The struggling Metropolitan Options Struggle with Francisco Alvarez

After all, it doesn’t seem like a year for Francisco Alvarez. On the day after they finished their seven-game winning streak, the Mets announced that they had chosen Alvarez to Syracuse and called on Hayden Senger to replace him. The 23-year-old receiver has already had a three-point winning season in his game, and if it weren’t for the thumb injury that had been limited to 100 games last season, he could have been the top ten in the war over the past two seasons. However, there are no plans for this season, and Alvarez will now try to set everything directly with a team of Syracuse Mets that have lost 12 of their last 14 games.

Alvarez broke his left hand on March 8, making it his second straight season as his receiver injury has interfered with his chance to take the next step and become an All-Star double threat guard. 32 days later, Alvarez started a minor league recovery in just 32 days, hitting 10 games in three levels. 179. He returned to the Mets on April 25 and it was hard to escape the conclusion that the team brought him back very quickly. It’s no surprise that he didn’t have a roaring start in a lack of a lot of spring training and struggling during his rehabilitation mission, but now, with the NL East leader throwing them into a game with the Phillies, the Mets are no longer content to let him figure him out in the Queens.

Let’s talk about the offense first. Although not ideal, it is not disastrous. Alvarez won 138 crickets in 35 games and ran 91 WRC+. He proposed 97 WRC+ in 2023 and 102 WRC+ in 2024, so it was the lowest mark of his career, and it was by no means unprecedented for players who were expected to put all of this on the plate. Alvarez has been 35 games apart in each of the last two seasons:

Alvarez has been more aggressive at a career-high pace recently, chasing and whistling, and his 73% regional contact rate is the worst in the league. But because he has a bigger swing than his higher chase rate, Seager puts him in the 98th percentile, the best mark of his career. And, because he saw fewer strikes than either of the past two seasons, Alvarez had his career-high walking rate to reach his career-high strikeout rate. You can build a real argument that the improved walking rate is worth the extra strikeout, but the Mets obviously won’t see it that way. Manager Carlos Mendoza specifically treats board discipline as an issue with Alvarez, telling reporters: “We feel like some stretchers, I feel like I’m like a few games, well, that’s what it should be. But he’ll go to some games and then he’s late to the fastball and then he chases the consistency, so here’s looking for consistency.”

Another part of this argument has to do with the fact that Alvarez smashed baseball, although you don’t know it from his career – low .098 ISO. We’re talking about a small sample, but his career climax as well as average, maximum and 90-level export speeds. All of this contact mass did not turn into strength, mainly because Alvarez hit a lot of balls on the ground. Only 9% of his hard balls have been pulling one side, down from 29% in 2023 to 19% in 2024. Batting indicators are also shaped in a weird way. Alvarez’s highest Babip of his career, but look at it:

When Alvarez hit the ball to make the ball underperform, he outperformed his Woba. But he also performed well when he didn’t hit the ball hard. This is not to say that all of this is the result of luck. Alvarez is running a career low pull rate, and the drop in the air ball is even more noticeable.

Alvarez is not necessarily trying to catch up with the court. He also entered the offseason, determined to stop pulling the ball so much. “For me, the main focus is playing the opposite way or in the middle, but there are a few days when I’m going to pull baseball,” he said in April. “But about 80% of the time, my focus is more on the opposite area.” It worked, maybe too good. According to Statcast’s Bat Tracking metrics, his interception points are 1.3 inches deeper than last season. At the moment of interception, his bat went from three degrees of incline to five degrees of tension to the opposite field. Overall, expectation indicators like Xwoba think that Alvarez should be as good as last season, as do batsmen, walking makes up for the extra strikeouts and makes up for the contact quality that is constructed by a less-thought-minded launch angle. However, DRC+, which delves into the process, is even more suspicious:

Alvarez is an all-or-nothing batsman, and he is also prone to ground balls because of his flat swing power. His 28-degree swing path tilt has only made him the 15th percentile in the past three seasons. We have seen a lot of batsmen make this work to varying degrees and make this work not always the most satisfying combination in the world. He’s going to go through periods where he doesn’t have much contact and he’s going to go through periods where he’s hitting the ball on the ground, that’s too much. He has been doing this season, but remember, we are talking about a small sample, just like we are talking about a player getting injured and lacking spring training.

In addition to changing his method, Alvarez also changed the settings, from a relatively fixed position to a bat leaning against his shoulder, with a higher angle and lower hands:

As Mendoza noted on Sunday, Hamate’s injury gave Alvarez a chance to be happy with the changes.

To sum up, the greater concern is on the defensive end. “I feel receiving and blocking may be areas where we want to see some improvement,” Mendoza said. Alvarez has been one of the best makers of the game over the past two seasons, with the 2023 frameworks going through nine in 2023, according to Statcast. This season, he is at -4. Baseball Savant divides the edge of the strike zone into eight different sections. Alvarez averaged below average in seven of them and ranked 10th in four of them. He has performed well at the bottom of the set over the past few seasons, but this season he has ranked 38th among 56 qualified catchers. This is the main problem that needs to be solved. Even in the outstanding rookie season in 2023, Alvarez is a below-average batsman, with almost all the value coming from the frame. Maybe he only needs more time from injury to his receiver base, but this skill is his real star potential. Without it, he is a different player.

Alvarez’s lockdown has also become the subject of many criticisms as his four passes ranked fifth in baseball games. However, Baseball prospectus Viewed him as an above-average blocker this season, Statcast sees him as average. Statcast numbers suggest that this may be the eye tests that are not treating his situation well. Alvarez gave him 17 courts in 2025, but they aren’t what you might expect:

This season, Alvarez’s chances are much harder. In fact, he is better than average in the tick-level game, but he has brought those gains back to an easy opportunity. But the medium-difficulty obstacles don’t stick out that much, so we noticed that all the balls passed are easy. Additionally, Alvarez is currently capturing 41% of the possible fixed people, so he takes up some value with his arms.

Now that we know all this, what does this comment on the team’s decision to choose Alvarez? it depends. If his problems just stem from injuries and lack of preparation time (if he is going to figure it out at the end), then it doesn’t make much sense to send him down now. He is already grabbing Luis Torrens’ game time. Torrens is excellent in frames, although his bats are much worse and his blocks are actually bad, which allows him to launch a 0.7 war against Alvarez’s 0.5 war. Senger is 28 years old and runs only 59 WRC+ in Syracuse. In fact, he has not proposed an above-average offensive line among minors since 2021. So even with a reduced version of Alvarez, Senger may be likely to be in the short term, and there is always a risk that this relegation may hurt players’ confidence.

On the other hand, if the Mets really think that Alvarez can use resets to work on framing and figuring out his approach, it makes sense to send him to the world now. Mendoza is eager to get more batsmen from Alvarez, but the Mets think they can’t afford it when they compete for the division, and Torrens is (slightly) better than him. It’s hard to say that Alvarez’s struggle on the plate is the result of his new approach, the residue left over from injuries, or the short-lived samples, or the Mets are clearly worried about his plate discipline. If they plan to patch his swing, it is best to do so in a lower pressure environment. If that leads to Alvarez’s excellent second half, it will be worth the short-term relegation.

It should be clear that if Alvarez does rebound at some point, it is impossible to really know why. Did the Metropolitan help him figure it out? Does it only take him some time to go back to his old self? Many people will give their opinions, but if the team has just taken the current course, we won’t know what will happen. It’s safe to assume that Alvarez will return to his old self or something at some point, which will make the Mets look very smart if it happens soon.