Mariners find their catcher of the future: Omar Narváez

The Mariners made a trade today sending all-star reliever Alex Colome to the Chicago White Sox in exchange for catcher Omar Narváez.

My initial reaction is that this is a fair trade. Colome is a good reliever with two years of control left, while Narváez is a young catcher who is team controllable until 2023(!). Narváez is better known for his hitting than his defense; although his defense is decent, he's no Mike Zunino. Offensively he doesn't have as much power as Zunino, but is an overall better hitter with a higher average and on-base percentage. Last year Narváez put up a .275 / .366 / .429 slash line, with an OPS+ of 120. Offensively, that's quite an improvement over Zunino.

Narváez's weakness, though, seems to be in pitch framing. Perhaps Dan Wilson can work with him and Narváez can improve in this area. With the Mariners in rebuilding mode for the next several years, Narváez has ample time and opportunity to work on framing as well as his defense in general.

So while Narváez is an offensive improvement over Zunino, he is a defensive downgrade. Nevertheless, I think this is a fair trade, and I think Narváez is a good pick to potentially have as a catcher on a future playoff-caliber team. Colome will be missed, but with the Mariners in rebuilding mode, having a good closer is not necessary right now for them anyway, so Colome was expendable.

I am very glad Jerry Dipoto acquired Narváez rather than signing a short-term fill-in-the-gap free agent catcher, such as Martin Maldonado, as some baseball analysts had previously suggested. While I like Maldonado, he is really just a back-up catcher, and not someone who can match Zunino's value either offensively or defensively, and is not a young catcher to build around for the future.

In short, I like this trade, and it will be exciting to see what Narváez can do for the Mariners behind the dish. The Mariners have lacked a true regular, reliable catcher since Dan Wilson retired, and though Zunino was very likable, played outstanding defense, and had monster power, his low on-base percentage and high strike out rate left something to be desired. So can Narváez become the Mariners long-term solution at catcher? We'll see.

Rob Kajiwara is a singer/songwriter, visual artist, baseball player, and human rights activist from Waipahu, Hawaii. For more information, please visit his website at www.RobKajiwara.com