Takeaways from Mets news conference with James McCann, Sandy Alderson, and Jared Porter

The Mets held a news conference for recently signed catcher James McCann on Thursday afternoon via Zoom. Team president Sandy Alderson and GM Jared Porter joined 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.”

ON COMPETITION WITH J.T. REALMUTO THIS FREE AGENCY:

“Honestly, I’ve had the opportunity to play against J.T. since we were in the minor leagues," McCann said. "Played against each other in the fall league and I’ve always been a fan of his from afar. But I’ve also always been comfortable with who I am and I knew that things would work out the way they were supposed to. It never bothered me one way or another what he was doing or working on and I wish nothing but the best for him.”

ALDERSON ON HIS WORK ETHIC: 

“What we have confidence in is James’ work ethic," Alderson said. "And not only his work ethic but his self-awareness. Those are the two things that benefitted from his non-tender two years ago. I think James is attuned to what he needs to do to improve. I think the episode with pitch framing is a perfect example.”

HOW HE FIGURES OUT WHAT MAKES PITCHERS TICK: 

“Honestly, the easiest way to figure that out is going through game-like experiences," McCann said. "Finding out what happens when there’s runners on second and third and two outs in a one-run ballgame. How does someone react to a certain situation? That comes from experience. Over the course of my career dealing with several future hall of Fame pitchers to dealing with rookies, what makes guys tick and it’s just kinda one of those things for me personally that I take a lot of pride in figure that out.”

CONNECTION WITH MATZ, BRACH: 

“I already trained with a couple of guys, Steven Matz and Brad Brach. So I’ve actually been catching their bullpens for the last two or three offseason," McCann said.

NEVER PLAYED AT CITI FIELD IN MLB: 

“There’s two stadiums that I’ve never played in as a big leaguer and Citi Field is one of them. However, I played there in the 2013 Futures Game and I loved every second of being in New York. I loved the stadium, the atmosphere," McCann said.