It’s Time for Francisco Alvarez to Put it All Together

In what may be an unprecedented feat, Francisco Alvarez homered on March, got married the next day and was back in the lineup on the day after that (0-for-3 with three strikeouts, understandable). He is a man dedicated to his wife and baseball. He pulled this off from March 10-12.

Alvarez went 9-for-25 this spring with that homer and three doubles after an offseason where he said he lost 10 pounds in part by cutting back on his mom’s arepas, per Anthony DiComo of MLB.com. This could be the year that the catcher realizes the potential that made him MLB’s No. 1 prospect as a 20-year-old in July 2022.

He’s shown flashes since, but injuries and inconsistency have been the larger part of the story of his career so far. But Carlos Mendoza said that Alvarez, still only 24, is different now than he was when he came on board as manager in November 2023.

“Completely,” the manager said on March 8. “More mature. He learned a lot. He got humbled a little bit last year. 2024, injury. Last year, the hamate in spring training. Comes back, struggles, got to go to minor leagues and make some drastic changes, whether it was defensively, offensively. And to his credit he had to work and he earned it back and he was a different player when he came back up and that’s what we are seeing here, carryover from last year. He’s in a good spot and he’s another exciting player.”

Alvarez slashed .276/.360/.561 with eight home runs and 21 RBIs in 41 games in the second half last year, though, again, he missed 17 games with a sprained UCL and a fractured pinky. (He left last Thursday’s game with back tightness and hasn’t played since, though Mendoza said that was precautionary and he would be playing if it were the regular season.)

“I feel really good,” Alvarez said last month. “I feel really powerful and I feel really good for this season. So I’m just trying to be consistent with my routine and compete every day.” He’s a bat that, at the end of the lineup, can make the lineup one of the deepest in the league.

Since the first day of camp, Alvarez has been working with Freddy Peralta on how he likes to target different pitches vs. lefties and righties.

“I had conversations with him even before we got here in spring training,” Peralta said after a start vs. the Yankees on March 8. “He showed me that he wants to win. He cared about it, that he cared about performance and that’s No. 1 for catcher. I think that’s very important for him, for us, for the whole team.”

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