213 Miles From Shea

Each year at 213 we look through the Non-Roster Invitees to spring training and get to know them a bit. Are they in camp to get a look at big league hitting/pitching to aid their development? Are the Mets just trying to get a better look at a future rookie? Are they a veteran trying to get back to the major league level? What can we expect from them this season?

Now Ali Sanchez is not a Non-Roster Invitee. I included him in this series since we just wrapped up looking at the NRI catchers yesterday. We had an article about Nido, but none for Sanchez. And to some degree everyone is also competing with Sanchez. If regular playing time opens up at the catching position, at 23 years old, that opens a door for Ali.

This is not the first year we’ve profiled Ali Sanchez. Last year our main focus on the Sanchez write-up was his defensive skills which BA said “his defensive tools are so tantalizing” The ended it by saying that catchers develop later than other players.

And that sort-of happened for Sanchez last year. He hit .278/.337/.337 over 294 PAs (compared to his minor average line of .259/.317/.331) in Binghamton but then struggled in a small stint in Syracuse over 65 PAs (.179/.277/.250). At the end of the season the Mets sent him to Arizona where in 14 games and 49 PAs he hit .262/.347/.310.

With the emergence of Francisco Alvarez in the system, Sanchez is no longer the top catching prospect. But with the departure of Travis d’Arnaud and Kevin Plawecki + Tomas Nido not running away with the chances he has had in the majors the last two seasons, there is an opening for Sanchez. He has an advantage over the other NRI’s because he’s not an NRI. But he will require consistent playing time at the major league level to be called up, which means we’ll see him if something goes wrong with the team in Queens.

I’m looking forward for Sanchez having a full season, or near full season, in Syracuse this year. He has a small window to make some noise with the Ramos contract ending after this season. Most of the attention will start to shift, and for good reason, to Francisco Alvarez but Sanchez is still here and he may be close to ready.

Quick Recap of Yesterday:

The Mets look to make it back to back wins today as they take on the Tigers today. Yesterday they took on the Nationals and won 2-1, thanks to a homer from Wilson Ramos and an RBI from Eduardo Nunez. Despite only scoring two runs, the offense had a pretty good day with 9 hits including Ramos and Nimmo turning in two hits each.

The Mets also had a good day pitching leading with prospect David Peterson who opened the game with 2 shutout innings with one hit and 2 strikeouts. Erasmo Ramirez also had a great introduction to the Mets with 2.0 perfect innings with 4 strikeouts.

Today’s Pitchers:

Michael Wacha is the big pitcher on the mound today. Wacha and Porcello are in an open competition for the last spot in the rotation. The long time cardinal is coming off of a tough season where he pitched 126.2 innings with a 4.76 ERA, 5.61 FIP, 1.563 WHIP and 90 ERA+. His ERA+ was his second worst in his career (the worst coming in 2016). Overall in his career he has posted a 3.91 ERA, 3.96 FIP and a 1.325 WHIP.

Kevin Smith is the pitcher I’m most excited to see on the mound today. Drafted in 2018, he has taken off in the Mets system posting a 0.76 ERA in Brooklyn in ’18, 3.05 in St. Lucie (’19) and 3.45 in Binghamton (’19). Joining Smith and Wacha will be Blackham, Zamora and Gilliam.

Mets Lineup:

1. Andres Gimenez
2. Jake Marisnick
3. J.D. Davis
4. Matt Adams
5. Ryan Cordell
6. Tomas Nido
7. Jarrett Parker
8. Max Moroff
9. Tim Tebow (DH)

Yesterday the Mets took more regular bats on the road and today – not so much. Andres Gimenez continues to get playing time early in Spring Training with this being his third start. He’s currently 1-5 with a walk. Cordell is also getting into his third game today, he’s 1-4 with a double and three strikeouts as he tries to climb the outfield depth chart. Finally outfielder Jarrett Parker is actually geting into his 4th game today, he’s 1-3 with a walk and a strikeout.

Let’s Go Mets!

Each year at 213, we take projections from several different places, average them together and then compare the line that spits out to the player’s performance from last year. We understand how unscientific this is – some projections try to guess playing time, some don’t, more playing time is weighted the same as less playing time, more successful projection producers are weighted the same as their counterparts, etc. At the end of the year we revisit the projections and see how’d they do.

In 2018 Brandon Nimmo was one of the best players on the Mets. He had a 4.4 WAR, one of the highest DRC+’s at 123. Expectations were high for Nimmo coming into this season. Nimmo still had a good season, even if Baseball Prospectus has him at a 100 DRC+, which makes him exactly average. Brandon Nimmo played most of the season with injuries and still put up a really solid season. It’s also the exact season that we would expect from Nimmo, a high OBP, low average and a solid slugging rate.

