The Mets announced that catcher Omar Narváez has been diagnosed with a “medium to high-grade” strain of his left calf and will be placed on the injured list. They listed the typical return to play timeline for the injury as eight to nine weeks. It was reported earlier that catching prospect Francisco Álvarez was joining the team in case Narváez needed to go on the IL, so that now seems likely to follow. No official announcement on Álvarez has been made yet and might not come until Friday, since Thursday’s home opener was postponed to Friday by inclement weather.
Narváez, 31, had a reputation as a bat-first catcher earlier in his career, but that changed in Milwaukee. After a few seasons with the White Sox and Mariners, he had a mark of -41 Defensive Runs Saved at the end of the 2019 campaign. He joined the Brewers going into 2020 and has been much better since, actually posting a +7 DRS from 2020 to 2022. That focus on glovework coincided with a decline at the plate, as he hit .233/.318/.350 for an 85 wRC+ with the Brewers after slashing .276/.361/.411 for a 113 wRC+ previously.
The Mets decided they needed to make a change behind the plate for 2023. Their four-year deal with James McCann went quite poorly in the first two seasons, and they decided to shake things up. They signed Narváez to a two-year, $15M and flipped McCann to the Orioles, eating most of the money to facilitate the deal. The plan was for Narváez and Tomás Nido to handle the catching duties at the big league level with Álvarez continuing his development in the minors.
This injury deals a significant blow to that plan, as Narváez will now be out of action for a couple of months. Given the estimated timeline, he should be able to return in June, but in the meantime, the Mets will pay a lot of money to two catchers not on the roster. Narváez is making $8M this year while the club is still on the hook for $19M of the $24M owed to McCann for this year and next. That doesn’t even include the taxes the club will pay by shooting past the top tier of the competitive balance tax.
Leaving the financials aside, it’s entirely possible that the on-field impact to the club is minimal in the short term. Álvarez is generally considered one of the top prospects in the league and already made his major league debut last year. Prospect evaluators generally consider his bat to be ready for the majors already, which isn’t surprising given his results in the minors last year. Splitting his time between Double-A and Triple-A, he hit 27 home runs in 112 games and drew walks at a healthy 14.1% rate. His .260/.374/.511 combined batting line led to a 136 wRC+ and a five-game cameo in the big leagues.
The Mets optioned him to the minors to start the season, relying on Nido and Narváez to handle the catching duties in the bigs. Despite his clear abilities at the plate, Álvarez is considered a work in progress defensively and is just 21 years old. Though the Mets might have wanted him to get more time in the minors, it seems the next stage of his development will take place at the major league level.
How the club divvies up the playing time remains to be seen, but it might help that Nido is considered more of a defensive specialist. He’s hit just .217/.254/.319 in his career for a wRC+ of 60 but has a +18 DRS. It’s possible that he gets more of the work behind the plate while Álvarez spends some time as the designated hitter. The DH slot has been a rotating platoon so far, with Daniel Vogelbach the left-handed hitting option while Tommy Pham and Mark Canha hit from the right side. Álvarez is a righty and could perhaps jump into that mix with Canha and Pham. Given his position as the perceived catcher of the future, his long-term development will still be important, but he might be able to help the club in the short term with his obvious offensive abilities.
On the personal side of things, Thursday’s news could potentially have implications for both Narváez and Álvarez. The former has the ability to opt out of his contract at the end of this year, walking away from the $7M he’d otherwise be owed in 2024. His decision could be swayed by his recuperation and how he fares once he’s healthy. For Álvarez, he came into the season with just six days of MLB service time, meaning that just a few weeks in the minors would have prevented him from getting to the one-year mark here in 2023. Now that he seems slated for a quick recall, that could change. The season is 187 days long, but a player only needs to spend 172 days in the big leagues or on the IL in order to bank a full year, which is now a possibility for Álvarez if he can retain his roster spot the rest of the way. That means that arbitration after 2025 and free agency after 2028 are still on the table for him, though future optional assignments could push those timelines by a year.
