New York Mets starting catcher Wilson Ramos has left camp due to personal reasons and his status for Opening Day is unknown.
The New York Mets have seemed to avoid injuries and COVID-19 throughout summer camp. The closest call came when Jacob deGrom had an injury scare that has since ended. That seems to have come to an end.
Mets’ starting catcher Wilson Ramos has left camp due to personal reasons according to manager Luis Rojas. He wouldn’t elaborate more as the Mets have been tight-lipped about everything that isn’t baseball-related.
It’s unclear if Ramos has caught COVID-19 or if there’s a family matter he has to attend to or a million other possibilities. What is clear is that Ramos didn’t play in the Mets’ warm-up exhibition games against the New York Yankees on Saturday and Sunday. That puts his status for Opening Day in doubt.
Making things worse is that the Mets added Rene Rivera to their 40-man roster just prior to announcing the Ramos news. Such a move likely came in response to Ramos’ absence, which puts his status in even further doubt.
Losing Ramos would be a huge deal for the Mets. Ramos is one of the best offensive catchers in baseball. His 105 wRC+ was third-best at the position behind only J.T. Realmuto and Yasmani Grandal. Losing that bat for any period of time and replacing it with Tomas Nido and/or Rene Rivera would be disastrous.
Nido will likely be Ramos’ replacement and he’s one of the worst offensive catchers in baseball. He had a wRC+ of 50 in 144 at-bats in 2019. The drop off on offense is huge.
The one good thing that may come of this though is Nido’s defense. Ramos is arguably the worst defensive catcher in baseball. Nido, on the other hand, is a plus defender. He’s not going to win any Gold Gloves, but he’s solidly above average. That defensive improvement should help the Mets pitchers. That said, it’s not going to help enough to make up for his lack of offense long-term.
