Andres Chavez

Image courtesy of © Vincent Carchietta-Imagn Images Things aren’t going particularly well for the New York Mets right now. Before taking the field against the Dodgers in their three-games series finale, they have lost seven straight games and are in last place in the NL East with a 7-11 record. You can say a lot of things about the Mets' struggles thus far, but their catching tandem has been a no-doubt-about-it net positive in 2026. Starter Francisco Alvarez is among the hottest hitters in the league, and backup Luis Torrens offers the kind of defensive reliability that managers relish. Francisco Alvarez Is Breaking Out Let’s start with the one who is behind the plate most of the days, Alvarez. He leads the Mets with four home runs, and his 179 wRC+ ranked eighth among National League hitters with at least 50 plate appearances before Tuesday’s games. That’s not too shabby, seeing as it’s also the best mark in baseball among full-time catchers. Alvarez’s offensive potential has always been enormous. He hit 25 home runs as a rookie in 2023, posted a 101 wRC+ a year later, and finished 2025 with a 124 wRC+ even after nursing a hamate bone injury, broken fingers, and other ailments. He entered 2026 fully healthy and ready to take off, and that’s what he’s doing. Alvarez is basically walking a bit more than ever before while cutting his strikeout rate from 26.4 percent last year to 18.2 percent in 2026. That major improvement, plus his amazing contact metrics, have allowed him to increase his batting average to a solid .283. The backstop is also hitting the ball with authority, so it’s not just empty contact. His 50 percent hard-hit rate ranks in the 79th percentile, and his 23.5 percent barrel rate is absolutely elite, in the 97th percentile. His expected slugging percentage is a jaw-dropping .722, significantly better than his .605 actual mark. So, if you think he has been magnificent, well, he has actually been a bit unlucky, too. Alvarez has managed to grow at the plate every year and against every pitch, as his xwOBA chart indicates that he is one of the most dangerous hitters in the National League: Luis Torrens Has Been An Asset Behind The Plate Torrens is not much of a hitter, with a career 80 wRC+ and a 63 mark this year, in 19 trips to the plate. He justifies his spot on the roster with excellent skills behind the plate, though. Besides being a solid game-caller, Torrens is above-average to excellent in virtually every facet of his craft: blocking, throwing, and framing. In fact, he racked up 10 FRV (Fielding Run Value, a Statcast metric that considers contributions in all those departments) last year, good enough to rank fifth among MLB catchers with at least 600 innings. This year, Torrens already has +2 Defensive Runs Saved (DRS) and +1 FRV. He is a net positive in the ever-important framing department, and pitchers completely trust him. Torrens’ lack of offense caps his ceiling to a very solid backup, but the Mets are extremely happy with his work. He is the perfect complement to Alvarez. The Whole Package: Alvarez Can Be An Above-Average Defensive Catcher While Torrens’ limited bat prevents him from being an All-Star catcher, it’s fair to say that Alvarez can be a solid defensive backstop. In fact, he has been one in the past, but we would have to go to 2023 to find some of his best work. That season, a 21-year-old Alvarez ranked in the 95th percentile in Fielding Run Value, with 11. He was also in the 97th percentile in framing, so yes: if injuries don’t get in the way, we are talking about a potential two-way contributor at one of baseball’s most important positions. Alvarez regressed to a -5 DRS and -6 FRV last year, but it was also a rough campaign for him health-wise. He is still only 24, though, so a return to his 2023 form or at least close to it is not entirely out of the question. In any case, the Mets have plenty of things to worry about right now, but their catchers definitely aren’t one of them. View full article

Image courtesy of © Kevin R. Wexler-NorthJersey.com / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images Carson Benge is one of the best prospects in baseball, owner of consensus top-20 status in the league. With 15 home runs, 22 stolen bases, and a 150 wRC+ last year in the minors across three levels, he seemed ready for stardom. Until he wasn’t. Before taking the field on Wednesday, Benge was slashing a paltry .091/.211/.182 with a 24 wRC+ and a 28.9 percent strikeout rate. That’s certainly not what the New York Mets would have wanted for his first few weeks as a major leaguer, but truth be told, this outcome was always within the realm of possibilities. It’s important to note that it hasn’t been all negative, though. The dynamic outfielder has stolen four bases in four tries and boasts a solid 13.2 percent walk rate, which ranks him in the 76th percentile among all qualified hitters. The pieces are