Omar Narvaez explains decision to leave Mets camp for World Baseball Classic
Mets catcher Omar Narvaez during a spring training workout, Friday Feb. 24, 2023 in Port St. Lucie, Fla. Credit: Newsday/Alejandra Villa Loarca
PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla. — Omar Narvaez is navigating as challenging a spring training as anybody on the Mets. He is a new-to-the-team catcher tasked with learning a pitching staff with which he had virtually zero familiarity. There are at least a dozen pitchers who will be on the season-opening roster whom he needs to get to know — their repertoires, their personalities, their thought processes — and another dozen or more who probably will be his batterymates at some point.
Such is the pull of patriotism, though, that Narvaez chose to add a layer of difficulty anyway. He is set to leave camp in early March for potentially close to three weeks to play for Venezuela in the World Baseball Classic.
Given his responsibility to the Mets, his employer paying him $8 million this year, Narvaez wrestled with that decision, he said. But he couldn’t resist this non-hyperbolic once-in-a-lifetime chance to represent his home country.
“It’s something new to my career. It’s something I’ve always wanted to do,” he said. “This was probably my only opportunity to represent my country. I can’t say no to that. Probably in four years, I don’t know if I’m going to be one of the top catchers.”
Narvaez then gestured to Francisco Alvarez, a fellow Venezuelan catcher and the Mets’ top prospect, a few lockers away. By the time the WBC comes around again, Alvarez might be a superstar — the Mets hope so, anyway. Narvaez will be 35, old for a baseball player and older for a catcher.
Narvaez’s involvement wasn’t a given over the past few months. For a while, he was lined up to be Venezuela’s third backstop behind Salvador Perez and Willson Contreras, so he had planned on skipping the event if he signed with a new team. Adjusting was more important than probably not even playing behind that pair, he said.
But when Contreras dropped out — electing to stay with his own new club, the Cardinals — Narvaez moved up to No. 2. If he wanted to wear his country’s colors, this was his shot.
“There’s a lot of young guys coming up, a lot of talented guys,” he said. “I’m just looking forward to this opportunity that I have right now and take everything I can from it.”
Manager Buck Showalter said: “I respect that. It’s a big deal, to be asked to catch for your country. I would never take that away from somebody. That’s why we’re pushing him [early in camp].”
Pete Alonso, Jeff McNeil, Francisco Lindor, Eduardo Escobar, Jose Quintana, Edwin Diaz, Adam Ottavino and Brooks Raley also will play in the WBC. The Mets don’t love that, as those players will be temporarily outside their purview, but they accept it.
“We’re going to be kind of on pins and needles till they’re all back here physically,” Showalter said. “But I wouldn’t take that away from [Narvaez]. It’s a big deal to them.”
In the meantime, the Mets are doing what they can to ease Narvaez’s acclimatization. He reported to camp two weeks early to get started with other early arrivals. The coaching staff has been aggressive in making sure he has been paired with all of the key pitchers during bullpen sessions, live batting practices and now exhibition games, checking as many boxes as possible in as short a time as possible.
And the Mets arranged, for example, for Narvaez to be the DH in their Grapefruit League opener on Saturday (which non-roster righthander Denyi Reyes started) so he could be behind the plate for Max Scherzer on Sunday.
“We’re taking every opportunity to have him catch as many different guys that he’s going to have on the team,” catching coach Glenn Sherlock said. “Every day, I’ll get with Hef [pitching coach Jeremy Hef-ner]. Who’s today’s pitchers? We’ll line them up with Omar or with Tomas, just so they can both get a look at our new guys. There’s a lot more new guys for Omar than Tomas.”
Narvaez emphasized getting to know the pitchers as humans, which happens in the clubhouse and during pre- and post-throw conversations more than it does when they’re 60 feet, 6 inches apart.
“Being in a new clubhouse where you don’t know almost everybody,” he said, “you have to spend time with everybody, all the teammates.”
He’ll lose some of that time to the WBC, but nobody involved seemed too concerned.
“Everybody loves throwing to him,” Showalter said. “He’s got a great reputation catching guys. I don’t think it’s going to be a problem. I like him.”
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.
