When the Mets traded R.A. Dickey to the Blue Jays after his Cy Young-winning 2012 season, one of the centerpieces of the package was top catching prospect Travis d’Arnaud, who was seen as the team’s future at the position.
However, with d’Arnaud’s major league career off to a bumpy start, there could be a challenger to his throne: Kevin Plawecki, who was taken with the 35th overall pick in the 2012 draft from Purdue University.
After a pedestrian April, when he hit just .250 with three extra-base hits for Double-A Binghamton, the 23-year-old has been on a tear since the calendar turned to May, hitting .352 with a .946 OPS. His totals for the season stood at .326 with six homers and 41 RBIs heading into Friday.
Plawecki has caught the eye of an American League scout, who called him a “future All-Star” and “the best catcher in the organization.”
“He can hit, catch, throw,” the scout said. “His mechanical flaws are easily correctable. From level to level, he needs to get [locked] in with his arm action and the arm path, and once he gets that locked down, he’s going to have a better-than-average arm.”
While Plawecki is ascending, d’Arnaud is in a descent of sorts. After hitting .202 in 99 major league at-bats last season following a mid-August call-up, he was hitting just .180 in 128 at-bats for the Mets this year before being demoted to Triple-A Las Vegas two weeks ago.
D’Arnaud has been on a tear since he arrived in Las Vegas, batting .432 with six homers and 15 RBIs in only 44 at-bats before Friday, but Mets manager Terry Collins told reporters in St. Louis this week that more time is needed to assess d’Arnaud’s progress.
At this stage of his career, Plawecki is seen as a solid contact hitter with plenty of time to find a power stroke.
“He has a good approach at the plate,” Binghamton hitting coach Luis Rivera said. “He can drive the ball anywhere on the field [and] he has good bat control.”
Rivera said one of Plawecki’s weaknesses is his tendency to sometimes expand the strike zone and chase pitches.
In order to combat that flaw, Rivera devised a routine to help Plawecki stay behind the ball, which involved throwing pitches to Plawecki from multiple angles and instructing him to hit the ball to a certain area of the field.
“Once we started doing that, he’s been more consistent,” Rivera said.
Perhaps the most eye-opening aspect of Plawecki’s game is that he went into Friday’s action having struck out only 27 times this season.
“The ability to make contact consistently and not be able to strike out that many times, that’s impressive,” said Akron hitting coach Rouglas Odor, who watched Plawecki go 7-for-21 against his team in a five-game series last week. “He has pop in his bat — you don’t see it right now, but maybe in the future.”
Although d’Arnaud’s return to the big league club is imminent, it’s good news for the Mets that they could have a backstop backup plan in place.