10:40am: The deal is now official. The Rays introduced Mejia has been signed to a minor league pact and invited to spring coaching.
10:00am: The Rays are finalizing a deal to carry free agent catcher Francisco Mejia again to the group, reviews Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Occasions. It’ll be a minor league contract with an invitation to spring coaching for the ISE shopper. Mejia was granted his launch from a minor league take care of the Angels final month.
Tampa Bay presently plans to deploy defensive standout Rene Pinto as its beginning catcher, and non-roster invitee Alex Jackson has been anticipated to function his backup. Topkin provides that these plans stay unchanged even with Mejia getting ready to returning to the group he performed for from 2021-23. Mejia will give the Rays a depth choice behind that unproven tandem in the meanwhile. Accidents or poor performances — both in spring coaching or early within the season — can at all times change that equation, in fact.
The 28-year-old Mejia was as soon as thought-about certainly one of baseball’s prime all-around prospects, however he’s but to hit on the huge league degree regardless of a robust .306/.350/.519 monitor file on the Triple-A degree (633 plate appearances). In 1098 plate appearances within the majors, Mejia owns a tepid .239/.284/.394 slash between three organizations (Cleveland, San Diego, Tampa Bay). The switch-hitter has been twice traded prior to now, going from Cleveland to San Diego in 2018’s Brad Hand commerce and from San Diego to Tampa Bay in 2020’s Blake Snell commerce.
Mejia’s first season with the Rays confirmed some promise. He hit .260/.322/.416 with six homers and a hefty 22 doubles in simply 299 journeys to the plate. Issues have gone south since that encouraging Rays debut, nevertheless, as his bat has pale whereas his defensive grades have dropped off precipitously. Mejia has lengthy graded as a below-average framer, and in 2023 he threw out simply 4 of 42 runners trying to steal in opposition to him. Statcast additionally ranks him as one of many least-effective catchers within the recreation in terms of blocking pitches within the grime.
These shortcomings however, Mejia is a switch-hitter with a wonderful offensive monitor file within the higher minors, and the Rays are thinner at catcher than nearly all of groups within the sport. Pinto, Jackson and 34-year-old non-roster invitee Rob Brantly are the one catchers within the group with MLB expertise. Brantly has 456 huge league plate appearances throughout elements of eight seasons. Neither Pinto nor Jackson has recorded even 200 MLB plate appearances.