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Mets 6, Cardinals 1
AB R H BI
Alvarez C 3 1 2 2 HR
A quick email exchange with a reader:
Was pleasantly surprised -- with an emphasis on surprise -- to see you rank Francisco Alvarez as the third-best Met, and the 53rd-best player in the game. What are you seeing there?
-- Josh B.
The same damned thing I’ve been seeing when he’s been healthy for the last three years. Alvarez is actually down a notch in the rankings from last year, which is mostly cowardice. The guy can just hit, and he’s enough of a catcher to stay back there for a thousand innings a year without killing you. (The league-wide preference for the children of Austin Hedges drives me mad.) After Alvarez came back up last year, he hit .276/.360/.561, and it wasn’t a BABIP fluke (.325). He had a 58% (!) hard-hit rate and a 10% barrel rate.
I’m going to say something stupid now. When Mike Piazza was Alvarez’s age, he had 74 career plate appearances. Alvarez has 48 homers. It’s a different era, catchers are asked to do different things, hitting is harder, but that’s the kind of upside Alvarez has.
