2024 Report Card: Francisco Alvarez, C

Francisco Alvarez, C

Player Data: Age: 22 (11/19/2001) B/T: R/R

Primary Stats: 100 G, 342 PA, .237/.307/.403/.710, 73 H, 14 2B, 2 3B, 11 HR, 47 RBI, 39 R, 1 SB, 39 BB, 86 SO
Advanced Stats: 101 OPS+, 102 wRC+, 25.1% K%, 8.8% BB%, .291 BABIP, .291 xwOBA, 1.9 fWAR, 0.8 bWAR

2024 Salary: $800,000

Grade: C-

2024 Review

Francisco Alvarez just never really got it going in 2024.

Just three weeks into the season, Alvarez tore a ligament in his thumb stumbling around first base. He, like the rest of the Mets offense, wasn’t performing well at the time, but it was still a blow to the start of Alvarez’s second year in the bigs. He wouldn’t return for seven weeks, but then it looked like he’d turned it around.

His best extended run of the year was from June 11 to July 19 over 104 plate appearances. He slashed .330/.404/.538/.942, and he was hitting the ball on the ground and to the opposite field less. It was similar to his best stretch in 2023—from July 1 to August 11—where he posted a .258/.333/.546/.879 slash line over 108 plate appearances. The patience was there. The pop was there. He was lifting the ball, hitting ground balls just 37% of the time and to the opposite field just 20.5%.

But the catcher couldn’t sustain it the rest of the way. From July 20 on, he posted just a .597 OPS. His chase rates peaked, hit the ball pretty weakly, and just overall made some pretty poor swing decisions. He just looked lost.

As Alvarez has proven to do, though, he makes you believe. He finished the year strong with a .970 OPS and five homers across the final three weeks of the year. (Remember those home runs versus Philadelphia?)

9/19/24: PHI @ NYM: Francisco Alvarez (10th of season, 38th of career) off Taijuan Walker pic.twitter.com/N8jYjAS0Zz

— Mets Home Run a Day (@MetsHRADay) November 12, 2024

Offensively, it was peaks and valleys, and this may be the kind of player Alvarez is. It’s a bit chaotic, but it results in a guy who’s league average at the plate with serious pop when he finds it.

Defensively, Alvarez has established himself as an elite framer, helping Mets pitchers get way more called strikes than the average catcher. Once Luis Torrens arrived on the roster, the Mets were able to control the run game much better. Alvarez certainly benefited from that. Overall, he allowed 66 of 80 base runners to steal (82.5%), which is right around league average.

Where Alvarez has swung to the other side of the pendulum is in his passed ball prevention. There was only one catcher worse at it (Shea Langeliers), and it’s clear that Alvarez made concessions here to frame pitches better.

All of this results in Alvarez being graded as slightly above average defensively at his position. And with an average year at the plate (at his position), he still found a way to accumulate 1.9 fWAR across his 342 plate appearances. That’s a three-win player at catcher if he hits 500 PAs. Alvarez, thus, deserves some slack. Expectations may change. But they entered the year sky-high, and an inconsistent year left fans wanting more from the 22-year-old. A lot more.

2025 Overview

Alvarez will remain the catcher of the future, seemingly with Luis Torrens to back him up. (With Tomás Nido gone and no clear backup ready in the minors, the Mets tendered Torrens a contract. He’s a serviceable backup.)

But 2025 will be Alvarez’s year to find some consistency. His rookie year was boom or bust on offense. The same followed when he was healthy this year. Next year, the 23-year-old will have to find a way to be a net positive in the 2025 lineup.

He may have felt pressures in the past to perform when the offense wasn’t, but with Francisco Lindor, Brandon Nimmo, and Mark Vientos seen as the linchpins of the lineup moving forward, Alvarez can focus on keeping the line moving. It might set him up well to eventually break out.

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