The Mets have activated James McCann from the injured list, per MLB.com’s Anthony DiComo. No corresponding move is needed at this time, as he will serve as the 29th man for today’s doubleheader.
The move comes just at the right time, as Chance Sisco was involved in a collision at the plate in the ninth inning of yesterday’s game. He’s still being evaluated today, but it wouldn’t be a shock to see him involved in some kind of roster move tomorrow. McCann and Patrick Mazeika will split the catching duties in today’s twin bill.
McCann has been out for a little more than two weeks because of back spasms. Unfortunately for the Mets, even when healthy, he’s been closer to the Tigers’ version of McCann than the White Sox’ version from the past two seasons. In the first year of a four-year deal, McCann is hitting .240/.303/.357 in 337 plate appearances.
The Mets really should have ponied up the money for JTR. The gap between JTR and McCann in talent was well worth paying for IMO.
Meh. You really gotta consider the budget crunch they are already under. A lot of fans expect them to run out a 280 million plus payroll next year (which is ridiculous) and even then I don’t see them being a powerhouse. Bad allocation of spending that can’t really be solved by more spending.
And even if they didn’t get JTR, giving McCann that length of a contract was ridiculous. Obviously not as bad as Lindor’s contract, but still questionable.
I dunno. The state of catching in today’s game it is what it is. The position is a disaster. Filling with a replacement level player who can at least field the position is maybe best one can hope for. But I see how the contract looks bad.
Is $10m a year what a replacement level catcher gets? Tomas Nido is making under $600k this year and has looked better than McCann much of the time.
I think the combination of the salary and number of years is what makes it a bad contract. One or the other, you could make the case that it was reasonable.
I don’t really think Nido’s bat plays well in the majors but other than that I can’t really disagree with anything you’re saying there.
the years was right and if McCann was 75% of what he was in chicago he would probably be worth it, but for whatever reason the entire team was horrible at the plate this year. The subs brought in off the street was doing better than the mets. The years was right because it would be around year 3 you start feeding the catching duties to Alvarez with him taking over year 4 and mccann being the back up and potentially moving around to 1st a little to give breaks to smith or alonso or whoever ended up there primarily. This was my thoughts during the offseason atleast as i assumed one of them would have been traded for a decent cf as nimmo was not the answer there defensively but could have been a solid lf.
Nimmo is a keeper. But, yea, as a left fielder. Problem is there is a severe lack of quality CFrs in MLB right now. Teams hold on tight to the ones they have. No easy answers there.
100% agree on the CF but was hoping maybe see if the Rays were interested in a deal for Kiermaier since it was higher salary for them. I was looking for a solid defensive guy as we had some solid/average hitters or atleast thought we did between conforto, mcneil, alonso/smith, nimmo, mccann, at the time a hopefully improving Gimenez figuring that may be easier to pry loose.
That’s easy to say in hindsight. Injuries aside, they were planning on leaning heavily on DeGrom, Stroman, and half a season of Thor. Conforto has vastly underperformed who was once an extension candidate. Same for Lindor. Having JTR was/is not going to make a difference.
Signing JTR may very well have avoided the Lindor deal. Fingers crossed that Lindor can bounce back next season (and the following 9 years after that too). He’s too good of a player to be performing this poorly. I just hope he has the fire in the belly to prove his critics wrong now that he has that massive contract.
Please remember that the PLAYER can still choose where he signs. Mets could have offered him part ownership, but if he wanted to be in Philly, Mets would have been nothing but patsies to be used in a bidding war. See Bauer.
Lindor’s signing reminds me of Jayson Werth’s signing. It was a ton of money by a team that was losing a lot at the time, but it signified a new era in Nats baseball.
McCann is the bridge to Alvarez who will be ready in 3 years and will serve as McCann’s backup in his final year with the Mets.
Both Lindor and McCann are like so many free agents in their first year with the Mets. They press, their bats suffer.
I wouldn’t be surprised to see both players kick it in gear next year. Maybe not their peak yeas, but certainly a rebound and something to build around.
Still happy with the Lindor signing. I loved Rosario and was sorry to see him go. But I’ve liked everything I’ve seen and heard from Lindor as a first year signing – all the way up to the thumbs down, which was a mistake (yet they haven’t lost a game since that distraction).
The Mets are gonna have a huge problem improving due to an already bloated payroll and the Lindor contract has a lot to do with that. I see no evidence anyone is “pressing” but I do think Lindor will improve, basically some positive regression. But that payroll is gonna be hard to navigate for a team with a lot of work to do in the off season.
I didn’t believe Cohen when we said it would take 3-5 years to get to where he wanted to be. Now I get it. Rebuilding the farm system… getting contracts off the books…
I understand your opinion about the Lindor contract. It’s a popular one.
Even if you factor in inflation, the Werth contract comes in at about $150m, so ~ half of the total outlay to Lindor. That’s a HUGE commitment to signal a new era.
But you also have to look at the rest of the roster. They signed Lindor, got Carrasco, thought they got Bauer. Realmuto is a great catcher but he’s no where near a top player in the game. Save your money at catcher and spend it elsewhere. I was super excited when they passed on Realmuto for that reason
Realmuto is top 20 in fWAR for position players this year and #2 as a catcher. I don’t know what you consider, “near a top player”, but it seems like he’d fit that description, IMO.
He stinks!
He’s ok.
He had a couple decent offensive years in Chicago. Last year as a platoon catcher alongside Grandal, and fresh off a change of scenery in 2019 moving to a very hitter friendly ballpark.
He struggled quite a bit at the plate in Detroit, but had always been a pretty solid defender.
The Mets probably over committed to him, but he is far from terrible.
