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?

The Mets have made some interesting non-roster invitee signings this off-season for players from other systems. Rumbelow is not one of them. He signed last year with the Mets, but were not ready to talk about that yet.

The Yankees drafted him in 2013 out of Louisiana State. He debuted with the Yankees in 2015 and was subsequently released in 2016. He then resigned with the Yankees a month later and was traded a year later to the Mariners, who released him in the middle of 2019.

In 2015 he got into 17 games and logged 15.2 innings with a 4.02 ERA and 1.340 WHIP. In 2018 with the Mariners he got into 13 games and pitched 17.2 innings with a 6.11 ERA. Last year got into only three games and recorded 4 outs while allowing 4 runs.

This is where his story gets interesting. He then goes to Sugar Land, an Independent team and dominates, throws 22.0 innings in 21 games and has a 0.81 ERA. He’s 2.1 years younger than the average independent ball player. The Mets see this and sign him and in 5 games in Syracuse he posts a 4.26 ERA (compared to a 8.17 ERA in Tacoma earlier in the season).

It’s unclear what the Mets have with Rumbelow outside of a pitcher with an interesting recent history. Rumbelow is also still quite far down on the depth chart and he’ll have a lot of competition with members of the 40 man roster trying to break the 25 man (while Rumbelow will just be trying to get on the 40 man period). The three batter minimum will also be an interesting hurdle for him. But he’s here and everyone loves a good origin story.

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.

Simeon Woods Richardson (and later Anthony Kay) are the two prospect profiles I have really not looked forward to writing about. Simeon might be the reason why I started this whole undertaking six weeks later than I did last year – I was so attached to him it hurt to see him traded away. Now I’m happy about Stroman being on the Mets. But trading for Stroman, when the team was already struggling only makes sense if the Mets resign Wheeler – a full on win-now move so the team could afford to trade away their top two remaining starting pitching prospects.

At first a lot of pundits saw the trade based around Kay, but Simeon is the real prize for Toronto (sort-of like d’Arnaud was the centerpiece of the Dickey trade but Syndergaard was the real prize).

Before the 2019 season, and before Simeon blew up, BA talked about how he was one the youngest players in the draft and and his 26-4 K to BB ratio his first year in professional ball. They liked his mid-90s fastball with spin rate and his 12-6 curveball. Overall they love his stuff but he was a high school pitcher and he has a long journey.

2019 Columbia: 20 G, 78.1 IP, 4.25 ERA, 1.213 WHIP
2019 Dunedin: 6 G, 28.1 IP, 2.54 ERA, 0.882 WHIP

Before the trade Simeon was having a good year in Columbia, even better when his age was factored in (3.8 years below the average age). The Blue Jays bumped him up to Advanced A ball and he did even better + he was 4.9 years below the average. His performance in A+ ball has landed him on multiple top 100 prospect lists.

We are happy for him, sad his success won’t be with us. If the Mets sign Stroman this year to an extension, then this trade will work out for the Mets but if the Mets don’t, and they don’t win a championship this year, then we lost something special.

Yesterday we found a few Twitter reactions to the Houston Cheating Scandal, copied their HTML text to this site and posted them. There have been more over night (and honestly we don’t have an exhaustive way to comb through Twitter for this) so here are some more!

It’s amazing how soft @MLB is being about all this shit… It just shows that Manfred has no idea what to do when the pressure is on! Kinda how some managers don’t know what to do in the playoffs when the pressure is on! Analytics only get you so far

— Jered Weaver (@Weave1036) February 17, 2020

Ok… let me get this straight. MLB will punish players who throw at Astros players for cheating, but refuse to punish players for cheating. Got it. I believe we’ve got this bass akwards here.

— Will Middlebrooks (@middlebrooks) February 15, 2020

At least we finally saw a real reaction out of somebody lol.

— Alex Wood (@Awood45) February 15, 2020

Jim Crane also announced that the “Left Left Right Right Right Left Left” Griffey homerun sequence was the inspiration for what would eventually become Codebreaker.

