The Mets announced today that they’ve optioned catcher Francisco Alvarez to Triple-A. Catcher Hayden Senger was called up to take Alvarez’s spot on the active roster.
Alvarez, 23, is in the midst of his fourth MLB season. He played just five games in the majors in 2022, however, and entered the 2023 campaign a consensus top-10 prospect in the entire sport. He hit a respectable .209/.284/.437 (97 wRC+) with 25 home runs in 123 games during that rookie campaign while grading out as one of the sport’s best defensive catchers. It was a strong enough showing to make Alvarez a lock to serve as the Mets’ regular catcher in 2024, but was sidelined by a hand injury that ultimately required him to undergo surgery on his thumb and miss nearly two months. Alvarez was able to hit a respectable .237/.307/.403 (102 wRC+) last year, roughly league average production despite a sharp decline in power output.
While Alvarez’s overall offensive line was on par with expectations in 2024, there were still reasons for concern. His once-elite defense was just average in 2024 as his blocking ability went from average to the second percentile among qualifying catchers per Statcast. His pitch framing numbers also slipped slightly, though they still remained elite. In addition to the step back defensively, Alvarez’s power outage last year led underlying metrics to judge his performance at the plate more harshly last year; his xwOBA dropped from .305 in 2023 to just .289 in 2024 despite his wOBA remaining steady at .310 across both seasons.
2025 started out on a familiarly tough note for Alvarez, as he missed the start of the season due to surgery on his left hand—this time to repair a fractured hamate bone. Since making his season debut on April 25, Alvarez has hit just .236/.319/.333 with a wRC+ of 91. That’s not terrible for the standards of the catcher position, but it’s still a far cry from the roughly league average production he had posted for his career entering this year. He’s also hitting for even less power than last year, with just three home runs and three doubles in 35 games. An 8.2% barrel rate suggests that might be due to some lackluster batted ball luck, but further steps backward defensively aren’t as easy to dismiss.
Alvarez has remained below average as a blocker behind the plate after last year’s rough showing, and he’s now become one of the worst framing catchers in the league after that was his strong suit in his career prior to this season. While he’s stayed somewhat valuable by throwing out opposing base runners at an elite rate, Alvarez has fallen off to the point of becoming an average to below average catcher overall based on his numbers this year. Between his offense trending downward and his uncharacteristically lackluster defense behind the plate, the Mets clearly felt it was time to send him to the minors for a reset.
It’s a sign of urgency for a club that recently lost seven consecutive games before snapping that losing streak with a win over the Phillies last night. The Mets are in a statistical tie with Philadelphia for the NL East title at the moment, which puts a premium on wins as they look to rebuild their lead in the division and put the club’s front office in position to buy more aggressively at the trade deadline this summer. While the best version of the Mets involves Alvarez in the lineup on a regular basis, though Luis Torrens has shown himself to be deserving of a regular role in the short-term with strong defensive grades and an 89 wRC+ that’s not too far off of Alvarez’s own figure this year.
In the short term, it seems Senger will be tasked with backing up Torrens. The 28-year-old made his MLB debut earlier this year and has hit .179/.207/.214 (18 wRC+) in 29 plate appearances across 13 games in the majors. Longer term, there’s little question that Alvarez will return to the majors with the club and rejoin Torrens as part of the club’s catching tandem. The Athletic’s Will Sammon reports that the Mets are satisfied with their catching tandem at this point and that they aren’t expected to enter trade season in the market for catching help.
Wake up call.
Andy Pages says hello
I disagree with the decision. Fire Eric Chavez instead.
It worked last year for Vientos, and to some extent for Baty this year. This is why we don’t run MLB organizations and leave it to the pros
Alvarez needed a reset in his approach to the game. He has been more lax about his defense lately, and his swing to pull every pitch has not adjusted through an at-bat nor through a game.
Not a bad thing to take a step back and “work on things” away from the glare of the major league TV camera.
He’ll be back before long.
I’ll also add that he and his partner just had a baby. Catchers are people too.
But that hamate injury is not something to shrug off either.
I think he rushed back.
Alvarez went outside the organization to remake his swing, Chavez isn’t the culprit.
Chavez and Barnes need to go. Can’t understand people’s love of them. Tired of hitters approach at the plate and hitters mire through slumps without any solution from the hitting coaches. Former players/analysts criticizing the flaws that are so obvious but escapes Chavez and Barnes. It takes other people (such as Beltran) to help these hitters ffs.
Haha, you think the Mets offensive problems are b/c of hitting coaches? What hitting coach is instructing these guys to flail at offspeed pitches out of the zone and fastballs head high? You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it drink.
You are aware that there is this thing called defense in baseball, right? How about watching the games, and seeing where Alvarez has failed in the field along with his poor hitting. Everyone got a hit last night. Even Jared Young went yard. Please.