2019 Stats: 254 PA, 199 AB, 8 HR, .221/.375/.407, 0.9 WAR, 100 DRC+

(Citations: BP projections come from the Baseball Prospectus Annual, a must read for all baseball fans and can be purchased here. ESPN comes from their fantasy baseball projections and can be found here. Both ZiPS and Steamer are found on FanGraphs. ZiPS can be found here, Steamer can be found here. BR comes from the Baseball Reference for this specific player and is linked earlier in the article)

So computers see Nimmo making a bounce back a bit from his injury season. A 111 DRC+ is great, they have him gaining points on his average, basically posting the same slugging. What I found interesting is Baseball Reference. BR is usually the most conservative of the projection websites and they have him with an .836 OPS. Nimmo gets on base. Nimmo is also the reason why batting average is a bad stat. If Nimmo is getting on base at a .370 clip, he should be leading off. If he does this consistently, like we know he does, then he needs to play every day.

Like yesterday with McNeil, Nimmo makes baseball fun to watch. In fact all five major outfielders on the Mets (Nimmo, McNeil, Conforto, Cespedes, Davis) are the reason why the Mets are fun to watch. If this group, and Nimmo, are on it this season, then 2020 will be a season to remember.

Each year at 213, we take projections from several different places, average them together and then compare the line that spits out to the player’s performance from last year. We understand how unscientific this is – some projections try to guess playing time, some don’t, more playing time is weighted the same as less playing time, more successful projection producers are weighted the same as their counterparts, etc. At the end of the year we revisit the projections and see how’d they do.

Jeff McNeil had a phenomenal season last year. A 5.0 WAR season, he instantly became one of the best player on the Mets and may projections see him as one of the best players on the Mets next season. He just was always doing the right thing on the field, had an insane OBP last year, plus as the season continued last year – he started to hit homers too, stealing our hearts.

2019 Stats: 567 PA, 510 AB, 23 HR, .318/.384/.531, 5.0 WAR, 129 DRC+

(Citations: BP projections come from the Baseball Prospectus Annual, a must read for all baseball fans and can be purchased here. ESPN comes from their fantasy baseball projections and can be found here. Both ZiPS and Steamer are found on FanGraphs. ZiPS can be found here, Steamer can be found here. BR comes from the Baseball Reference for this specific player and is linked earlier in the article)

Projections see his power taking a step back, and his OBP as well, which makes sense. His numbers were insane last year. That being said, he is still projected to be above a 3.0 WAR player, something the Mets need him to be. I’m not worried at all about his offense this year.

I am worried about his playing time. Once Lowrie and Cespedes are healthy, McNeil is going to enter a timeshare with J.D. Davis, a timeshare that McNeil should win. Basically Lowrie, more than Cespedes, robs a lot of players of playing time where they are the better hitter.

I’m just so excited to see McNeil play baseball this year. He’s so much fun to watch, he puts up some great numbers and makes the Mets enjoyable.

Each year at 213 we look through the Non-Roster Invitees to spring training and get to know them a bit. Are they in camp to get a look at big league hitting/pitching to aid their development? Are the Mets just trying to get a better look at a future rookie? Are they a veteran trying to get back to the major league level? What can we expect from them this season?

David Rodriguez could be a dark horse candidate to take the back up catcher spot if Nido falters for any reason.The Mets know what could be getting from Rene Rivera, but Rodriguez provides a bit of intrigue, hope that you caught lighting in a bottle…maybe.

The knock on David, similar to Patrick Mazeika, for figuring out a catcher depth chart is that he still hasn’t made it to the majors yet. But, unlike Rivera who will be 36 this season, David is will be only 24, and he has yet to play in a league where he is older than the average player.

In Double A Montgomery last season he had 295 PAs, hitting .225/.303/.366. Which is down from his minors career line of .250/.322/.369. He did have a tremendous winter league between the 2018-19 seasons in Venezuela where in 131 PAs he hit .317/.385/.471. Over his three seasons in winter leagues he has hit .356/.401/.534. Which the talent of these leagues are questionable but if you’re hitting .350 and getting on base more than 4 times every 10 trips to the plate, it’s worth rolling the dice to see what you can do in a new system stateside.

As stated early, he’s a dark horse for the back up position, so it would be a long shot. Generally what the Mets are doing right now is trying to build in some catching depth that if Ali Sanchez isn’t ready to go yet, then they don’t have to go to him in case of an emergency. But between Rivera and Rodriguez being the best options for a back up catcher if something happens to Nimo – you have to start wondering if the ghost of the Mesoraco situation last year is starting to sit on top of the franchise.

The Mets are win-less two days into Spring Training so far. Conventionally that would mean they’re 0-2 but nope, they are 0-2-1. They dropped their first two games on Saturday (Marlins and Cardinals) and tied against the Cardinals yesterday. Of course, none of this actually matters.

