When the Mets picked up Luis Torrens from the Yankees early in the 2024 season, it wasn’t exactly the biggest news. Then in his age-28 season, the catcher had racked up 807 major league plate appearances but hadn’t cracked the Yankees’ major league roster. And up to that point, he was worth -1.7 fWAR in the time he had spent with the Padres, Mariners, and Cubs.
But everything changed once he got his opportunity to play for the Mets. In 130 plate appearances over the course of 48 games with the team that year, he was worth 0.8 fWAR thanks entirely to a major improvement in his defensive metrics. Having put up an 89 wRC+ that year, he improved a bit from his previous career mark of 79, but the turnaround was much more pronounced behind the plate than at it.
Torrens returned to the same role with the Mets last year, and he got more playing time thanks to a variety of injuries suffered by starting catcher Francisco Alvarez. In 283 plate appearances, he wound up with a 79 wRC+, but thanks to even better defensive metrics, he finished the season with 1.6 fWAR.
The Mets made a whole bunch of moves over the course of the offseason, but they didn’t really do much at catcher to give Torrens competition. Sure, Austin Barnes and Ben Rortvedt are in major league camp as catchers, as are longtime Mets minor leaguers Hayden Senger and Kevin Parada. None of them seem likely to displace Torrens, even though several of them—including Torrens—are out of options.
Projections published at FanGraphs see more of the same from Torrens as he enters his age-30 season: a below-league-average bat with good defense who can contribute about one win to the team by fWAR. It’d be a perfectly cromulent outcome for a relatively unheralded role on a good team.