Ths is the second year where we are walking through the previous season’s Baseball America’s Top Prospect handbook, looking at the all the Mets to see how they are developing against Baseball America’s Projections.
Tomas Nido is probably the most well known player on this list (and this list includes Pete Alonso) because it doesn’t feel like Nido qualifies as a prospect anymore, but he did before the 2019 season. Nido, drafted in 2012, first saw major league action in the 2017 season. BA wrote before the 2019 season that due to the Mets catching situation in 2018, he got an early call up, despite opening his season in AA. Both Travis d’Arnaud and Kevin Plawecki got injured. Nido didn’t use the situation to standout, hitting .167/.200/.238.
BA writes that Nido will stick around the MLB because of his defensive skills, not because of his hitting. They expected him to spend his time in 2019 at Syracuse, downplaying his age (25) because “catchers develop later”.
What BA didn’t predict, is that the Mets are the Mets and they would Mets up their catching situation in new ways in 2019. When BA wrote the prospect book, the Mets had already traded Plawecki away but had committed to d’Arnaud as the back up and Wilson Ramos as the starter. This was also before the Mets went out and signed Devin Mesoraco.
Travis d’Arnaud started off hurt, then got injured, the Mets lost Mesoraco due to their own incompetence and Nido saw a lot of playing time, getting into 50 games and having 144 PA’s hitting .191/.231/.316. Which isn’t good but he’s not supposed to be an offensive minded back up catcher.
Right now Nido is marked as the back up catcher to Ramos going into 2020. Nido will face pressure to protect that role throughout spring training with an old Mets-favorite in town on an NRI, Rene Rivera. Nido has earned both his grade of 40 and his risk of Low from BA, we aren’t expecting any surprises in 2020. (But it is the Mets so who knows)
