Every spring I collect several projections sources and average them together to do a meta-projection. Last year I pulled projections from Baseball Prospectus, ZiPS, Steamer, ESPN, and Baseball Reference.
Originally, this article was going to just review Plawecki’s 2018, and then speculate how the Mets would balance d’Arnaud, Plawecki and Ramos next year. But, the Mets traded Kevin Plawecki to the Indians last week and now this feels more like a good bye, thanks for the memories letter.
Personally, I feel that last year was the first year that the idea for Plawecki was more of a straight platoon than as a back up catcher, the idea of d’Arnaud always being a healthy option was fading.
2018 Average Projected: 248 PA, 217 AB, 55 H, 5.6 HR, .248/.320/.373
2018 Actual: 277 PA, 238 AB, 50 H, 7 HR, .210/.315/.370
Plawecki performed pretty much inline with his projections. He got slightly more playing time, got on base slightly less, but it was pretty close. You can see his individual projections here.
Plawecki came up back when we were all obsessed with d’Arnaud, but as a prospect and college player, Plawecki was a hitting machine. Never for that much power, he just got on base. It just never materialized at the same rate at the major league level. Plawecki was a league average catcher that posted an 88 DRC+ last year. He gave a lot to the Mets and I’m sad to see him go. There was also no way the Mets could carry three catchers on their roster.
Happy trails Plawecki! Enjoy Cleveland!