The Mets travel to play the Nationals today and if you like minor league pitchers, today is your day. David Peterson, Paul Sewald, Jordan Humphreys, Erasmo Ramirez and Walker Lockett are all expected to see time today. Two names that immediately stand out to us – Peterson and Humphreys. With all of the trades since before the 2019 season, Peterson is the closest starting pitching prospect to the major leagues. Peterson, Ramirez, Lockett, Sewald and Gsellman are all battling this spring for “who’s the 5th starter after Porcello/Wacha”. Jordan Humphreys is exciting to see again, he’s been battling injuries for the last couple of years (he was dominating in 2017 before that) and he got into games this Fall posting a 0.77 ERA over 11.2 innings.

Mets Lineup:

1. Jeff McNeil
2. Brandon Nimmo
3. Pete Alonso
4. Michael Conforto
5. Wilson Ramos
6. Dominic Smith
7. Eduardo Nunez
8. Luis Guillorme
9. Johneshwy Fargas
10. David Peterson

So where as the Mets didn’t bring a heavy contingent of regular pitchers, they brought a heavy regular lineup today. It’s way too early in Spring to be talking about lineup construction – but we will anyway. There’s quite the discussion around whether Nimmo or McNeil should hit lead-off, today we’ll see McNeil, with Nimmo in the 2-hole (I feel it should be flipped but whatever).

We’ll also get another look at Luis Guillorme at short today who is off to a great spring with the glove. At second base, Eduardo Nunez looks to start his longshot chance to the Mets roster as a backup middle infielder.

Lets Go Mets! Further Reading from 213 Miles From Shea: We wrote profiles on David Peterson recently here and here. We also have a profile on Jordan Humphreys here.

This is the second year where we are walking through the previous season’s Baseball America’s Top Prospect handbook, looking at the all the Mets to see how they are developing against Baseball America’s Projections.

We are finally done! It’s over! Around a month after starting to review the 2019 Baseball America’s prospects, we have reached the very end, Andres Gimenez, who after 2019, with the success of Alonso and the rise of Mauricio, the drafting of Baty and Allan, feels like a lost prospect. Let’s remind ourselves who he is and where he fits.

Andres Gimenez is only 21. We’ve been hearing about him since he was 17 back in 2016. Gimenez is next in line in a system that has produced top prospect shortstops, starting with Rosario, and coming up with Mauricio. Before the 2019 season, BA wrote, “scouts regarded him as one of the top talents in both the Florida State and Eastern leagues.” One of his ground ball outs was was the fifth hardest hit balls in the Future’s game.

BA hails his quick hands, his IQ, his arm and field, and someone that projects to above-average to plus hitting potential. They end their write up projecting him has a first-division short stop and imagine him moving over to 2nd because of Rosario. They thought he could get a late 2019 call up and should get regular big league work this upcoming season.

2019 Binghamton: 479 PA, 432 AB, .250/.309/.387
2019 Fall League: 75 PA, 70 AB, .371/.413/.586

Andres played in Binghamton at a whopping 4.1 years below the average player and his offensive stats took a step back, which is probably why the noise around him dipped. Often in trading scenarios based around Rosario, Andres’ name comes up as an obvious replacement. In a universe where the Mets don’t acquire Robinson Cano, we probably would be talking about him sliding to 2nd base more.

But Andres had a terrific Arizona Fall League. He will be in Syracuse at some point this year and is already on the 40 man roster but BA is wrong about him seeing regular playing time in 2020, barring a major trade or injury else where. If he has a tremendous minors season, and Rosario has a tremendous major league season, it’s possible the Mets decide to trade one of them. Come July, depending on the Mets record, Rosario’s play and Gimenez’s play the Mets will probably make a decision about whether or not we see him in 2020. He’s close, just not ready yet. (Or he’s close, but there’s no spot for him yet).

Each year at 213 we look through the Non-Roster Invitees to spring training and get to know them a bit. Are they in camp to get a look at big league hitting/pitching to aid their development? Are the Mets just trying to get a better look at a future rookie? Are they a veteran trying to get back to the major league level? What can we expect from them this season?

The title here doesn’t cut it- really this article is “hey, do you remember Rene Rivera? He’s back now.”

The Mets decided to not upgrade their back up catcher option this off-season effectively putting Tomas Nido in open competition with Rivera. This is the same thing the Mets did last year with Nido, d’Arnaud and Mesoraco and they really messed that one up.

Anyway, Rivera signed with the Mets in 2008 and was granted free agency the following year. He then bounced around for several tams, was part of a three-way trade with the Padres/Rays/Nationals (that involved mega-prospect at the time Wil Myers and how the Nationals got Trea Turner).

