Young Catchers Gabriel Moreno, Francisco Alvarez Gain Helium In 2021

Prospect analysis often requires making predictions about an unpredictable game and its unpredictable players. That sense of the unknown is one reason why breakout prospects intrigue us so much.

Every year, a player who entered the season as a relative unknown ends up dominating as soon as the first pitch is thrown on Opening Day.

The Nationals’ Juan Soto was that way in 2018, when he returned from a series of injuries in the prior season to rip through Low-A, High-A and Double-A in just 39 games on the way to big league stardom.

This year, Blue Jays catcher Gabriel Moreno stands as one of the biggest breakouts in baseball. Through 32 games at Double-A he hit .373/.441/.651 with eight home runs. He drew 14 walks against 22 strikeouts.

But to those who got to watch the 21-year-old Venezuelan in 2020, this isn’t an opening act. It’s an encore performance.

Blue Jays minor league hitting coordinator Hunter Mense puts it this way: “I talked to some reporters before the season and their first question was: ‘Is there anybody we’re missing or anybody that might be a little bit too low?’ and my answer was always emphatically Gabriel Moreno.

“What everybody missed out on last year was just seeing some of the strides that guys made and, for him, improving some of the strength that he had.

“He was already one of my favorites in the organization because of what he can do offensively, but then you fast-forward a year and—and nobody got to see him—and it was like, ‘Yeah he’s the absolute real deal.’ ”

 

Moreno entered the season ranked as Toronto’s No. 8 prospect. Internally, the Blue Jays knew his stock was about to explode because of the work he’d done behind the scenes at the team’s alternate training site.

Now, Moreno has quickly joined the Mets’ Francisco Alvarez and the Orioles’ Adley Rutschman in the conversation for the game’s best young catching prospect.

“He’s already pretty much a plus defender,” one scout said. “The receiving is excellent. The blocking’s really good. He can throw. The release is good. Everything you want to see, he already does, and he’s 21.

“He does it all. To be honest, I do not think I saw him make a single mistake. I saw at least four games, maybe five, of him catching and I don’t think I saw any mistakes.”

If standout defense were the bulk of Moreno’s tools, he would still be a quality candidate for a long big league career, but his work behind the plate is only half of his talent. He can really hit, too.

Moreno began the 2021 season as the fifth-youngest player in the Double-A Northeast, yet he was just the third-youngest on his own team, behind righthanders Simeon Woods Richardson and Elvis Luciano. Moreno had been an offensive menace since Day One.

Only a late-June thumb fracture that resulted from a hit by pitch could slow Moreno. For now.

“His approach is aggressive, but it’s good aggression,” the scout said. “It’s swinging at balls that he should be swinging at, which is really the mark of a good hitter . . . No matter if the rest of his body gets a little bit fooled, his hands are always back. He uses the whole field

“He just smoked balls back up the middle, and is totally content to do that. Obviously in today’s game, number one, those guys are rarer. Number two, they’re extremely valuable because no one does that.”

When he got to Low-A in 2019, Moreno made an immediate impact, swatting a home run in his first game with Lansing. He finished his stint at the level with impressive numbers, but the Blue Jays wanted to see more oomph behind the balls he put in play.

A 19-year-old needing to get stronger is understandable, because many players that age are still growing into their bodies. But Moreno was already showing an innate ability to make contact, so the Blue Jays knew they had to work carefully to thread the needle of adding power without sacrificing any of his raw hitting ability.

Because of the travel restrictions in Venezuela during the pandemic last year, Moreno stayed in Florida before the Blue Jays’ alternate training site opened in Rochester, N.Y. There, just as he had in Low-A in 2019, Moreno made a quick, loud impression.

“The first ball that he hit was—I think it was off of (Blue Jays reliever) Julian Merryweather—and it was a line drive into left field at 104-105 (mph), which he hadn’t touched when he was in Low-A in 2019,” Mense said.

“So it was like, ‘Oh, wow. OK, so he’s already reached a new peak, one swing into this thing.’ And then there were times where he would hit balls 109-110 And we’re like, ‘OK, this is starting to come together now.’ So that’s the next piece that I think we could check off.”

In today’s game, the high-spin fastball at the top of the zone is the favorite weapon of many pitchers. Most hitters struggle to get the bat on the ball, and if they do, it’s likely going to result in weak contact. One of the early things that stuck out about Moreno was that he was the rare hitter who wasn’t overly susceptible to that type of pitch.

“When we watched him, it was always one of those things that, with how the game is being pitched nowadays, he was going to be OK because he wasn’t going to get blown away by these fastballs, especially these fastballs up in the zone,” Mense said. “He could kind of launch the barrel high and stay quote-unquote above the baseball a bit longer than what most guys can because he grew up not being very strong.

“Because of that, he had to hit balls low because he knew that for him to get hits, he wasn’t going to be able to hit them in the air and get them over guys’ heads and get him over the fence . . . Even when he first got with us, the path was a little bit more above the ball to where it was like a low line drive-type of stroke. The more he worked like that, it helped when he got into games because he didn’t miss underneath those fastballs that now you see a lot of those guys miss underneath.”

Moreno still has areas to polish before he’s ready for the big leagues. In particular, the Blue Jays would like to see him tighten his pitch selection a little bit more in terms of deciding which pitches he can impact before letting it rip.

Taking what he showed in the controlled atmosphere at the alternate site and translating it into the upper levels of the minors has made Moreno one of the season’s breakout stars.

