Kevin Plawecki played four seasons with the New York Mets. In that time, he was either the backup or shared catching duties in a platoon, usually with Travis d’Arnaud.
In those 804 Mets plate appearances, Plawecki hit .218/.308/.330. He wasn’t much better in his one season with the Cleveland Indians, slashing .222/.287.342 in 174 plate appearances during the 2019 campaign.
Something seems to have clicked with Plawecki as a member of the Boston Red Sox. The former Mets backstop is having another fine year for them after putting together one of the finer seasons for a backup catcher in 2020.
Ex-Mets catcher Kevin Plawecki has found his stroke with the Red Sox
Lost to me, Plawecki hit .341/.393/.463 for the Red Sox last year in 89 trips to the plate. The sample size wasn’t great enough to really get excited about. However, in his first 90 plate appearances in 2021, Plawecki has continued to play well.
Plawecki has given the Red Sox a .296/.360/.395 performance. Although he has just one home run and 5 RBI (in 2020, he has 17 RBI), Plawecki is given the Red Sox much more offense than I think anyone thought he could.
When he left the Mets after the 2018 season, I think everyone thought he’d become a journeyman .220 hitter. Plawecki’s final year with the Mets included a career-high 277 plate appearances. Although he smashed 7 home runs and drove in 30, he slashed only .210/.315/.370. It wasn’t a tough decision to trade him to the Indians in January of 2019.
Not everything has gone perfectly well for Plawecki during his time with the Red Sox. Still a subpar defender, he has thrown out only 8% of attempted base stealers. The league has averaged 24%.
This makes Plawecki an interesting backup catcher. He’s now hitting .319/.376/.429 in his Red Sox career. Fantastic numbers for a catcher, he’s not playing the level of defense you would hope for from a second-string catcher. We saw these weaknesses plenty during his time with the Mets. The bat has gotten better. Other aspects have not.
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Plawecki is not one of the ex-Mets too many fans keep tabs on. Nevertheless, it’s pretty amazing that both he and d’Arnaud could leave Citi Field and reach new heights. We witnessed it often in 2020 as d’Arnaud slashed .321/.386/.533 for the Atlanta Braves and took home a Silver Slugger. It’s amazing how this pair of mediocre catchers could manage to hit so well shortly after changing uniforms.