Photo via Brewers
Sometimes when things are going well, good luck just seems to follow. That was certainly the case for Omar Narvaez on Saturday, when his foul popup on the infield turned into a run batted in as Kolten Wong noticed no one covering home and scrambled home. The RBI was his 41st, fourth-most among Brewers this season. Most of those runs, however, have scored on significantly more solid contact.
A lot of things had to go right for the Brewers to turn a sub-.500 season in 2020 into one of the best campaigns in franchise history in 2021, but Narvaez’s emergence as a reliable contributor ranks high among them. At this time a year ago he was virtually unplayable, batting .176 with a .279 slugging percentage. The Brewers, who were already without backup Manny Piña, still opted to hold Narvaez out of the starting lineup in nine of their final 15 regular season games and sent him to the plate just once in their two-game postseason series against the Dodgers. After the season it seemed likely the Brewers would look to upgrade at his position.
Instead, Narvaez has outperformed nearly anyone the Brewers could have brought in to replace him. He was one of the team’s top offensive contributors through the first half of the season, batting .300 with a .396 on-base and .469 slugging, and earned the first All Star selection of his career. His defense, long the biggest question mark in his game, continues to be a source of strength: Despite his high offensive outputs FanGraphs estimates he’s added more value behind the plate than with his bat this season.
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Last winter it seemed possible the Brewers would move on from Narvaez, with the team and player reaching a last-minute deal to avoid the arbitration process and cut Narvaez’s pay after his underwhelming 2020 season. The organization’s decision to stick with him has been rewarded many times over: his offensive numbers have cooled a bit recently but he’s still everything the Brewers could have hoped he would be when they acquired him, a player whose offensive numbers are roughly what he was as a bat-first catcher with the 2019 Mariners but whose defense has evolved into a real asset.
Overall Performance
Narvaez’s contributions to this team show up noticeably in the Brewers’ overall performance: In 2020 they were 14-18 when he started and 15-13 with anyone else behind the plate. In 2021 they’re 50-25 when he starts and 26-24 when they have to get by without him.
For most of their franchise history the Brewers have gotten by with relatively weak contributions behind the plate. With more than a month left in the season FanGraphs estimates that Narvaez has already had the tenth-best season by any Brewers catcher. Only Jonathan Lucroy, Yasmani Grandal, Ted Simmons and Darrell Porter have had a season behind the plate more valuable than what Narvaez has already done at this point.
Narvaez is also likely to get another opportunity to appear on that list next season: He’s eligible for arbitration one final time for the 2022 season before becoming eligible for free agency, assuming those rules aren’t modified in the upcoming Collective Bargaining Agreement. Given the challenges the Brewers have had filling this position over the years, Narvaez could make sense as a candidate for a long-term extension that would pencil him into the lineup for years to come.
In the meantime, however, the Brewers’ front office and coaching staff deserves credit for identifying and acquiring Narvaez as a candidate to improve, helping him work past some of his prior failings and showing enough patience to allow him to become a big part of their successful season.
