Mets could be open to trading veteran catcher

The Mets are telling teams they’re open to dealing Omar Narvaez, reports Mike Puma of the New York Post. It’s unclear whether any clubs are interested in the left-handed hitting catcher, although the Mets would very likely have to pay down some portion of his contract to facilitate a move.

It’s the second straight offseason in which New York is looking to move a veteran catcher fairly early into a free-agent deal. The Mets surprisingly guaranteed Narvaez $15M over two seasons. He made $8M last year and had a $7M player option for 2024. The Narváez pickup led the Mets to cut bait on James McCann two seasons into a four-year, $40M pact. New York paid all but $5M of the $24M remaining on McCann’s deal to offload him to the Orioles.

The Narvaez signing wasn’t as costly as the McCann acquisition. It started similarly poorly, however. Narvaez suffered a significant strain of his left calf within the season’s first two weeks. He was sidelined into June. By the time he returned, rookie Francisco Alvarez had taken over as the starter. Narvaez was pushed into a depth role and didn’t perform well.

In 49 games, Narvaez hit .211/.283/.297 with a pair of home runs. That’s on the heels of a similarly underwhelming .206/.292/.305 line in 296 plate appearances for the Brewers in 2022. Narvaez had a solid ’21 campaign (.266/.342/.402 over 445 trips to the plate) but has been a well below-average hitter in three of the past four seasons. It’s a notable step back from 2017-19, when Narvaez was somewhat quietly one of the better offensive catchers in MLB.

To his credit, the eight-year veteran has generally improved behind the plate as his numbers at the dish have regressed. Statcast graded Narvaez as an above-average pitch framer each season from 2020-22. That reflected a seemingly concerted effort to improve his receiving after being traded from the Mariners to Milwaukee going into the 2020 season. Narvaez has never had a great throwing arm, though, which opponents exploited with more favorable baserunning rules last year. He threw out only six of 52 stolen base attempts, an 11.5% success rate that was well off the 19.8% league average.

Between the calf injury and a replacement-level performance, Narvaez had an easy decision to exercise his player option. While his path to playing time in Queens is limited, he wouldn’t have found a $7M contract if he returned to free agency. It’s hard to envision another team taking the full salary in trade either, but the Mets haven’t had many qualms about paying down contracts. They’ve done so with back-of-the-roster players like McCann and Eduardo Escobar and in blockbuster transactions involving Max Scherzer and Justin Verlander.

President of baseball operations David Stearns wasn’t involved in the decision to sign Narvaez, although he’s familiar with the player from their time in Milwaukee. One of Stearns’ first moves with the Mets was to claim Tyler Heineman off waivers from the Blue Jays. He joins Alvarez and Narvaez as the three catchers on the 40-man roster.

Tomas Nido, who has played parts of seven MLB seasons as a Met, remains in the organization after being outrighted in June (a move that coincided with Narváez’s return from the calf strain). Nido hit .281/.336/.393 in 39 games at Triple-A Syracuse after clearing waivers. He’ll make $2.1M next season as part of a two-year deal he signed to avoid arbitration last offseason.