{"id":172261,"date":"2026-02-28T00:44:06","date_gmt":"2026-02-28T00:44:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/172261\/"},"modified":"2026-02-28T00:44:06","modified_gmt":"2026-02-28T00:44:06","slug":"francisco-alvarez-has-two-big-mets-goals-for-2026-after-frustration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/172261\/","title":{"rendered":"Francisco Alvarez has two big Mets goals for 2026 after &#8216;frustration&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>PORT ST. LUCIE \u2014 Francisco Alvarez will be behind the plate for the first time this spring when the Mets host the Nationals on Saturday at Clover Park.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The Mets and Alvarez are taking things slow early on as they look to keep the catcher in one piece over the course of not only the Grapefruit League season, but the regular season as well.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s been a challenge for the 24-year-old, who was bothered last year first by a hamate bone fracture during spring training and a <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2025\/08\/19\/sports\/francisco-alvarez-going-on-il-in-brutal-mets-injury-blow\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">sprained UCL in his right thumb in August<\/a> that erased what had been a promising return from the minors.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>And then, while on a rehab assignment for the thumb injury, Alvarez <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2025\/08\/28\/sports\/francisco-alvarez-breaks-pinkie-during-rehab-stint-in-mets-debacle\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">suffered a broken pinky<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PORT ST. LUCIE \u2014 Francisco Alvarez will be behind the plate for the first time this spring when&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":172262,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[71254,3817,12193,171,173,172,110,45911,20253],"class_list":["post-172261","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-port-st-lucie","tag-francisco-alvarez","tag-mlb","tag-new-york-mets","tag-port-st-lucie","tag-port-st-lucie-headlines","tag-port-st-lucie-news","tag-sports","tag-sports-plus","tag-spring-training"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172261","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=172261"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172261\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/172262"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=172261"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=172261"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=172261"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}