— Ty Kelly (@tykelly11) February 13, 2020

Nothing says “truth” like wearing shades inside. https://t.co/zhl2xXP3tK

— Peter Moylan (@PeterMoylan) February 13, 2020

Lmao https://t.co/NEhqMx6wRq pic.twitter.com/YszpQsH632

— Derek Holland (@Dutch_Oven45) February 13, 2020

Right…they did it because trash can acoustics are good for the soul.

Yes, they had a good team. But of course it impacted the game. If it didn’t impact the game, why continue it? Don’t play the public for fools. Just apologize, be accountable, and move forward. https://t.co/Hf7iFL7FRz

— Michael Young (@MikeyY626) February 13, 2020

https://t.co/C9wgD5Rr1A pic.twitter.com/OX5O5EiNhk

— Brett Anderson (@_BAnderson30_) February 13, 2020

Nope https://t.co/GU8EmD85EA

— Jerry Blevins (@jerryblevins) February 9, 2020

Adam Silver.. you like baseball?

— Jake Diekman (@JakeDiekman) February 17, 2020

The last several days players from across the league have taken to Twitter to voice their opinion about Houston Astros stealing signs and the league’s lack of an appropriate response. Since the Astros have “apologized” and since the league double downed on not doing anything about it, players are filling the void left by injustice.

So, you cheat but we don’t get to talk about it or have an opinion. Got it. Also, this is still a team sport. Just because someone doesn’t partake in the cheating doesn’t necessarily mean they didn’t benefit from it. pic.twitter.com/zxFVKZp9sv

— Zach Davies (@ZDavies3) February 16, 2020

it is really good that he finds all of this funny

— Jack Flaherty (@Jack9Flaherty) February 16, 2020

I wonder what Rob Manfred’s sad face to punishment felt scale is

— Brett Anderson (@_BAnderson30_) February 16, 2020

Yu Darvish on the Astros:

"Olympics, when players cheat, they can't have a gold medal, right? But [the Astros] still have a World Series title. That makes me feel weird."

— Tony Andracki (@TonyAndracki23) February 16, 2020

Look. There are obviously MVPs that aren’t clean. Altuve didn’t want to use the trash can, fine. Cool to see that on team trash can chart. His RBIs, runs scored, the wins. It all matters. He didn’t stop it. Hell of a player, great guy but to say the MVP is straight clean is wrong

— David Freese (@DavidFreese) February 16, 2020

Yes, the league needs to step in and actually punish the players. Then he’ll have nothing to worry about https://t.co/QV8igjfPrI

— Phil Hughes (@PJHughes45) February 15, 2020

My tattoo artist Steve Wiebe is a magician. I’m sure he would love to either finish or cover up whatever previous ink you have! Lol 😂 https://t.co/IKz5E30hgT

— Marcus Stroman (@STR0) February 15, 2020

I wouldn’t have taken the hitting a baseball is hard even if you know what’s coming approach in the interview today, because it’s even harder to hit when you don’t know what’s coming 💯 #AstrosCheatingScandal

— Tommy Pham (@TphamLV) February 15, 2020

🐸☕️… 👀😂 https://t.co/QviQUzox2f

— Anthony Banda (@anthony_banda3) February 15, 2020

Now that’s a proper punishment 🧐 https://t.co/YQMQtmox0D

— Shane Bieber (@ShaneBieber19) February 15, 2020

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.

I’m so excited to kick the 2020 series of projections with Pete Alonso! This year we decided to go in alphabetical order, hitters first than pitchers. First in the alphabet is a 2019 non-roster invitee to spring training, Pete Alonso who almost didn’t make the 2020 team out of camp because the Mets were contemplating manipulating his playing time. It’s a good thing they didn’t. Alonso’s call up paid dividends immediately and by playing a whole season he smashed the single season homer record for a New York Met and a rookie with 53, picking up the Home Run Derby title and the Rookie of the Year along the way. He’s already rocked Spring Training this year claiming that his goal is to “be on a float drunk as hell”.

Don’t we all want that? Either for him or ourselves?

Let’s take a look at his amazing 2019 stats and then peak at how different sites think he’ll do in 2020.

