Maverick Handley 2023

[CHIP]

Handley seemed to be having a good couple months from when he returned from IL on June 13th to Aug 13th.  A full 2 months, 30 games hitting .280/.396/.430 for OPS of 0.827  This brought his season AVG up 27 pts to .259/.397/.358 with OPS of .755 (96 pt raise)

The past couple weeks (last 6 games) Handley has gone 3-20  .150/.227/.300 for OPS of .527.  SO Handley is currently sitting at .241/.377/.342 (.719 OPS).  I was watching a few of these games and even though his numbers were down, he was making a lot of hard contact and swinging at strikes vs chasing.   So the results don't show but the balls could start dropping.

(In comparison, McCann went thru a 10 game hot streak where he was 14/32 with a .438 AVG raising his season AVG up 50 pts to .245 followed by a 6 game streak  of 3-22 dropping him back to .229.  Which is not 'acceptable' for a back up catcher.

There are 3 weeks + playoffs for the Norfolk Tide. 

The last I saw or heard of Handley was in September 1 where it was reported he was removed as a precaution after a collision with Yu Chang at 1st.  I watched that video but nothing of it was really shared online until I googled it and several Chinese papers referenced a Facebook fan page of Chang.  Looks to me like Handley avoided some pretty serious injury and likely hasn't played because of some whiplash type aches and pains.  I didn't see any head trauma otherwise.

https://fb.watch/mT5JUdvQKS/

 

[LookinUp]

James McCann is under contract for another year, with the Mets paying a large amount of his salary. My guess is that he will get the backup catcher spot for next year.

After that, will Handley have developed enough to take over that job? I do see some glimmers of hope, but there are plenty of storm clouds about his prospect status too. 

I do think we could do worse. I like that Handley is being afforded an opportunity to work a lot in AAA on his full game, but he better work. There are others working their way up through the minors, also with their own issues (minus Basallo) who would love to be ready in 16 months to take that job.