Will Francisco Alvarez Become the Slugger the Mets Dreamed Of?
This could be the year the 23-year-old breaks out at the plate and becomes the star power hitter the Mets envisioned.

According to FanGraphs WAR, New York Mets catcher Francisco Alvarez has been a top-10 backstop in the sport over the past two seasons. He has produced 4.9 fWAR in 223 games. Yet, he has barely scratched the surface of his monstrous potential.
Alvarez has provided the majority of his value behind the plate. Specifically, he has demonstrated an aptitude for stealing strikes. The metrics at FanGraphs, Baseball Savant, and Baseball Prospectus all agree he’s been one of the more valuable pitch framers in the league.
Framing is one of the most valuable (and most overlooked) skills in the modern game. Just look at Giants catcher Patrick Bailey.
Just Baseball recently ranked Bailey number five on our list of the top 10 catchers in baseball despite his career .640 OPS and 79 wRC+. Why? Because he’s miles ahead of every other backstop when it comes to earning extra strikes.
Alvarez isn’t quite on Bailey’s level, but thanks to his excellent framing, FanGraphs ranks him as the 12th most valuable defensive player at any position over the past two years. That’s remarkable progress for a young player who wasn’t often considered a plus defender during his prospect days.
Defensive Questions Answered
Our own Aram Leighton saw Alvarez’s defensive potential, writing before the 2022 season that “all indications point towards Alvarez becoming an above-average defender.” However, many other sources had their questions about his glove.
Entering the 2023 campaign, Baseball America gave Alvarez’s fielding a 45 FV on the 20-80 scale. Their evaluators wrote that he had “work to do behind the plate” but had the “potential to develop into a near-average defensive catcher.”
Similarly, FanGraphs gave Alvarez’s glove a present grade of 40 and a future grade of 45. Their prospect team considered him a “mixed bag” defensively, writing: “While his profile is that of an offense-first catcher, Álvarez is unlikely to be a true liability back there and has more than enough stick to make up for his defensive deficiencies.”
Meanwhile, the Baseball Prospectus staff had more significant concerns, calling Alvarez “not a particularly good catcher” and writing that his “overall defensive profile was pushing the lower bounds of what you’d want as a major league backstop.”
All that to say, Alvarez has enjoyed a delightful defensive breakout over the past two seasons. However, his strong defense has masked his struggles at the plate.
Alvarez Isn’t Living Up to His Offensive Potential
With a career 99 wRC+, Francisco Alvarez has been more productive at the plate than the average catcher. However, that says more about the low offensive standards at his position than it does about Alvarez himself.
Simply put, he hasn’t come anywhere close to reaching the heights that prospect writers told us to expect.
Alvarez wasn’t just supposed to be a good hitter for a catcher. He was supposed to be a middle-of-the-order bat with huge power potential. Instead, he has slashed .221/.294/.423 with a mediocre .310 wOBA and an even more mediocre .300 xwOBA.
Aram Leighton once wrote that Alvarez’s offensive upside rivaled that of “any prospect at any position.” The staff at Baseball Prospectus called him “the best offensive catching prospect in recent memory.” The team at Baseball America proposed he would “hit in the middle of the Mets’ order for a long time.”
Comments like that will make Mets fans dream of a catcher like Mike Piazza. Perhaps that’s an unfair comparison for any young player, but that’s kind of the point. Alvarez was so dominant in the minor leagues that it didn’t even seem fair.
So far, Alvarez hasn’t been that guy at the major league level. But he’s still just 23 years old – younger than several names on Just Baseball’s Top 100 Prospects list.
That means he still has plenty of time to figure things out, and his strong defense gives him a high floor while he works through his issues at the plate.
His High Ceiling Hasn’t Disappeared
While his overall numbers are middling at best, Alvarez has had stretches in which he has looked exactly as advertised.
Just look at what he did in May (175 wRC+) and July (162 wRC+) of 2023, or the month leading up to the All-Star Game in 2024 (194 wRC+). As recently as this past September, he posted a 150 wRC+ in 22 games down the stretch.
The problem is that his bat has often been unplayable outside of those hot streaks. From the All-Star break through the end of August last season, Alvarez slashed .150/.195/.224 with a 20 wRC+ in 34 games. He struggled to barrel up the ball and struck out more than 30% of the time.
So, we know that Alvarez can be a great hitter. What he has to figure out is how not to be a terrible hitter the rest of the time. Obviously, that’s easier said than done.
It might help if he were chasing and whiffing a little less often. That being said, his big swing is a big reason for his big power. It would be counterproductive for him to rein in his swing if it meant sacrificing power.
Like I said, it’s easy to see what Alvarez is doing wrong. It’s much harder to suggest the right solution.
Learning to hit breaking balls more consistently is another thing Alvarez can focus on. He has a career .246 wOBA and .230 xwOBA against breaking balls, compared to a .344 wOBA and .335 xwOBA against all other pitches.
It’s normal for a young hitter to struggle against breaking balls in his first couple of seasons. As he enters his third full season, however, he’ll have to prove that breaking pitches are just his temporary weakness and not his fatal flaw.
Is the Breakout Finally Coming?
Most of the major projection systems, including ZiPS, Steamer, and PECOTA, expect Alvarez to take a step forward and post above-average offensive numbers in 2025. None of them are ready to project a superstar season.
However, if there’s any player who has the tools and talent to vastly outperform his projections, it’s Francisco Alvarez. He has already proven to be a far more skilled defender than almost anyone expected. Now it’s time for him to show that his bat can be just as valuable.