I agree, kind of a weird choice
He made some defensive mistakes a big one in the Braves series. He needs a wake up call.
I know he had a garbage time homer last night, but he stunk on both sides this year.
Very much agree. Prior to his HR, I was texting a friend about how he should be sent down for a bit. His offensive woes would be tolerable if he was playing passable defense but it’s like he makes a defense gaffe almost every night.
Was only a matter of time. He’s been a liability both behind the plate and swinging.. Hopefully he will figure it out in the minors
Dang, harsh.
What’s with New York hyped prospects being total busts these days? Alvarez, beady,moricio,Acuna,Dominguez,volpe,perraza, etc. these dudes never ever pan out for the New York teams. When was the last time a highly rated prospect panned out for a New York team?
True of every team, And I know of Baty, but who is beady?
Just some guy named Aaron Judge
Judge for as great as he is, was not a highly rated prospect. He only came up to majors when he was like 25 I believe.
24. He didn’t start playing pro ball until he was 22.
@chapo….Maybe not, but he definitely improved his prospect status after playing college ball.
I’m just going by where he was drafted in ’10 and ’13.
Judge was a consensus top 100 prospect from pre-2015 to pre-2017, fwiw
That is true, but it was the lower half of the top 100. Those are the kind of guys that stick around for a couple years as a starter, sit on the bench for a couple more years, and then quietly disappear. No one expected this kind of career out of Judge. Heck, not many really expected it to last after his monster rookie year.
The year Judge broke out (2017) he wasn’t even drafted in my AL fantasy league. I picked him up shortly after the draft and reaped rewards all season long. After that he was a first round pick every year.
Baseball is hard!
Torrens played the Gehrig, and Alvarez has been Wally Pipped. Crazy how the Yankees have given 3 teams their starting catchers. The Mets, Red Sox and Marlins. I like Wells but definitely make you wonder what if.
It’s every teams’ job to hand out the prospect hype kool-aid. Drinking it is always optional. The biggest media markets have the largest kool-aid pitchers. There’s also some guy named Aaron Judge playing in NY.
Because of the pressure from their large markets those teams don’t perennially tank to get top 5 draft picks like Houston and Baltimore did once upon a time.
They have to hit on a late 1st round, 2nd round pick or sign international free agents. The international guys are teenagers so who knows how long it takes for them to mature into stars. M
The Mets have Alonso, Nimmo and McNeil contributing plus WAR seasons for them for many many years now. Even when they have struggled, they have still been more than serviceable.
You’re also leaving off pitchers from your list entirely. While rarely getting their hands on blue chip pitching prospects in the draft, the Yankees have been good at developing pitching and trading their arms for proven hitters.
While all that is true, my main point is, it seems that for the longest time whenever a New York highly anticipated prospect is called up they ultimately either fail or just have a disappointing performance. I’m not referring to regular mid level players who ultimately have great careers. I’m referring to highly touted ones similar to gunner henderson, adly, Julio, churio, holiday. When these type of players reach the show in New York it seems they almost always end up a disappointment.
@el_chapo_ NY teams simply don’t draft high enough for consensus pre-draft top prospects. So when a prospect is quickly climbing the ranks, the hype spotlight gets turned on to raise trade value. They pay public relations firms to facilitate this with the media and it keeps fans interested.
@ el_chapo Its a 3 step problem. 1- the NY media doesn’t know how to properly interpret the scouting reports. 2- The NY media embellishes the reports, overstating the positives, making overly optimistic statements about what the reports mean. 3- The fans go crazy and misinterpret what the media says even more.
Re: Yankees; in my opinion, Dominguez is the only one who was highly touted as an elite prospect by MLB scouts from the day he signed. And even still, he signed at such a young age it’s still a major crapshoot that he will be a superstar. He’s struggled defensively in the corners and may be bringing those struggles with him to the plate in his rookie season. Still too early to call him a bust.
Volpe, Rice, Wells are all good prospects but I don’t think people outside of the Yankees front office thought of them as elite can’t miss MLB prospects. These are not guys like Gunnar Henderson who was drafted at the very top. The Yankees US born young players are turning into good players who can eventually be better.
Clarke Schmidt is looking like he may fulfill his promise as a top pitching prospect.
Back to the international free agents: I always viewed Peraza and Cabrera as mid-level. They were overhyped.
Gil might be the best prospect the Yankees have produced outside of Judge but let’s see how he bounces back from injury.
And speaking of injury, Loaisiga is a reliever with elite stuff when he is healthy. He’s starting to put it back together.
I’m not a Mets fan so I don’t get too deep with their farm system. I’m just aware of the guys who are in the show. Acuña has a huge shadow cast over him by his superstar brother. Chances are he won’t be as good as him. Players like that are super rare, even when coming from the same gene pool. I’m not saying he’s going to be a Ozzie Canseco. He can still develop into an all star level talent in his own right.