2019 Stats: 693 PA, 597 AB, 53 HR, .260/.358/.583, 5.0 WAR, 141 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)

Looking at the slugging percentage, most projections see a slight, slight drop in power. Which makes sense, it’s hard to break records in back to back years. What’s interesting is who thinks a drop will happen vs who doesn’t. BP tends to be more conservative about back to back performances and they are projecting almost an identical year to last year, putting up the same WAR and almost the same DRC+ compared to other players. ESPN, usually more bullish, is one of the more dampened projections.

Even the worst line from the ultra-conservative on projections baseball reference has Alonso hitting a line that would lead the offense (where they see a significant drop in power they also see a rise in OBP).

The Mets are hoping Alonso carries the offense again. The Mets playoff chances are contingent on the offense being an automatic thing. The projections show a positive sophomore year for Alonso.

Are you ready for Oktoberfest?

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?

Over the off-season the Mets signed Francisco Rios to beef up the Syracuse Mets roster and gave him an invite to the major league camp. Rios was most recently in Toronto’s system, playing with both their AA and AAA teams last year and spent time this off-season with the Mexican team, Diabolos Rojos.

Rios has been in the Toronto system since the start of his professional career making his debut with the DOSL Blue Jays in 2013 at the age 18. He’s moved up every level of the Blue Jays system since then although he has never made it to the major leagues. Overall in his career he has made 77 starts, 118 games, with 438.0 innings with a 4.44 ERA and a 1.432 WHIP. Last year he made only 9 appearances in 9 games across AA and AA with a 6.19 ERA over 16.0 innings (he spent a lot of time in extended spring training) 2018 he saw a little more action, but you have to go back to 2017 when he saw a full season of work, putting in 86.0 innings over 23 games with a 4.29 ERA.

Most likely Rios does not factor into the Mets plans for the major league season at all. But Rios is still young, he’s only 24, and the Mets need older starting pitcher prospects. Maybe they can revive his career and get him to put a decent season together. It’s something worth checking in on in the middle of the year if he was able to pitch on a regular basis.

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.

The Mets acquired Franklyn Kilome at the 2018 trading deadline for Asdrubal Cabrera. When he became a Met, he posted a 4.03 ERA over 7 games and 38.0 innings for Binghamton with a 1.079 WHIP and 9.9 K/9 (4.20 K/BB) but then he needed Tommy John. Before publication of the 2019 Baseball America Prospect guide, it was already known that he would miss all of the 2019 season.

So there’s not much to reflect on here, this article is more of a hey, do you remember being excited when the Mets acquired him? Because since the Mets acquired him and since he had surgery the Mets lost Justin Dunn, Anthony Kay and Simeon Woods-Richardson to trades making the depth chart in the minors thin at starting pitching.

When the Mets traded for him, he had a mid 90’s fastball with a high spin rate, midish high 70’s curveball and as BA reports, a “fringey” slider and changeup. The concern for Kilome is his control and walk rates. BA ended their review of him by saying that if he doesn’t improve on his command then he projects out to the bullpen, which implies if he does improve on his command, to the rotation he shall go.

The question for the Mets this year is how soon do they move him to Syracuse. Does he start the season in Binghamton? Does he spend a lot of time there? Is it worth him starting the season in cold unrelenting Binghamton or Syracuse? Does extended Spring Training mean his overall health would be better. Between David Peterson and other pitchers the Mets have signed this off-season for starting pitching depth (Porcello, Wacha, Erasmus Ramirez, etc), there’s no need to rush Kilome, who will be 25 this season. We’ll just wait and see how this plays out and adjust our hype accordingly.

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 Mets signed Erasmo Ramirez because they need more starting pitcher / long relief depth. This isn’t new. It’s while the Mets signed Hector Santiago and Arquimedes Caminero last year. Ramirez was signed by the Mariners in 2007 and made his debut with the Mariners in 2012. Three years later he was traded to the Rays for Mike Montgomery and two years after that he was traded back to the Mariners for Steve Cishek. He is fresh off a one year deal with the Red Sox.

