In the 2021 MLB Draft, Kumar Rocker- who was seen at times by scouts and executives as a top 5 pick near the beginning of the NCAA season- fell to the Mets with the 10th overall pick. It turned out that there was a reason for that, and the two sides ended up failing to agree to terms over medical issues. Rocker ended up being drafted by the Texas Rangers in the 2022 MLB Draft but has so far looked unimpressive as a major league pitcher.
In that same 2022 MLB Draft, history seemed to repeat itself,
as Kevin Parada- who was seen at times by scouts and evaluators as a top 5 pick near the beginning of the NCAA season- fell to the Mets with the 11th overall pick. Once again, things turned out to be too good to be true.
While he may have been a .341/.420/.636 hitter with the Yellow Jackets and hit 35 home runs and gotten to home plate with even more with a great deal of the roughly 13,000 female students enrolled at Georgia Tech, college baseball is not professional baseball, and three full seasons later, Kevin Parada just hasn’t been able to make the transition.
At times, the backstop has looked fine. In his brief taste of professional baseball in 2022 after he was drafted, the 20-year-old hit a combined .275/.455/.425 in 13 games with the FCL Mets and Single-A St. Lucie Mets. In 2023, he started off a bit sluggish but hit well upon being promoted to High-A Brooklyn, batting a solid .265/.340/.447 in 87 games with the Cyclones and a cumulative .248/.324/.428 in 105 games with St. Lucie, Brooklyn, and the Double-A Binghamton Rumble Ponies. From there, it was all downhill. In 2024, Parada spent the entire season in Double-A and hit a paltry .214/.304/.359 in 115 games. Last season, he played 92 games with Binghamton and an additional 16 with Triple-A Syracuse and hit a combined .245/.319/.407. If his defense behind the dish was solid, the offensive numbers would be semi-palatable, but Parada doesn’t even have that going for him, as he is considered one of the worst catchers in full-season minor league ball.
So what went wrong?
If I knew, I’d be getting paid the big bucks.
In all likelihood, it wasn’t any one thing that caused Parada to spiral from top prospect to organizational farmhand, but a bunch of different things synergistically interconnected. Parada’s swing, most notably, was problematic. Parada had a unique pre-pitch setup, wrapping his bat behind his head and angling it down behind his back at about 4:00 while raising his lead shoulder. According to Parada himself, at times the organization has had him tinker with it, and for the most part, he has sanitized his swing, but what he is doing now is not what he is doing at Georgia Tech, where he had success. Nor is he using the same bat, nor is he facing the same kind of ACC pitchers. All of this seemingly has led to an elevated strikeout rate, poor contact- a lot of weakly hit infield fly balls in particular- and a weak pulled fly ball rate, sapping his ability to hit for much average or power. All of this coupled with, as mentioned, poor defense, has led to Parada turning into the most disappointing 1st round draft selection made within the top 15 picks that the Mets have made since Geoff Goetz back in 1997 (though his career faltered due to injury, not ineffectiveness).
Is Parada salvageable? He is still only 24-years-old, and the maturation and development of catchers takes place on a much different timeline than position players and pitchers, so maybe? He will begin 2026 with Syracuse but will really need to impress in order to get resuscitate his standing among Mets minor league players, let alone to give anyone hope for some kind of potential future major league career.