I think Vientos will bounce back. He’s a good player. Just needs to make that adjustment.
And the Mets deserve a lot of credit for developing pitchers as well. DeGrom became the best pitcher in baseball for a good number of years. They share responsibility with the Giants and Phillies in developing Wheeler.
I’ve learned to respect the Mets ability to develop home grown talent over the years. They are much better at it now than they were in the 90s when I was a kid.
The main culprit of this – known to perhaps every fan outside of ny – is the absurd industry bias to ny prospects (historically Yankees but certainly Mets to s lesser degree as well). So often these guys are ranked 30, 50, or more spots too high bc of bias. So it’s not that they’re failing, they’re simply performing as would be expected if ranked in earnest.
If memory serves, Mets management was as surprised as anyone when McNeil hit enough to stick in the big leagues.
I mean almost the entire team is prospects or former prospects. Alonso and Nimmo pretty good and were highly regarded. They traded Pete Crow Armstrong for nothing he might win MVP. Vientos had an unbelievable 1st full season. Came out slow and nagging injuries sophomore slump. 20-24 year olds usually take some time and patience for every team. Some of these prospects were also meh in the minors which is a red flag to me about being great in the majors. Mauricio clearly still raw and who knows if he’ll ever turn the corner. Vientos and Acuna still seem like major leaguers to me although Vientos should be DH with that glove. Jett, Benge, Tong seem like the real deal with legit evidence of the high regards.
Pete Crow Armstrong was traded to the Cubs in exchange for Javier Báez and Trevor Williams. in 2021, so a bit morethan nothing…
You are correct. but its somewhat semantic. We can simply label the trade ‘meaningless’ instead of ‘for nothing’. That trade was made when the team was playing .500 ball and had neither the depth nor the farm system to legitimately contend or to make a meaningful run in the post-season. PCA also represented the absolute entirety of their OF prospect pool. So while the return was perhaps more than just nothing, it was virtually meaningless.
Not sure I completely agree with this take. I think Acuna has been solid. Mauricio was doing well before the surgery. He may return to form. Baty seems to be coming around and Vientos has been very good
Acuna has a .471 OPS and 37 wRC+ since the start of May. He’s a good defender and is very fast, but he’s hitting very bad right now.
@ Say Hey Not sure I agree with this take. Acuna looks like a reserve and little more. His hitting is too far away from major league level. Mauricio seemed exciting before the surgery, but he didn’t exactly do well – he wound up posting a .650ish OPS and a 67 OPS+ in that 2023 late season call-up. Baty seemed to be coming around – past tense. But it only lasted a few weeks, and his bat went flat a month ago – his OPS over the last 28 days is just .469.
Any or all of these guys might still make it. And any or all could wind up being little more than reserves, or even busts. Either way, its taken too long. Vientos is out of options. Baty, Mauricio, and Acuna are all down to their last options and do not look likely to be starters before those options are out. None of their performances deserve a spot on a contendr’s roster, let alone all three. The best hope right now is the same as [I thought] it was in the spring: that they improve at least enough by next spring to stay on the roster and not get DFA’d. Then maybe, they develop into legitimate players over the course of another year or two.
Everyone you mentioned is between the ages of 22-25. Let’s wait a minute before labeling them all busts.
You’re pretty quick to write off prospects.
I guess you consider anything other than instant All-Star status as abject failure. Volpe at age 24 is already a consistent 3 WAR player,
At only age 22, having missed a full year of minor league development. Dominguez is already a league average hitter. Acuna is only 23, and has played very solid defense at both positions up the middle and shows signs of being an elite base stealer. With less than 200 MLB plate appearances, he’s shown he won’t be a power hitter like his big brother, but you can hardly write him off.
Oh, and some spelling lessons wouldn’t hurt your credibility.
Like with most organizations, success by top prospects is at best a 50/50 proposition.
Every Yankees shortstop from here on out is going to be unfairly compared to Derek Jeter. I get it; Jeter was a star and appeared in parts of 20 seasons for the Yankees. But people need to temper their expectations. You can’t expect every young shortstop to be the guy with nearly 3500 hits, over 70 bWAR, and a 115 OPS+. Only MLB players ever with that many hits, WAR, and that high of an OPS+ are inner circle HOF’ers+Pete Rose.
Half of these players haven’t even had enough playing time to be considered busts yet. Dominguez, Mauricio, and Acuna all entered this season as rookies. Alvarez is only 23 and catchers always develop slower than other positions.
as someone who does not like either NY team, I have to ask–are we really going to deem all these guys busts already? Still rather young…Alvarez is only 23, and many prospects don’t even hit the bigs until at least that age.
