Mets calling up Francisco Alvarez with Omar Narvaez hurt, source says

Francisco Alvarez is about to get his shot — sooner than the Mets wanted.

Catcher Omar Narvaez is headed to the injured list with a left calf strain that will sideline him for about two months, the Mets announced Thursday. The team plans to call up the 21-year-old Alvarez, its top prospect, to replace him before their home opener Friday against the Marlins, a source said.

How playing time will sort out with Alvarez and Tomas Nido, the co-catcher with Narvaez, is not clear. But Mets decision-makers were consistent during spring training: If Alvarez is in the majors, they want him to catch regularly, at least several times per week.

“If Francisco is on our club or he makes our team or if he shows up, we want to make sure we can catch him because the long-term trajectory of this young man is to be able to catch,” general manager Billy Eppler said at the start of spring training. “We have to be able to satisfy that up here. It would not be a pure DH situation.”

With the Mets lacking a defined righthanded-hitting platoon mate for designated hitter Daniel Vogelbach, Alvarez could wind up catching some days and starting at DH against lefthanders. That would allow the Mets to continue to work in the defensively savvy Nido behind the plate, too.

Whatever role Alvarez is assigned or earns, this is earlier than the Mets intended to bring him back to the majors. He had a surprise late-season, 4-for-14 cameo with the big-league club last year but was demoted to Triple-A Syracuse near the end of spring training so that he could continue to work on his defense, a part of his skill set that lags well behind his potent bat.

Mets officials said then that he received that news well. The day he got cut, Alvarez said through an interpreter, “The first thing that came to mind was that I need to go back down there and work hard and prove myself so they can call me back up eventually.”

Eventually came quickly.

Narvaez said Wednesday that his calf was fine until he felt “tightness” on a routine flyout in the ninth inning of a loss to the Brewers. He was limping after the game. The Mets sent him Thursday morning for medical imaging, which revealed a medium to high-grade strain. Players typically require 8-9 weeks to return from that injury, according to the team.

The Mets signed the defensively adept Narvaez, 31, to a two-year, $15 million contract (including a $7 million player option for 2024) in December to work alongside Nido as the Mets waited for Alvarez to be ready. Narvaez was off to a slow start at the plate — four hits, all singles, in 17 plate appearances — when he got hurt.

Alvarez, meanwhile, had two homers and four RBIs in four games for Syracuse. He also struck out eight times (and walked three times) in 19 plate appearances.

Late in spring training, during which Alvarez did not hit well, manager Buck Showalter said: “He’s got some things to finish off offensively, that’s for sure.”

Now the Mets will integrate Alvarez into catching a pitching staff that posted a 5.19 ERA on their seven-game road trip to open the season.

“I told him, everybody knows he can hit the ball three miles long,” Nido said recently. “He’s a kid. I told him, 'Listen, you’re never going to lose [power]. But if you can bring the glove up [to the same standard], it’s game over.' I think the world of him. He’s a stud.”

Mets claim Uceta. The Mets claimed righthander Edwin Uceta off waivers from Pittsburgh and sent him to Syracuse. Uceta, 25, posted a 6.27 ERA in 24 appearances with the Dodgers and Diamondbacks in 2021-22. To make room on the 40-man roster, the Mets moved righthander Sam Coonrod (lat strain) to the 60-day injured list.

By Tim Healey

timothy.healey@newsday.com@timbhealey

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.