This week's mailbag gets into a potential Francisco Alvarez extension, trading Nico Hoerner, valuing Garrett Crochet, potential outfield additions for the Braves, and much more. Let's get into it!
Ben asks:
What would be a fair contract extension for the Mets and Francisco Alvarez? He is so talented and a great leader for such a young kid, have to imagine he will get expensive in arbitration.
I wrote an answer to this and then ran it by Steve Adams, Anthony Franco, and Darragh McDonald. They threw cold water on some outlandish contract ideas I had for the Mets' young catcher.
Comparable contracts are lacking for Alvarez. I don't think comps need to be catcher-specific, especially because there are so few good ones. The Buster Posey and Joe Mauer deals are too old. Will Smith signed with four years of service and the Dodgers got his age 29-37 seasons, with a luxury tax dodge as a core feature.
One that comes to mind in the 2+ class, where Alvarez will be after the season, is Andres Gimenez. He signed a seven year, $106.5MM extension. Some of the other MLBTR writers see this as something of a ceiling for Alvarez, and I assume the Mets would feel similarly. At present, I'll take the over on that.
Unlock Subscriber-Exclusive Articles Like This One With a Trade Rumors Front Office Subscription
- Access weekly subscriber-only articles by Tim Dierkes, Steve Adams, and Anthony Franco.
- Join exclusive weekly live chats with Anthony.
- Remove ads and support our writers.
- Access GM-caliber tools like our MLB Contract Tracker
A quibble: I don’t think that Hoerner, as a league average 2b, is “fairly replaceable”. Despite his power slowdown possibly hampered by injury, his WAR on fangraphs is #10 among 2Bs. His K rate is currently 11.4%. Not easy to replace, imo.
He’s still young and when he isn’t slumping has a high average lots of steals and great defense
OMG the Twins scare the hell out of me. It’s 11-2 in the 4th inning against Arizona and Jordan Montgomery got annihilated. If these hitters stay healthy and they get some pitching at the deadline, Yankees Orioles Guardians better watch out.
I agree the Twins are good, but Jordan Montgomery has been terrible this year, terrible.
Yeah Monte’s year has been less than stellar but I thought he had been starting to turn it around last couple starts. But alas, it looks like back to square one. So much for Boras’s alternate spring training site for free agents keeping players up to speed lol. (Did that even exist in real life?)
The “Boras Training Center” is about as reliable as Scott Boras’ own reports on player health. I seem to remember Boras certifying Met’s draft pick Kumar Rocker as “healthy” and “not injured” mere months before he needed major arm surgery.