Last season he only got into one game and allowed 4 runs over 3.0 innings while posting a 4.74 ERA over 24 starts and 125.1 innings in Pawtucket. This included a 1.340 WHIP, 6.8 K/9 and a 2.21 K/BB which were all worse than his major league averages (1.255 WHIP, 7.0 K/9, 2.73 K/BB). 2018 was the last time he saw significant playing time in the majors and had a 6.50 ERA, 6.69 FIP, 1.401 WHIP over 45.2 innings. This was a major step down from his previous season where between the Rays and Mariners he pitched in 37 games, 19 starts, 131.1 innings with a 4.39 ERA, 4.43 FIP, 1.173 WHIP, and 7.5 K/9.

Ramirez will be 30 this season, and what he has shown the last several years is he can eat innings, especially in Triple A which is probably where he is heading. If the Mets need him, then many, many things have gone wrong (or Ramirez suddenly starts dominating in Syracuse despite his recent performance). After Wacha/Porcello/Gsellman the Mets don’t have too many attractive options in the rotation and the Mets in recent years have had to go searching for people to make starts (hello Santiago last year). Ramirez is smart option for the Mets and hopefully the Mets don’t need to use him this year, and if they do, hopefully he is more like his 2017 self.

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.

The Mets drafted lefty Thomas Szapucki out of the 5th round in the 2015 draft. The theme in his pre-2019 write up in BA was the same theme you probably have repeated yourself when talking about the exciting southpaw – his injuries. He had a terrific 2016 where he posted a 1.38 ERA over 52.0 innings in Kingsport in Brooklyn and then fell into injury trouble (shoulder impingement followed by Tommy John surgery). The latter knocked him out for the whole 2018 season. So BA last year was excited, as we all were, to see Thomas back on the mound last year.

BA notes that Szapucki has a low to mid 90’s fastball from a lower arm slot and high-spin curveball that sits in the upper 70’s. They project him as either a #3 starter (ceiling) or high leverage reliever.

So how did he do in 2019?

2019 Columbia: 11 G, 21.2 IP, 2.08 ERA, 1.108 WHIP, 10.8 K/9
2019 St. Lucie: 9 G, 36.0 IP, 3.25 ERA, 1.333 WHIP, 10.5 K/9
2019 Binghamton: 1 G, 4.0 IP, 2 H, 1 R, 0 ER, BB, 4 K, 2 HBP

Once he acclimated to pitching again, he was used as a starter, which most likely he will continue unless the Mets make the conscious decision that they need him sooner than later and turn him into a reliever. The Mets lack of starter talent right now outside of David Peterson also necessitates him in the rotation. Thomas had a great 2019 and I think we are all excited to see what he can do in 2020.

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?

We just checked in on David Peterson last weekend briefly in our annual look back at the previous year’s Non-Roster Invites. We will also be looking at David again next week during our series of articles reviewing the 2019 Top 30 Mets prospects from Baseball America and comparing their 2019 performance to their projections.

For today we’ll just focus on David and what we could expect from him this year.

Peterson was a 2017 first round draft pick by the Mets out of the University of Oregon. He made it to Binghamton last year at the age of 23, and he spent the whole season there pitching 24 games and 116.0 innings with a 4.19 ERA, 1.345 WHIP and 9.5 K/9. He capped his season with a stint in the Arizona fall league where he made 4 starts totaling 13.0 innings with a 3.46 ERA and 2.000 WHIP.

Peterson (according to BA, more on this next week) has a low 90s fastball, the best slider in the system and projects right now to a 4th starter in the rotation. His stock in the last year has been boosted by the Mets trading away Justin Dunn, Simeon Woods-Richardson and Anthony Kay. All of the other pitchers the Mets are waiting for the in the rotation are either too far away or have massive and recent injury concerns (Franklyn Kilome, Thomas Szapucki, Jordan Humphreys to name a few).

Peterson will most likely open the season in Syracuse. He’s a deep back up plan right now for Queens. But if the Mets end up Mets-ing up the rotation in someway, then Peterson could get the call to Queens this year. He’s a pitcher I expect we’ll see a lot of in Spring Training.