Who Is Kevin Plawecki, The Mets New Starting Catcher?

(Gordon Donovan)

On Sunday afternoon, Met fans everywhere began to panic when catcher Travis d’Arnaud was hit by a pitch on his hand. The prognosis on Monday was that d’Arnaud would miss 4-5 weeks with a fracture of his little finger on his right hand and it couldn’t come at a worse time. The hottest hitter on the Mets at the time, d’Arnaud was hitting .317 with two home runs and 10 RBI in helping the Mets to a 10-3 start. The injury had many thinking that the team would collapse and the good vibes at this stage of the season would end.

Due to the injury, the Mets had to call someone up from the minors to replace d’Arnaud on the roster. No offense to current backup catcher Anthony Recker but he would not be able to handle starting catcher duties for over a month, nor would any Met fan want that. Besides making Recker the starter, the Mets called up their number three prospect in the organization, a catcher named Kevin Plawecki.

Who the heck is Kevin Plawecki?

Well Met fans know him well and many baseball pundits believe that he was ready for the majors last season as he made his way through Double-A Binghamton and Triple-A Las Vegas. Something many don’t remember or even know about Plawecki is that he was a first round pick of the Mets and was compensation for the Mets from the Miami Marlins after they signed away Jose Reyes in 2011.

Plawecki played his college baseball at Purdue University, a school that is better known for basketball than their baseball. He moved through the Mets organization extremely fast as he went from low Single-A Brooklyn and Double-A in a matter of two seasons. There was even talk of the organization thinking about bringing up Plawecki up last season when d’Arnaud was sent to Las Vegas after his terrible start to the 2014 season. In 58 games for the Binghamton Mets, Plawecki hit .326 with 43 RBI and 18 doubles.

Moving to Triple-A, Plawecki struggled as expected as the quality of pitching increased. It seemed that he began finding his stroke in the last two weeks as his batting average began to tick upward, even though it was only .216 when he was called up.

The scouting report for Plawecki is a hitter with a short compact swing and a player who rarely strikes out. In four minor league seasons, Plawecki only struck out 129 times in 1,078 at-bats. Another major part of his game is that he is a gap hitter which bodes well for him playing in Citi Field and the cavernous outfield, even after the fences were moved in. There is a little pop in his bat with many scouts predicting a range of between 13-17 HR’s annually, perfect for a lineup where he will be hitting seventh during d’Arnaud’s injury.

With many within the organization, including general manager Sandy Alderson, saying that Plawecki will start and get substantial playing time, what happens if Plawecki is successful? d’Arnuad will return and if Plawecki is tearing it up, what do you do with the 2015 Opening Day starting catcher? This is a situation that I have a feeling that the Mets do not want to think about but Met fans are hoping that this situation comes to fruition.

Here’s hoping we have a position battle and catcher controversy in about a month and a half. That would mean the Mets are wining and honestly…it’s about time.