His real Mets story began in 2016. At the end of Spring Training that year he was released by the Rays and then signed a week later with the Mets where he remained for a year and a half before being claimed by the Cubs. He then signed again with the Mets at the end of last March when the Mets really messed things up with Mesoraco.

His best year with the Mets was 2017 where in 187 PAs he hit .230/.278/.391. Last year he saw only 20 PAs with the Mets and hit .235/.350/.412, which is what we expect. In Syracuse last year he hit .254/.319/.501 over 396 PAs. We’ll do a 2020 Projections article on him later.

Honestly, I think the back up catching job right now is Nido’s to lose. But if Rivera shows more of his 2017 self, and less of his 2018 self, he could squeeze himself back in. Barring a major event also that provide regular playing time for Ali Sanchez, Rivera is third on the depth chart for catcher and we’ll see him in Queens at some point this season. There really is nothing new or surprising with him this year, we already know what he is about.

Each year at 213, we take projections from several different places, average them together and then compare the line that spits out to the player’s performance from last year. We understand how unscientific this is – some projections try to guess playing time, some don’t, more playing time is weighted the same as less playing time, more successful projection producers are weighted the same as their counterparts, etc. At the end of the year we revisit the projections and see how’d they do.

The Mets acquired Jake Marisnick from the Astros for Kenedy Corona and Blake Taylor. Jake was acquired because the Mets needed a defensive minded center fielder. This will BVW’s second attempt at filling this role via a trade, his first attempt with Keon Broxton did not work out well (for either team in that trade) last season. Jake doesn’t get on base much, but does have some pop as shown in the difference between his OBP and SLG below.

2019 Stats: 318 PA, 292 AB, 10 HR, .233/.289/.411, 1.2 WAR, 68 DRC+

(Citations: BP projections come from the Baseball Prospectus Annual, a must read for all baseball fans and can be purchased here. ESPN comes from their fantasy baseball projections and can be found here. Both ZiPS and Steamer are found on FanGraphs. ZiPS can be found here, Steamer can be found here. BR comes from the Baseball Reference for this specific player and is linked earlier in the article)

Cespedes is looking for a come back this year. The Mets outfield already has Nimmo and Conforto. Then McNeil and J.D. Davis is going to be bounce between the infield and the outfield. This doesn’t leave a lot of room for Jake but the Mets need someone who can play defensively so his playing time should be safe. His projections seem to map his last season. He won’t get on base that often, has pop and that’s about it. We’ll see how Luis Rojas balances out his playing time.

There are two great things about baseball in February. First, it’s baseball, and that’s pretty neat on its own. Second, the results don’t matter and you can actually define “winning” however you want. In other words, the Mets lost both games they played yesterday in the traditional sense, but there were legitimate reasons to be excited. Luis Guillorme made his first fantastic defensive play of Spring, hopefully increasing chatter that he should be on the bench in Queens at the end of March. Rick Porcello didn’t self-destruct and the two hits he gave up were soft. The Mets starters in the home game knocked in three runs in the first inning with hard hit balls.

Plenty to be excited about. And the Mets have their first chance today to get a traditional win as they welcome the Cardinals to St. Lucie.

The big story for the Mets today is the first spring start of Steven Matz. There have been some whispers that Matz/Porcello/Wacha are all fighting for the 4th and 5th spot of the rotation. I think that’s a bit overblown and the 4th spot in the rotation is really Matz’s to lose rather than directly compete for. He’s coming off of his second straight season of making 30 starts with a 4.21 ERA, 4.60 FIP, 1.341 WHIP and a 96 ERA+. His ERA+ is his best recorded in a season since his 118 in 2016. He finished his last 17 games, 15 starts of the season with a 3.61 ERA (he had a 4.95 before that).

Mets Lineup:

1. Amed Rosario (DH)
2. Andres Gimenez
3. J.D. Davis
4. Matt Adams
5. Jake Marisnick
6. Tomas Nido
7. Luis Guillorme
8. Ryan Cordell
9. Tim Tebow
10. Steven Matz

Across both Mets games yesterday there was an unusually high amount of starters playing (because of the split squad and being the first day of spring). Today’s lineup feels like a more normal first week of Spring Training games set. Some interesting notes, Guillorme is seeing time at second today. After playing the entire game yesterday as a DH, non-roster invitee Matt Adams is getting some time in the field. J.D. Davis is getting time at third.

After Matz today the Mets have no other lefties available to pitch. We could possibly see the spring debuts of Brad Brach, Jeurys Familia, Tyler Bashlor, Robert Gsellman and Nick Rumbelow today. Familia is trying to put his last year behind him and Brach will be pitching to hold onto his bullpen shot.

Other interesting names listed include Kilome, acquired in the Cabrera trade with the Phillies a couple of seasons ago and Whalen, who recently returned to the Mets (he was traded away with Gant for Uribe more than a couple of seasons ago).

Lets Go Mets!