there, but the puzzle has yet to be put together. Carson Benge Requires Patience After Just 24 Triple-A Games Last Year Yes, Benge won a spot on the Mets’ Opening Day roster fair and square with a strong spring that saw him post a 140 wRC+ in 46 trips to the plate. Yet. some people conveniently forget that he struggled to the tune of a 53 wRC+ in a short Triple-A cameo in 2025 that lasted 24 games. There’s a non-zero chance that Benge is not ready for the majors as of this moment, but there is also an even bigger likelihood that his current struggles are part of an adjustment period that could end relatively soon. Which one is it? Well, we are going to need more data, but with young players like him, every day represents an opportunity to learn. Unfortunately, the Mets need him after losing Juan Soto to a calf strain that sent him to the injured list. Their current outfield picture is comprised of Benge, Luis Robert Jr., Tyrone Taylor, Jared Young, and Brett Baty. That’s not ideal, even though some of them are actually producing, and the team won four in a row after losing Soto. The Mets have no choice but to be very patient with Benge. He does need to start showing something, though. The 23-year-old will swing at pitches out of the zone, but his 49th percentile chase rate is not a huge problem. Additionally, his 52nd percentile whiff rate is merely average, but also not a huge concern. What's the problem, then? Basically, three specific, separate situations: Making contact at pitches inside the zone, an excessive amount of ground balls, and issues against the fastball. Benge ranks 147th out of 188 qualified hitters with his 80.4 percent Z-contact%, which means that he hasn't been able to do much with pitches in the zone to this point. Pitchers will keep challenging him until he can, and if he can't adjust, his walk rate may start plummeting as a result, depriving him off his most useful attribute so far (getting on base). Carson Benge Must Adjust To MLB Fastballs His issues against fastballs are perhaps more worrisome. Benge has managed a meager hit in 17 plate appearances that finished with a four-seamer, with a .256 xwOBA that ranked him 153rd among 195 players with a minimum of 10 plate appearances ending with the pitch. He is, however, slowly making strides in that department. Here's a nicely hit batted ball that should have gone for extra-bases in the series opener against the Diamondbacks: In that game, he had two hard-hit balls, including the one in the video above. One of them left his bat at 95.2 mph, and the other one at 99.8 mph. Perhaps a bit of patience will do the trick, because the tools are definitely there. That being said, only 14 of 188 qualified hitters had a higher ground ball rate than Benge's 59.1 percent. By now, we all know that hitting the ball on the ground so often doesn't lead to desirable outcomes. He was never billed as a 30-homer threat, but getting the ball in the air more frequently will alleviate longer-term concerns about his slugging impact. In totality, Benge definitely has things to work on as he develops into a reliable major-league producer. Consider, however, that he probably needed more time in Triple-A before declaring him a bust. Benge remains a highly promising player despite struggling right out of the gate, and ten early games of subpar production won't change that. Can he help the Mets in the short term, though? That's something he'll have to prove in the coming weeks. View full article

Image courtesy of © Robert Edwards-Imagn Images Earlier this week, it was revealed that New York Mets star Juan Soto will visit the injured list for the next two to three weeks as he recovers from a low-grade calf strain suffered last Friday. Considering the wide array of potentially worse outcomes, you can firmly say that both the team and the player dodged a bullet with the diagnosis. However, that doesn’t change the fact that the Mets will be without their best hitter for a while, anywhere from a couple of weeks to close to a month depending on how the injury evolves. Simply put, there’s no replacing Soto, not even if you are the manager of the NL All-Star team. He offers a unique offensive profile that’s almost impossible to replicate. The superstar outfielder had hit ‘just’ one home run before going down with his injury, yet was off to another incredible start this year; Soto was hitting .355 with three extra-base hits, five RBI, a 164 wRC+, three walks, an six strikeouts in eight games. An Elite Performer Still Finding His Groove Soto’s power and patience numbers weren’t at their best in his first eight games, yet only 14 National League hitters had a higher wRC+ than him as of the morning of his placement on the IL. This is an offensive machine entering his prime and about to post some scary stats in 2026 and the years to come. Last year, Soto became a member of the 40-30 club after homering 43 times and stealing a