It did not take long for the Milwaukee Brewers to fill their vacant catcher position with the loss of Yasmani Grandal to free agency. Just over two weeks after Grandal signed a four year contract worth $73 million with the Chicago White Sox, the Brewers acquired catcher Omar Narvaez from the Seattle Mariners for minor league pitcher Adam Hill and a draft pick.
Narvaez will be joining his third Major League Baseball team. In addition to his one season last year with the Mariners, Narvaez spent three seasons from 2016-2018 with the White Sox.
In 2019, Narvaez batted .278 with 22 home runs and 55 runs batted in. During 132 games, he scored 63 runs, had 119 hits, 12 doubles, 47 walks, an on-base percentage of .353, slugging percentage of .460, 197 total bases and three sacrifice flies. Narvaez had career highs in all of the aforementioned statistical categories except doubles and on-base percentage.
It will now be interesting to see where Narvaez, a 27-year-old native of Maracay, Venezuela, fits into the Brewers batting order for 2020. Grandal had been batting second for the Brewers on a regular basis starting in early August and was a mainstay there when Christian Yelich broke his kneecap off a foul ball in September and was gone for the rest of the season. However, it is normally unusual to see a catcher bat second, which makes me think Narvaez will hit in the middle of the order behind Keston Hiura and Ryan Braun.
There will be some pressure for Narvaez to produce offensively for Milwaukee. The Brewers not only lost Grandal to free agency but third baseman Mike Moustakas to the Cincinnati Reds via free agency as well. Milwaukee is hoping Luis Urias (who the Brewers acquired in heir trade with the San Diego Padres), will be able to fill the hot corner void.
