Roger Rubin: Mets' Francisco Alvarez heads to the IL again, will he ever reach his potential?
Mets' Francisco Alvarez leaves a game against the Detroit Tigers during his at-bat in the sixth inning at Citi Field on Tuesday. Credit: Jim McIsaac
Once upon a time, there was a grand vision for Francisco Alvarez. Now, in the wake of yet another serious injury, there is only a grand question: will the organization’s starting catcher ever be the star player most expected him to become?
Alvarez is going back to the injured list for the fourth time in three seasons after an MRI revealed a torn meniscus in his right knee, suffered after he fouled off a 2-and-2 pitch in the sixth inning of Tuesday’s win over the Tigers. The Mets are scheduling him for surgery with the hope that he could be back in 6-to-8 weeks.
And “hope” is the operative word there, given the position he plays and the stress catching puts on a player’s knees.
Speaking before first pitch of the Mets' 3-2 win over Detroit in 10 innings Wednesday night at Citi Field, manager Carlos Mendoza even hedged at that timetable, saying that, “Once they go in there, we’ll have a better understanding of what we’re dealing with — all we know is we have to wait until they go in there and find [out] what we’ve got.”
Certainly there is room here to talk about this moment in time, with the black cloud following the last-place Mets through every turn of this season going awry.
On the day Juan Soto returned from a calf strain, Francisco Lindor suffered a calf injury that has him sidelined for a considerable part of the season (results of his Wednesday MRI were pending). And on the day the struggling offense gets a potential lift in the form of call-up A.J. Ewing having a spectacular major-league debut, Alvarez gets injured.
He goes on the pile with Lindor, starting first baseman Jorge Polanco and starting centerfielder Luis Robert Jr. — an amalgamation of position player injuries that underpins their anemic 3.6 runs per game, entering play Wednesday, and the 18 times in 42 games they failed to score more than two runs.
But it’s hard to do the here-and-now with Alvarez, given that the 24-year-old was projected to be a cornerstone in building a perennial contender, the reliable power-hitting catcher. Signed in 2018 for a reported $2.7 million out of Venezuela — a franchise record for a foreign prospect — he began his professional career right on track. He pounded minor-league pitching to an OPS around .900, played in the 2021 and 2022 Futures Games, became the top-ranked prospect in all of baseball in 2022 (according to MLB Pipeline) and got called up late that season at the age of 20.
He assumed the starting gig in 2023 and though he hit for only a .209 average, he had 25 home runs in 123 games. It’s been a string of unfortunate injuries ever since.
In 2024 it was a left thumb injury suffered in a spill on the bases that required surgery and sidelined him for almost two months and 45 games. He opened the 2025 season on the IL for a month after fracturing the hamate bone in his wrist and wound up back there for three more weeks after partially tearing the UCL in his left thumb sliding into a base. It also bears mentioning that he was optioned and spent more than three weeks with Triple-A Syracuse that season because he wasn’t producing at the plate.
The Mets have played 366 games from 2024-2026 and Alvarez only appeared in 213 of them, hitting 26 home runs and driving in 89 runs.
Asked whether assessing Alvarez’s career to this point is difficult because of his extensive injury history, Mendoza replied, “Of course, it’s hard and you feel for him . . . For him these past three years, it’s always been injuries. He struggles, he gets hot, but then he gets hurt and misses significant time.
“You feel for the person because he cares so much and he works extremely hard [only to] go through stretches like this.”
Alvarez appeared in 37 of 41 games this season prior to the injury and had a .241/.317/.393 slash line with four home runs and 10 RBI.
Luis Torrens moves into the starting job now — as he did when Alvarez was optioned last season — and Hayden Senger was called up from Syracuse to assume the backup role.
So will Alvarez get to become the player the Mets had always expected him to be? All through his time in the minors and during his rookie season, it certainly looked possible, if not likely. Four seasons later, it’s hard to say. And the Mets won’t be seeing him for a while.
Roger Rubin returned to Newsday in 2018 to write about high schools, colleges and baseball following 20 years at the Daily News. A Baseball Hall of Fame voter since 2011, he has covered 13 MLB postseasons and 14 NCAA Final Fours.