career-high 38 bases, which is remarkable given his 13th percentile sprint speed. If you want to talk percentiles, however, you should take a look at his offensive profile. In 2025, the Mets outfielder and perennial MVP candidate ranked in the 98th percentile in average exit velocity, 100th percentile in xwOBA, 97th percentile in barrel rate, 97th percentile in hard-hit rate, 100th percentile in chase rate, 96th percentile in expected batting average, and 100th percentile in walk rate. And, if you follow the Mets closely, you surely remember he was being criticized in the early stages of last year’s campaign because of his ‘slow’ start, which was basically a slightly lesser version of these stats. What do all these percentiles mean? Well, the short answer is that Soto is a beast. The more elaborate response is that he is a nightmare matchup for pitchers because he combines elite contact ability, power, and plate discipline. Not even Aaron Judge or Shohei Ohtani have such an amazing combination of the three, even if their most prolific skill (power) is more noticeable in the box score than the otherworldly all-around contributions Soto offers. Soto is a cheat code because he doesn’t chase, and when he swings, he basically murders the ball. His plate discipline is so legendary that his judgment of the strike zone often conditions umpires to make their calls. A Legend In The Making That’s what the Mets offense will be missing for the next couple of weeks, a guy with a legendary eye at the plate and 245 career long balls before turning 28. A few years ago, he was already flirting with 100 MLB homers at 23 years old, when some of the top prospects in the game weren’t even in Triple-A. It takes a special talent to post a 146-wRC+ season over 494 plate appearances at 19 years old. Soto did it in 2018, and since then, he has only gotten better. This season, his Statcast profile hasn’t been all red like last year, but he only played eight games. That’s a tiny sample for some of these metrics to be stable, yet he still is in the 88th percentile in Statcast’s Batting Run Value. Give him a couple of weeks to return and a few more to find his stride, and let’s re-visit these metrics in the late summer. It's not a stretch to say he's the best pure hitter in the world. As for the Mets, they will probably have to use Brett Baty a lot, at least vs. righties. Tyrone Taylor and Jared Young, who is actually off to a strong start, will also be factors (Ronny Mauricio was called up to take his roster spot, but he won't be starting regularly). Replacing Soto, however, will require more than just a couple of reserve players doing a good job. Even the pitchers will need to step up their game for this injury not to derail New York’s first month. View full article

Image courtesy of © Brad Penner-Imagn Images Freddy Peralta’s first turn in a New York Mets uniform wasn’t exactly a masterpiece if you only glance at the box score. Giving up four runs over five innings, including a pair of homers to Brandon Lowe, usually feels like a rocky start for a new ace. But box scores are a bit like looking at a finished painting from across the room: you see the colors, but you miss the brushwork. If you step a little closer, there was plenty to suggest that Peralta’s outing was far more calculated and promising than it appeared. The most striking part of his afternoon wasn’t the hits he surrendered, but the way he attacked. Peralta didn't walk a single batter while striking out seven, showing a level of aggression that keeps a defense on its toes. He leaned on his four-seam fastball about 49 percent of the time. That’s close to last year’s 53.5 percent mark. The real story, however, lived in his secondary pitches. A New Look for a New Team The slider suddenly became the guest of honor in Peralta’s repertoire. He threw it nearly 29 percent of the time against the Pirates, a massive jump from the 10.2 percent usage we saw in 2025. Last year, the slider was essentially the forgotten tool in his shed, buried behind his changeup and curveball. On Thursday, it was his primary weapon of choice. This shift wasn't a random roll of the dice, either. Statistically, Peralta’s slider is a nightmare for hitters, boasting a .161 xwOBA and a 52.8 percent whiff rate last year, both elite marks. Doubling down on your best pitch is rarely a bad strategy. Furthermore, the Pirates ranked 29th out of 30 teams in 2025 with -53.7 slider runs above average, or, in this case, well below average. Only the Colorado Rockies were worse against that specific pitch type. It was a classic case of a pitcher playing to his strengths while exploiting a known weakness in the opposition. We have established that Peralta did, in fact, favor his slider over his other secondaries in the opener. Was it good, though? Well, that depends on what you're looking for. The Double-Edged Sword When the slider worked, it was like a disappearing act. Peralta