10:40am: The deal is now official. The Rays announced Mejia has been signed to a minor league pact and invited to spring training.
10:00am: The Rays are finalizing a deal to bring free agent catcher Francisco Mejia back to the organization, reports Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times. It’ll be a minor league contract with an invite to spring training for the ISE client. Mejia was granted his release from a minor league deal with the Angels last month.
Tampa Bay currently plans to deploy defensive standout Rene Pinto as its starting catcher, and non-roster invitee Alex Jackson has been expected to serve as his backup. Topkin adds that those plans remain unchanged even with Mejia on the brink of returning to the organization he played for from 2021-23. Mejia will give the Rays a depth option behind that unproven tandem for the time being. Injuries or poor performances — either in spring training or early in the season — can always change that equation, of course.
The 28-year-old Mejia was once considered one of baseball’s top all-around prospects, but he’s yet to hit at the big league level despite a strong .306/.350/.519 track record at the Triple-A level (633 plate appearances). In 1098 plate appearances in 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 in the past, going from Cleveland to San Diego in 2018’s Brad Hand trade and from San Diego to Tampa Bay in 2020’s Blake Snell trade.
Mejia’s first season with the Rays showed some promise. He hit .260/.322/.416 with six homers and a hefty 22 doubles in just 299 trips to the plate. Things have gone south since that encouraging Rays debut, however, as his bat has faded while his defensive grades have dropped off precipitously. Mejia has long graded as a below-average framer, and in 2023 he threw out just four of 42 runners attempting to steal against him. Statcast also ranks him as one of the least-effective catchers in the game when it comes to blocking pitches in the dirt.
Those shortcomings notwithstanding, Mejia is a switch-hitter with an excellent offensive track record in the upper minors, and the Rays are thinner at catcher than the majority of teams in the sport. Pinto, Jackson and 34-year-old non-roster invitee Rob Brantly are the only catchers in the organization with MLB experience. Brantly has 456 big league plate appearances across parts of eight seasons. Neither Pinto nor Jackson has recorded even 200 MLB plate appearances.