With the 11th overall selection in the MLB Draft, the New York Mets drafted Kevin Parada from Georgia Tech. They were surprised to be in that position.

As Mets vice president of amateur and international scouting Tommy Tanous told Mike Puma of Baseball America:

Power-hitting catchers are very hard to find. Power-hitting catchers with a great history of success in college, like Kevin, are even harder to find. We were very surprised he was there.

In his collegiate career, Parada played 112 games. Over his two years, he hit .340/.420/.636 with 30 doubles, three triples, 35 homers, and 130 RBI.

As noted by Puma, Georgia Tech has a strong history of producing catchers. Those catchers include Jason Varitek, Matt Wieters, and Joey Bart.

Parada is not the first Georgia Tech catcher with the Mets organization. That honor goes ri Mike Nickeas, who is Parada’s agent who negotiated an over slot $5.019 million bonus.

Naturally, the Mets were not shy about drafting Parada even with Francisco Álvarez being the top prospect in baseball. Álvarez wasn’t a factor in the decision making with Tanous saying, “You get the best players and infuse your system with the best talent, and it figures its way out.”

As Tanous noted to Puma, Dominic Smith’s presence did not prevent the Mets from drafting Pete Alonso. In Alonso, the Mets have the 2019 Rookie of the Year, a two time All-Star, the franchise single season home run leader, and the current league leader in RBI.

With respect to Parada, he’s a very good prospect with his own future ahead of him. If he and Álvarez are in the majors together with the Mets having to figure out how to split the catching duties, that’s a very good problem to have.

For now, the Mets were pleasantly surprised Parada fell to them. They can focus on the continued development of Álvarez and Parada so both can one day be significant contributors at the Major League level.