A friendly reminder regarding how untouchable Francisco Alvarez is in trades

Trade rumors season is here and speculation about who will change uniforms in the coming weeks has already begun. New York Mets prospect Francisco Alvarez will certainly intrigue fans of other teams.

Before assembling a package to acquire the power-hitting catcher, it’s important to offer this public service announcement.

Mets prospect Francisco Alvarez is untouchable so don’t even bother

The Mets have made it pretty clear that Francisco Alvarez isn’t going anywhere. He could walk onto the field every day and give the fans a thumbs down and would still be someone the front office would hold onto. He is that important to this franchise’s future. As much as they care about the present, he is about as untouchable of a prospect as the Mets have had in a very long time.

Let’s begin with the obvious. The Mets don’t have any long-term catcher already within the organization. James McCann is signed for two more years after this which would only temporarily create a logjam. Assuming Alvarez is with the big league club getting regular at-bats by this time next year, McCann can easily slide into a part-time role and become an expensive backup whose best attribute is his defense.

Alvarez may still need some seasoning behind the plate as many offense-first prospects will. There is little doubt the Mets plan to make him a core member of their franchise as soon as they think he’s ready. There is not a single realistic trade scenario out there where a general manager in another city could possibly pry him away.

A few weeks ago, we took a look at the other untouchable Mets prospects. There wasn’t much of a case to be made about Alvarez because it’s so plainly obvious the Mets aren’t trading him. Unless the package included something ridiculous like Ronald Acuna Jr. and the Atlanta Braves would pay his entire salary, he’s not going anywhere.

The Mets have been in search of a reliable catcher for a very long time. From the Travis d’Arnaud era to the Wilson Ramos pit stop to the current underwhelming tenure of James McCann, Alvarez is viewed as a slump stopper.

He can hit. He may turn into a trusted enough defensive player. Trades, where Alvarez heads anywhere outside of this organization, are unfounded, unrealistic, and misinformed.