Earlier this winter, the New York Mets were looking to upgrade their catching situation. The team was dissatisfied with Travis d’Arnaud, Kevin Plawecki, and Tomas Nido as the frontline options, and after rumors of a J.T. Realmuto trade, the team ended up signing Wilson Ramos to give them four, major league-caliber catchers. Cleveland has moved in the opposite direction. The team traded top prospect Francisco Mejia to San Diego for Brad Hand and Adam Cimber over the summer to aid their bullpen. Then, when winter began, Cleveland moved Yan Gomes to the Nationals to save money. That left Cleveland with the ultra-light hitting Roberto Perez and the all-or-nothing Eric Haase, whose projections lean more toward the “nothing” side than the “all.” That made the two teams pretty good trading partners, and this is the result:

Cleveland receives:

• C Kevin Plawecki

New York receives:

• RHP Walker Lockett
• 2B Sam Haggerty

As luck would have it, our list of the Mets’ Top 25 Prospects went up just this morning. The list has full reports on Lockett and Haggerty, but both players likely have enough flaws to keep them from being average major league players. As for Plawecki, it’s not hard to see the Mets’ motivation for dealing a catcher, as they have too many. Why they dealt Plawecki specifically is also not difficult to figure out. The market for Travis d’Arnaud has to be incredibly limited; he played in just four games last year and has been injured for much of his career. He’s also relatively expensive, with a $3.5 million salary next season, and even if he rebounds, he will be eligible for free agency at the end of 2019. As for Nido, he’s only made 100 MLB plate appearances, so his abilities as a backup might be more in question and merit further assessment. That left Plawecki.

In Plawecki, Cleveland gains a player who is cheaper but not-as-good as the one they dealt away earlier this winter when they team moved Yan Gomes to the Nationals. Plawecki does have some offensive upside. His 93 wRC+ last season is well above the average catcher’s mark of 84, and his projected 90 wRC+ for 2019 is easily above it as well. He does have some pop given, with seven homers and a .160 ISO last season, but he hits a ton of ground balls that lead to outs and double plays due to his lack of speed. If Plawecki could get the ball in the air more, he might be an average to above-average hitter and would lose less value on the bases. Even with his defensive deficiencies – and he’s not a particularly good catcher – that might make him something close to an average player and a decent pair with Roberto Perez, who is good defensively but really can’t hit much at all.

For Cleveland, keeping Gomes would have made them a better team than these moves. Signing Wilson Ramos, like the Mets did to make this move possible, probably would have made Cleveland better. Yasmani Grandal is still sitting out there, and would make the team much better than it is right now. For the moment, though, Cleveland is less interested in becoming better and more interested in moving parts around to save money. We’ll have to wait to see how that strategy pays off.