generated a 64 percent whiff rate with the pitch on Thursday, bamboozling lefties and righties alike. It was a swing-and-miss machine that looked nearly unhittable at times. However, baseball is a game of inches, and when the slider missed its spot, the Pirates made him pay: Despite the whiffs, the actual results on balls put in play were loud. One of Lowe's home runs and a double came off the slider, leading to a bloated 1.037 wOBA. The underlying numbers, specifically the xwOBA of .235, suggest that Peralta actually pitched much better than the results indicated. The issue wasn't the pitch itself, but the location. He missed his spot high a few too many times, a death sentence for a slider without huge sweeping tendencies. Refinement on the Edges Television broadcasts might have mislabeled the offering of that Lowe home run as a curveball, but the data, in this case Statcast, says it was the slider. The movement was there, the velocity was right, and the intent was clear. If Peralta can move that pitch from the middle of the plate to the edges, it transforms from a liability into a lethal weapon. As he settles into the rhythm of the season and grows more comfortable in New York, the command should follow the stuff. This debut wasn't a red flag; it was a blueprint for how dominant he can be once he stops finding the fat part of the bat with one of his best breaking pitches. View full article

Image courtesy of © Jim Rassol-Imagn Images The story of Francisco Lindor in Queens has been one of high stakes and even higher production. Since arriving in 2021, he has evolved from a player meeting skeptical boos into the heartbeat of the Mets' roster. Over the last three seasons, he has turned into a statistical Swiss Army knife, slashing .265/.342/.479 with 95 home runs and 91 stolen bases. When you pair the resulting 129 wRC+ with his trademark Gold Glove-caliber defense, you aren't just looking at a good shortstop; you are looking at one of the premier anchors in the sport. He is a rare breed of consistency, missing just 15 games over those three years. Usually, predicting a 32-year-old superstar in his prime is a straightforward exercise. However, Lindor’s 2026 outlook hit a snag on February 11 when he underwent surgery for a hamate bone stress reaction in his left hand. It is a race against the clock to make the Opening Day lineup, and while he is already playing spring training games, the real question is how hard he can swing it. Hamate injuries are notorious for being the ultimate power thieves, often sapping a hitter’s ability to drive the ball long after they have been cleared to play. Even as he checks boxes in mid-March, the ghost of this injury tends to haunt the box scores for months. Mets Can Learn From Francisco Alvarez's Injury To understand the potential frustration ahead, we only need to look at the other side of the plate for the Mets; Francisco Alvarez dealt with a similar ordeal in 2025. While Alvarez suffered a clean break and Lindor a stress reaction, both required surgical intervention. Alvarez went under the knife in March and was back in the lineup by late April, even hitting a home run in his second game back. But that early blast was a bit of a mirage. The young catcher soon hit a wall, looking like a shell of himself as he struggled to a .236 average and a meager .333 slugging percentage over 35 games. The lack of pop eventually forced the team to send him to the minors in June just to find his rhythm again without the bright lights of New York magnifying every weak fly ball. It wasn't until July 21 that he earned his way back to the MLB roster. From that point until the end of the season, Alvarez hit a stellar .276/.360/.561 with a 157 wRC+ in 139 plate appearances. He was so good that he managed to be an above-average hitter over the course of the entire season, per his 124 wRC+. However, those early weeks were a stark reminder of how a hand injury can turn a powerhouse into a contact hitter. Think of a hamate recovery like trying to drive a car with a misaligned steering wheel. You can get from point A to point B, but you can’t really open it up on the highway without feeling the vibration. Lindor might be back on the field quickly, but his grip strength—the literal engine of his power—requires time and patience to recalibrate fully. The Mets’ shortstop is a fast healer and famously durable, but biology has its own schedule. History suggests that while these injuries aren't career-enders, they demand a mental toughness to handle the "gap year" in power numbers. Fans should temper their expectations for those first 150 plate appearances or so. If Lindor starts the season with too many singles and just a few extra-base hits, don't spend too much energy fretting over a supposed decline. Let the strength return naturally, and the star who has defined this era of Mets baseball will eventually find his stride again. View full article