Gooden and Strawberry, before drugs got them….Wright before injuries got him… Jeter….
Volpe is a player every team would want.
Haha nooooooo
Mets 1b Alanso
He has a good future but needs time outside the spotlight to get his mind locked in, regain confidence in his game, and get his body back in rhythm. Torrens has been better than expected and senger has been a good receiver. This is a win for everyone. Pitchers will get consistency with torrens a few times through the rotation, Alvarez can reset, and senger can be the back up in the majors for a while. When the pitching breakdown is done pre and post Alvarez returning from injury, it is a reasonable plan. Alvarez will be back. He has a good future with the Mets
Oh, how the average have fallen
Alvarez is brutal to watch. His at bats are largely uncompetitive. The other night he was in a crucial at bat and watched 3 fastballs down the middle and never swung. He flails at every breaking ball they throw him. Regularly has pass balls and can’t throw anymore. He plays lazy. This has been a long time coming. Especially with Torrens who has been superior to Alvarez in every way. Of course Stearns options him the day after he goes 2-5 with a homer.
A few weeks of bus rides and Taco Bell should help.
He will be buying dinners for the guys in the minors.
Alvarez has the talent and skills and good ceiling. He can rest in triple A and maybe at the same time help the developing pitchers there. At this level it’s all a psychological game. He will definitely get better.
Bus rides and Taco Bell sound like a lethal combination…
He’ll regroup. And he’ll get to learn a lot of the young arms that are bound to be called up in a couple of months
There isn’t anyone who is “bound to be” called up in a couple of months. The ones in AAA are struggling, or at best mediocre. The others have not even reached AAA yet.
The Mets are contending, not rebuilding or developing. Nobody is “bound to be” called up unless they show they can help the club win games now, or, perhaps, will need to be added soon anyway for Rule 5 draft protection. And none of these pitchers qualifies on either count.
I’m not saying they can’t or for sure won’t get called up. Circumstances change, and you never know what the clubs’ needs will be. But there is no one who qualifies as :bound to be” at this juncture.
About time. Terrible season, defense and offense.
Service time implications?
@ jorge Not at all. Its a silly suggestion. He already has enough service time to qualify as a Super 2 this year. And the way he’s been playing, he wouldn’t make enough in arbitration to make Steve Cohen blink, anyway. He’s a young player who is playing badly and has options remaining. The org is best served getting him back to the player he looked like he would be, even if it means playing back-ups.
Yup. Gotta keep a mediocre catcher another year in ya know like 2029.
Cohen wants a championship, not a future savings on a catcher.
The Mets just committed to 3/4 of a billion dollars to their right fielder and someday DH.
Yours was a very “Wilpon-esque” reply.
He’s going down for a reset. I think there’s around 20 games left until the AS break. I’m guessing he’s back after the break. But he swings out of his shoes every swing and pulls off on everything. Can’t be successful like that.
It’s hard to watch.
Should have been able to work out kinks without being sent down….
The organization has failed Alvarez. Every year they make him change his swing and his mentality at the plate. They took away his only strong attribute, power, in order to hit weak opposite field singles. Just doesn’t make any sense to me. I’d rather he hit .200 with 30 homeruns then .240 with 6. Let him just naturally learn how to be more selective at the plate to take more walks. I believe his hitting woes are starting to effect is play on the field. Hopefully they can right the ship with him before its too late
Alvarez went outside the organization and changed his swing / approach. Mets didn’t change anything and he’s always been a terrible catcher. He backhands every catch and he’s to slow to catch on one knee. He needs to go to a traditional catching stance and actually learn the basic fundamentals of catching and not framing
Adirondacks
“Alvarez went outside the organization and changed his swing / approach”
Do you have any way I can verify that?
I saw all the work Alonso put in and was worried it was because everyone finds the Mets batting coaches inept/hard to work with but resolved to hope that it was because he was a FA.
If OTHER legit starters are going private for batting instruction then yeah it could represent a major problem internally.
“Mets didn’t change anything and he’s always been a terrible catcher. He backhands every catch and he’s to slow to catch on one knee.”
Total disagree there I think that comes directly from Sherlocl.
” He needs to go to a traditional catching stance and actually learn the basic fundamentals of catching and not framing”
100% agree, they focus so much on the framing it’s no wonder they have trouble on the basics. Really frustrating to watch pitch to pitch.
I see Alvarez and think of Gary Sanchez. Talented but something missing.
Good. I’ve said numerous times the guy isn’t really good and Mets fans act like he’s already a first ballot HOFer when I point this out.
Like who exactly? Do you have any names or are you generalizing an entire fanbase for no reason because I have seen no one say this guy is a HOFer period.
Wow!
I remember when people were calling for the Mets to sign him to a long term contract when he first came up!
How is a .209/.284 respectable?
Don’t believe the hype – public enemy