he just struck me as a very uninteresting player. Sure enough…
Brandon Wood back in the day was already writing his HOF introduction….then he became the model for AAAA type player.
@hiflew
People put too much value in minor league numbers. Kid hit .296 in the minors but hits around. 240 in the majors. All his numbers are in line with the 18% drop in production that AAA players see when they’re promoted to the majors. At that point you either find a way to improve or you revert to your old self.
Every team has half a dozen of those stories a decade. It’s just baseball.
Lots of potential but from reports while in SD, wasn’t coachable – tried to fix the swing and some LF and he wasn’t listening to any of it apparently which led to being shipped out and then washed out. Good luck to him.
That is more like it for the Angels. Snell, ha!
Snell is perfect for the Angels. 180 innings or less, only double digit wins twice, which happened to be his cy young years. Essentially, he needs to win the cy young in order to have a good year.
He’s perfect.
Any pitcher winning the Cy Young is having not a good year a great year.
Basically, Chad Wallach’s replacement. I’m fine with this move as a MiLB deal.
Patino and Mejia signing on the sake day? It’s beginning to Snell a lot like Christmas…signing imminent!
Pittsburgh should have made this move. They need C depth upgrade.
I like this signing. We lack catching depth in a major way.
But it’s the sixth minor leaguer they have added.
Probably because they’re using AA as their new AAA for prospects and AAA for these moves to get a more accurate read on prospects since Salt Lake is almost as high as Coors Field.
My complaint is these RPs are not very good and the Angels have done nothing to help their roster….so far
I look for your comments. You have been talking about the bullpen significance for ages. And you’re mostly negative. So I’d love to know, if you were the GM right now, what moves you’d be making?
Let’s be honest. Hasn’t the bullpen been a problem for years? Hope and pray is a bad strategy.
I’d start with Hader. But I’m not a scout. Who throws hard, misses bats, has command, and generally keeps the ball in the park?
Those are your guys. We never add those guys.
If you want a strong bullpen year in and year out, you have to strike gold again and find another Shields and K-Rod. Other than that, bullpens are the biggest crapshoot in baseball. Thats why starting pitching is so important. The problem is these young starters wasting 100 pitches by the fifth inning. That was augmented by Ohtani and the 6 man rotation, exposing those young starters who weren’t ready thus further exposing their middle relief too much. Thats what needs to be fixed.
Shields was awesome. What the Angels do every year is roll the dice, lose a number of early games. Find the guys with hot hands, win a few games, those guys cool off, revert to form, then the Angels lose a number of games again.
They need to go into the year with good late inning guys. The Angels haven’t done that in years.
Other fans have to be just as sick of this as I am. Maybe the only difference is I noticed it earlier than most. By now, almost everyone sees it.
Take that dodgers!
Zzzzzzzzzz
If it wasn’t for the luckiest draft pick of all time, Trout (they took him the 2nd of the back to back picks they had) we would be filing the Angels in the same file cabinet as the Washington Wizards and the New York Jets.
Pure poverty.
Yankees are Dodgers East.
What a joke. The Yankees don’t have a fraction of the quality depth the Dodgers have.
If you understand English, you would understand that this implies that the Dodgers run the MLB and the Yankees are the East coast version of the evil empire.
Before they used to call the Dodgers, Yankees West.
@YankeesAreDodgersEast: What does “run the MLB” even specifically mean, and who are “they?”
If you understood English, you might appreciate how nonsensical such a statement sounds.
Run the MLB as in, every organization and fan of said organization is CRYING when the Dodgers make any transaction.
You either forgot your meds, or it’s that time of month for you. You seem unhinged.
Says the guy with an unhinged username, obviously on drugs.
And “they?” Paranoid much?
Hahaha get a load of this guy
Now now children this is hardly the place for this nonsense. Nobody is crying about the dodgers they could trade for trout and Cole and Harper and the braves stud hitters and they would still find a way to choke. Since 88 one title and it came during the wild pandemic season. Grab your popcorn and enjoy the epic fail that comes every year before the World Series. I live in LA so I get the bonus of seeing all the sandy Dodger fans. Best time of the year
if NYY spent $1.2 B in one offseason, they too could have quality depth
@Datashark: No, if they built a decent farm system, they could have quality depth.
It’s been years since the Yankees were relevant and that’s not changing anytime soon
Doyer fans sure love the smell of their own farts. I imagine the smug is almost as bad as the smog in LA nowadays.
I live pretty far from LA out in the courtyside, so sorry wouldn’t know.
LA sucks but I’m sure it’s a million times better than the hole in a ground you call home.
I live in Southern California so by default where you live is garbage compared to me.
Sorry bro
I’m in southern California too. So you just called where you live garbage good job
That’s life sometimes
Yup, Padres definitely won the Blake Snell trade. Rare miss for Tampa on prospects.
Unfortunately Mejia had a $10 million dollar bat in the minors and a 10cent head in the majors. Depth signing, nothing more
Tamales for sale dozen $16.99
Don’t forget, do all your shopping at the 99 Cents store
Happy holidays, angel fans,
Arte Moreno
Angel fans don’t forget I lowered the beer prices 2002
Happy holidays, angel fans,
Arte Moreno
Dozen plain tamales no drink
Damn. Great signing by the Halos. For those of you who don’t know Mejia was a former 1st round pick. He will likely start 100-150 games behind the dish for the Halos.
Where is the sarcasm font when you need it?
O’Hoppe is the starting catcher. Thaiss is the backup (for now). Mejia will begin at triple-A barring injuries to O’Hoppe or Thaiss.
Anaheim padres
Finally, a person (writer/owner) acknowledged that Cleveland’s team was the Indians in 2018!
Still the Indians in my book. Guardians is a terrible name.
As a proud (Asian) Indian, I agree!
Indians, Devil Rays and Redskins never forget!!!
The liquor store I go to the owner is Mexican and Indian (Asian)
Mejia and Patino were the two main pieces in the Snell trade. Now Patino is a Padre again and Mejia is a bust.
Not being sarcastic here. Mejia is serviceable.
As a hitter, possibly. As a catcher. Not at all.
DH
Bang!!!!
Brewers tried to trade Jonathan Lucroy to Cleveland years ago. He was to be the centerpiece of the trade before Lucroy vetoed it.
Angels add another minor league player.
Great.
I don’t mind. They are not winning anyway so stocking up depth is okay.
I’d be shocked if they won, but I bet they go into 2025 with a lot of 2024 questions answered in the affirmative.
Arte pushing in all his Chips this year. This signing shows that they’re serious. It’s world series or bust in 2024!!!!
Angels trying to build a team the sentimental way. “Hey Francisco, we already got Cimber signed and are trying to get Snell. In spring training, do you want to catch some of the guys other teams wanted over you? Then sign here!”
What will the GM do with the first round pick? Another low ceiling high floor player?
He gets a minor league deal, yet the Brewers give Hasse a million dollars. Brilliant.
That .227 average will scare other teams.
Our offseason is complete. Thank you Arte for being so aggressive in signing the best FA out there.
Why not a major league deal?
“Meanwhile” HAS to come at the start of the sentence and cannot be in the middle, set off by two commas.