Mets' Francisco Alvarez got catcher-to-catcher advice from Cardinals icon Yadier Molina
Mets catcher Francisco Alvarez during a spring training workout on Friday in Port St. Lucie, Fla. Credit: Newsday/Alejandra Villa Loarca
PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla. — Amid an offseason visit to his Venezuela home, during an afternoon at the nearby ballpark where he trained with other pros, Francisco Alvarez spotted in the outfield one of the greatest to ever do what he aspires to: Yadier Molina.
Molina, the Cardinals icon freshly retired from a likely Hall of Fame career that began when Alvarez was a toddler, was the newbie manager of Navegantes del Magallanes, a team in the country’s winter league. Alvarez, the Mets’ top prospect, was there to work out. Never lacking in confidence, the wunderkind went for it, walking up to the nine-time Gold Glover cold.
“I told him, ‘I’m Francisco and I have a couple questions for you,’ ” Alvarez recalled Friday. “I don’t know if he really knew who I was or he didn’t, but he sat down with me like a normal person.”
What ensued was a 40-minute conversation, catcher to catcher, that Alvarez said “helped me tremendously.” There were no drills, no technical talk, no discussion of the finer points of their shared position at which Molina was so good and Alvarez needs to improve. But Molina offered wisdom on how to make it to the majors — and last.
“It was really the mental part of it. There was something that clicked with me there,” Alvarez said. “It’s like, you have to be relaxed, you have to be calm when you’re at the plate and when you’re catching. I think that’s what stuck with me the most. That’s what will help me put it together more than the physical aspect.
“You can’t have a competition with the people in your clubhouse. You need to be against those other people. In Yadi’s mind, if that catcher got a hit, I gotta get a hit. Then next time we’re going to strike out the side and leave them on zero. It’s really about the competition aspect and the mental aspect more than the physical.”
The mindset advice was valuable for Alvarez, who admits now that he wasn’t exactly relaxed during his taste of the majors late last season — including, say, when he batted in the ninth inning against Kenley Jansen in Atlanta with the game on the line and the division title up for grabs, a heck of a set of circumstances for a debut.
When Alvarez returns to the majors is to be determined. The depth chart suggests he’ll begin the season with Triple-A Syracuse. He always has been an advanced hitter — hello, 27 homers in the upper minors as a 20-year-old last year — so the Mets are prioritizing his progress as a catcher. They say they could carry three backstops, which would mean Alvarez joining Omar Narvaez and Tomas Nido, but only if they’re sure he can keep growing defensively under those circumstances. They don’t want him to be a DH.
“There’s ways that just about anybody in camp can make the club if something happened,” manager Buck Showalter said. “We know Nido and Omar are going to be the two catchers. We’ll see where Francisco fits in that mix.”
Nido, who practiced with Alvarez in South Florida over the offseason, said: “I told him, everybody knows he can hit the ball three miles long . . . listen, you’re never going to lose that. But if you can bring the glove up [closer to the hitting abilities], it’s game over. I think the world of him. He’s a stud.”
Alvarez will try to do that with the perspective provided by Molina, with whom he hopes to remain in touch.
“It was unbelievable, to be able to have a conversation with him,” Alvarez said. “The way that I see him, the standard that I [view him as] — he’s a Hall of Fame player, a champion, a tremendous person. Just how good he was behind the plate. For so many years, always in the playoffs. To be able to have a conversation and learn from him was really big for me.”
Tim Healey is the Mets beat writer for Newsday. Born on Long Island and raised in Connecticut, Tim has previously worked for the South Florida Sun Sentinel, the Boston Globe and MLB.com. He is also the author of “Hometown Hardball,” a book about minor league baseball in the northeast.