 

Fellow Venezuelan catcher Francisco Alvarez had also elevated his prospect standing in the industry. The Mets’ preseason No. 1 prospect hit his way to High-A Brooklyn at age 19 and even homered in the Futures Game, providing a glimpse of his upside potential.

Alvarez burst on the scene in 2019, when he starred as a 17-year-old in the Rookie-level Appalachian League. That might not sound impressive at first, but it is the path followed by current Blue Jays superstar Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Rays shortstop Wander Franco, who entered the year as the No. 1 overall prospect.

Alvarez spent the first three weeks of the season with Low-A St. Lucie but proved to be too much for the competition. He hit .417 with two home runs and five doubles in 48 at-bats. He met more resistance at pitcher-friendly High-A Brooklyn but still had showcased power and a strong batting eye by hitting .217/.335/.462 with nine homers and 22 walks through 44 games.

Alvarez reinforced his power potential with a jaw-dropping display at the Futures Game in Denver, where he deposited balls into the center field bleachers during batting practice.

From an offensive perspective, Alvarez appears primed to continue following the path tread by Guerrero and Franco.

“Obviously, everybody talks about him. There’s no doubt about it—he is who he is.” Mets field coordinator Kevin Boles said. “Once you see him in person, he’s actually more talented than people describe . . . When you see him in person, then you realize he really has a chance to be a quality major league player.”

Alvarez, who signed out of Venezuela for a Mets international amateur record $2.7 million in 2018, wowed evaluators in 2019 in what turned out to be the Appalachian League’s last season as part of the affiliated minor leagues. He slashed .282/.337/.443 with Kingsport, adding five home runs and 16 RBIs.

Alvarez made noise at the Mets’ alternate training site in Brooklyn during the pandemic, then continued opening eyes at big league spring training this season. That included a viral intrasquad homer against Mets ace Jacob deGrom.

Through half a season, Alvarez had proven he was more than worth the wait. His offensive potential is as high as any player in the Mets’ system and is rivaled by few other catching prospects.

“He just has a look that’s different than a lot of players. It’s a confidence,” Boles said. “His recognition of the strike zone has improved since I’ve seen him in the last year, and it’s only going to get better. He’s definitely got strength, upper-half strength, and balance to his lower half. There’s times he gets excited at the plate, and I would too if I had that type of ability.

“Again, he’s just a special talent because of the strength, the bat speed, the pitch recognition and strike-zone management for such an early age.”

Alvarez has earned a reputation as an extremely hard worker, and has spent plenty of time already trying to correct his flaws.

“The season isn’t going the way I want. In the beginning of the season, I was playing really well,” Alvarez said with the help of Brooklyn coach Mariano Duncan. “Now, I’m struggling a little bit, but I know I’m going to get out of the struggle because it’s a long season. I’m going to be OK.”

When he departed for Denver to take part in the Futures Game, Alvarez had played 35 games with Brooklyn and was hitting .243/.356/.505 with seven home runs. Those numbers were depressed by a rough early July, when he started 2-for-22.

Hitting is only part of the equation for Alvarez. Part of the young catcher’s minor league education involves getting as many reps as possible behind the plate, as well as simply learning how to handle the day-to-day aspects of running a pitching staff.

Alvarez got plenty of chances in big league spring training to glean some wisdom from the Mets’ stable of big league backstops.

“I learned a lot, especially from (James) McCann,” Alvarez said. “I spent a lot of time with him and the other catchers just talking about the signs and how to call a game. That’s one of the more important things that I learned. There were so many major league veteran players in spring training, and one day I’m going to be there, too, so I learned so much from them.”

Specifically, Alvarez talked about what goes on in daily meetings between pitchers and catchers. There, the players hash out that day’s game plans, go over signs and the scouting reports for each hitter. He also picked up info on other details, like how to switch signs while runners are on second.

Alvarez also needs to polish his throwing. He had thrown out 16% of 49 basestealers as of late July. His arm is strong enough, but sometimes his mechanics cost him both time and accuracy.

“He’s definitely got the arm strength, but being able to be consistent with his release, his throwing and just being more accurate,” Mets catching coordinator Bob Natal said. “His blocking ability—he’s moving much, much better . . . We’re still working on some of his setups to better improve his ability to move laterally.

One reason the Mets were eager to promote Alvarez from St. Lucie to Brooklyn, in addition to his offensive excellence, centered on the automated ball-strike technology introduced to the minors this season in Low-A Southeast. The Mets wanted to make sure Alvarez could practice framing pitches for a human umpire.

“His receiving is pretty good,” Natal said. “He moves the ball a little bit sometimes, so we’re going to try to minimize that.” 

The defensive areas to polish are expected. Because of the pandemic and lost 2020 minor league season, Alvarez is embarking on his first full-season assignment this year. He spent time at the Mets’ alternate site and instructional league, but this is his first time playing official games above the Rookie levels.

And all season long, whether it was in St. Lucie, Brooklyn or Denver, he has continued to open eyes and cement himself as the leader of the next wave of homegrown Mets stars.

The hot starts in 2021 from both Moreno and Alvarez have vaulted them into the upper tier of catching prospects. Alvarez’s natural gifts were on display during all-star weekend, whereas Moreno’s developmental strides were first made in front of only teammates and coaches.

If they can add the final bits of polish to their development, then both will soon enough join the next wave of young major league stars.