@Cosmo2 It’s exactly what the Dodgers did when new ownership took over, they took over a mediocre team and spent money to make it formidable till they became a powerhouse.
If I’m not mistaken they’ve made the Playoffs every year since. I’m not the type to hate on a team just because I don’t root for them, I respect the Dodgers model and really hope we can mimic it.
I know a lot of folks think that’s what the Dodgers did but I doubt that was really the approach. Even if it was, they found hidden gems like Turner and Muncy, I doubt the Mets have the ability to duplicate that but I certainly appreciate the optimism!
Degrom McNeil? Not gems??? Ik McNeil is havibn a rough year but cmon
Those guys don’t fit the profile. They came up through the system. DeGrom obviously much better than expected. McNeil: high expectations and he fulfilled them. Totally different than picking guys up as virtual no name signings and then them blossoming into stars. Totally different.
Oh I see what you mean. I thought you just meant developing people who were never top prospects. But to be fair I think the dodgers got lucky. I’ve seen bad teams do the same.
I think people are forgetting just how bad the Mets catching has been since Lo Duca. Mccann has been our best catcher in 15 years. He definetly was a bit overpaid but hes still a top 10 catcher. You would be hard pressed to name 10 catchers better than him when you account for defense and offense
Is that you Metsfan22??
By WAR, which encompasses both offense and defense, he’s not even in the top 30. His fWAR, which includes pitch framing, has him at 0.6 WAR. I do think he’s better than that as defensive metrics for catchers, while better, are still incomplete. That said, he does not make my top 10 catcher list. He’s a BUC
masquerading as a starter.
War is misleading, Bwar doesnt take into account framing. Fwar does. For example, Molina has a career 42 bwar but a career Fwar of 55. I don’t use war solely to base how good a player is. A player could play 5 games and have more war than someone whos played 100. Use better stats to show your argument
I used fWAR for that reason.
I completely agree with Metsin7 on this. WAR as a stat is particularly inaccurate in assessing catcher value. McCann is as good as a catcher the Mets have had in a while as far as I can remember.
The Mets completely blew it with Travis D’Arnaud. As soon as he left the Mets, his career took off. With such a poor track record behind the plate, you have to wonder if there is a flaw in the Mets coaching/development process when it comes to catchers.
I was a huge dArnaud fan. He just couldn’t stay healthy with us. Heck, he still can’t. They gave up on him because Jeff Wilpon threw a tantrum so I don’t think it’s necessarily an issue of development, they just lost patience. Plawecki and, to a lesser exact, Nido were guys with just (barely) enough offensive pedigree in the minors to hope they could improve once they hit the big show but it just never happened.
D’arnued was unplayable as a Met. You could easily say the same thing about the Dodgers since they claimed him for one at bat then Da’d him. Darnaurd has had one decent season and one really good season which was a fluke due to the 60 game season.
Disagree. He’s had a good, like, 18 months of baseball. Skills wasn’t the question. He always never on the field. And this year he’s no all star caliber catcher.
Cosmo, I’m not going to disagree with your last sentence, but that’s a reflection on the quality of the Mets catchers of recent, not an endorsement of McCann.
As I noted, WAR does not encompass everything a catcher provides, but I did purposely use fWAR since it does incorporate pitch framing.
My view of McCann hasn’t changed. I think he’s a decent receiver, I didn’t believe in his offensive spike in Chicago, he’s a fine BUC or heavy rotation co-catcher. I don’t believe he’s a top-ten catcher, which is top 1/3rd, but for the time being he’s fine. The Mets should continue their search for a better catcher but he’s not their main issue at the moment.
D’Arnaud was horrible with Mets and forgot how to hit. I think his success with the Braves has more to do with them “fixing” him.
You say WAR is inaccurate, that’s fine, but what are you using then, your subjective opinion? I have a hard time believing that’s less inaccurate than WAR.
If you’ve watched McCann play this year, his only plus skill is his throwing. He doesn’t frame pitches or even receive them well and his blocking techniques are terrible. He’s pretty much been identical to Wilson Ramos.
Nido is our best defensive catcher right now. Alvarez is performing very well in high A ball. I think he goes right to AAA if he has a decent spring.
He wasn’t noted as a strong pitch framer (actually in the negative) in Detroit. He had a well-timed peak in Chicago when he generally shared catching responsibilities. His framing improved, but I attribute that mostly to randomness. Overall in his career, he’s not a great pitch framer. His excellent 2020 at the plate was driven by the jacked baseball and the shortness of the season. His numbers would have regressed over a full season. As noted elsewhere, he’s probably best positioned as a second catcher on a strong team. The $40 million package is too much, but the Mets can live with that under Cohen, or they could pay down half and move him if they find a stronger catcher in house or via trade. Catchers always have a home. They should be more concerned with Lindor’s deal if this is what he is now.
I wouldn’t be hard pressed at all to name 15 better catchers, let alone 10. You’re correct that the Mets catching has been bad, which is probably why you’re overrating McCann. He’s simply better than what you have, which should not be confused with being a top 10 catcher. He’s not.
I hated to see him leave the White Sox. He’s probably feeling the same way now.
Be thankful you got his peak. What he was before the White Sox and what he is now is a more accurate picture of his skills.
After today’s bullpen fiasco, Mets would have been better served to just commit Sisco to the IL, activate McCann, and call up a fresh arm.
McCann was activated for the doubleheader as the extra player.
The Khalil Lee time is coming if Nimmo goes on the DL. He’s having a nice year in Syracuse, sporting an obp in the .440 range with over 50 walks. I do prefer Pillar in center, but Almora hasn’t hit anything with his bat in a few years.
Lee was called up a couple of days ago.