The Mets held a news conference for recently signed catcher James McCann on Thursday afternoon via Zoom. Team president Sandy Alderson and GM Jared Porterjoined McCann on the call to introduce the team’s big free agent to fans and reporters.
McCann expressed his feelings on becoming a member of the New York Mets, and explained how excited he is to be on this team for the next four seasons.
“I couldn’t be more excited to be a New York Met,” McCann said. “My family shares that sentiment. I’m very blessed, my wife, my kids, my parents, really everyone from top to bottom couldn’t be more excited to start and I look forward to the next four as a New York Met and see how many championships we can get during that time frame.”
ON DEFENSIVE PRIDE:
“I think the first thing to know about me is I’m going to always pride my game on my defense,” McCann said. “I’ve always felt that way because I truly believe the catcher can impact the game tenfold defensively than it can offensively, especially over the course of the season.
“I think especially in a day and age where everything is measured through a metric, through analytics, there’s one thing that we haven’t as a baseball community come up with is a value between a catcher and a pitcher.”
WHY HE CHOSE THE METS:
“I think one thing for me personally was really just the direction the New York Mets are headed,” McCann said. “From the moment that we heard from the Mets this offseason, it was definitely a team that was high on the list just because the guys they already have in the clubhouse, but just the addition of the new owner, Sandy, Jared, all the above.
“Everything is trending in the right direction so that made the New York Mets obviously a very attractive landing spot. Just the conversations that were had through the course of the offseason leading up to the signing, it really just kinda pushed it over the edge and made it an easy decision.”
Kyle leads sports coverage and hosts the Concrete Jungle podcast. Have a lead or question? Send it to kyl[email protected].