213 Miles From Shea

Going into spring training games on Friday, the Mets had a +1 run differential. Then the Mets beat the Cardinals 14-3. Spring win/loss records and run differentials don’t mean a ton, but its better to put up a lot of runs, and not allow a lot of runs than the alternative.

Things feel good after Friday’s game! Freddy Peralta had a dominant three inning start allowing no runs and not hits. The team went 6-for-16 with runners in scoring position. MJ Melendez hit two homers. AJ Ewing went 2-for-2 with a home run and now has a 1.611 OPS in spring. Pache went 3-3 on the day on his journey back to the majors. The team stole three bases. The only blemish was Devin Williams allowing a solo homer in his Mets spring debut. Good vibes all around, hopefully they continue this afternoon.

Three Things To Watch For:

1. Right Field Competition. Things are heating up to see who will be the Mets right fielder on opening day. Mike Tauchman got the week started hitting a three-run bomb in his first at bat with the Mets. On Thursday Carson Benge went 3-for-3 and yesterday he went 1-for-2 with a stolen base (.400 BA, .855 OPS). MJ Melendez hit two home runs yesterday and became the first Mets hitter to have hit more than one home run this spring. In addition to Mike Tauchman getting the start today, Brett Baty will also make his first start of spring (albeit at first base). Going into spring, before the Melendez/Tauchman signings, Baty was most likely going to be the right fielder if Benge wasn’t ready yet.
2. Francisco Alvarez behind the plate. Alvarez finally gets his first start behind the plate. The Mets announced that they were going to ease their catcher into games this spring, and that is exactly what they, having him DH earlier this week (0-for-2, K). Alvarez enters camp lighter, after changing his diet in the offseason. The Mets are hoping the young catcher can put a full healthy season together. He has dealt with multiple hand injuries over the last few seasons and had surgery at the end of 2025 to repair a ligament in his right thumb. We are just glad to see him back on the field!
3. Craig Kimbrel. Kimbrel was listed yesterday to make his debut this afternoon at Clover Park. Kimbrel is looking to pitch in his 17th major league season after pitching 12 innings over 14 games between the Braves and Astros last season (2.25 ERA, 4.22 FIP, 1.417 WHIP, 197 ERA+). In his last full season (2024, Baltimore) Kimbrel had a 5.33 ERA, 4.18 FIP, 1.357 WHIP, and a 73 ERA+ over 52 1/3 innings. He’s in camp on a minor league contract, so the Mets will have create space for him first on the 40-man for Kimbrel to even have a chance make the team.

Let’s Go Mets!

It’s been a busy week for the Mets. We had Jonah Tong and Nolan McLean’s first starts of spring. We’ve seen the first spring training home runs from Marcus Semien and Ronny Mauricio. There has been a lot to be excited about.

That all continues today as two critical players for the 2026 Mets make their spring training debuts. The Mets entered the off season needing a front line starter and a star closer. Devin Williams, while not the first choice for the latter, looks to bounce back and return to his former self as the Mets new closer. Freddy Peralta was the playoff contending move the Mets desperately needed to make. It’s a great day!

Three Things To Watch For:

1. Freddy Peralta. The Mets have been searching for an established, major league ace to anchor the rotation for the last couple of seasons, and they finally got one in Freddy Peralta. Peralta is coming off of his best season in the majors where he had a 5.5 bWAR with a 2.70 ERA, 3.64 FIP, 1.075 WHIP and a 154 ERA+ over 176 2/3 innings. Today he finally makes his Grapefruit League Mets debut!
2. Devin Williams. Williams’ Mets journey starts today! The Mets were hoping to have Devin Williams and Edwin Díaz in the back of the bullpen this year, alas that wasn’t meant to be. Williams is coming off of a down year with the Yankees where he has a -0.3 bWAR over 62 innings with a 4.79 ERA, 2.68 FIP, 1.129 WHIP and an 85 ERA over 62 innings. It was a major departure from his six years with the Brewers where he had an 1.83 ERA, 2.39 FIP, 1.023 WHIP and 231 ERA+. The Mets are hoping that is the version of Devin Williams closing out games in the 9th inning this season.
3. Homeruns. Save some home runs for the regular season! The Mets enter play today tied with the Royals for fifth in MLB with nine homeruns this spring. The Yankees are running away with 15 homers, followed by the Diamondbacks and Rockies who each have 12. The power on the Mets has come from regular, major league players and minor league players. Yesterday Marcus Semien and Tyrone Taylor hit homers off of Tatsuya Imai. The day before that Mike Tauchman and Ronny Mauricio hit home runs in the first inning. All nine home runs have come from nine different players too!

Let’s Go Mets!

It’s Nolan McLean Day! And if you’re an Astros fan, it’s Tatsuya Imai Day!

Nolan McLean was a sensation when he got called up to the Mets last season. Over eight starts he pitched 48 innings with a 2.06 ERA, 2.97 FIP, 1.042 WHIP and a 196 ERA+. He had 10.7 K/9 and somehow received enough Rookie of the Year votes to finish 11, despite only playing for less than two months.

This will probably the only Nolan McLean start before he reports to Team USA workouts for the WBC, so let’s enjoy today!

Three Things To Watch For:

1. Nolan McLean. Nolan is the story of the day. Heading into spring training 2025 eh was the #99 prospect in baseball by Baseball America and #74 by Baseball Prospectus. This season he is the #8 prospect by Baseball America, #4 by Baseball Prospectus and #6 by MLB Pipeline. He is one of the most exciting players on the Mets right now and the Mets success this season is tied to his development.
2. Tatsuya Imai. Imai makes his grapefruit league debut today, facing an opposing major league baseball team for the first time. Imai signed a three year contract with the Astros with opt-outs after the first two seasons. Last season Imai had a 1.92 ERA over 163 2/3 innings for Seibu. He has a high-90’s fastball and an intriguing slider.
3. Battle For Right Field. MJ Melendez and Mike Tauchman are both starting today and are both battling to be the Mets Opening Day right fielder (along with Brett Baty and Carson Benge). MJ Melendez has gone 1-for-5 at the plate so far with a double. Mike Tauchman has gone 1-for-2 at the plate with a towering three-run home run. This is going to be a position battle that will go throughout the entire spring.

Let’s Go Mets!

Kevin Herget returns to the Mets! The right handed, New Jersey native was drafted by the Cardinals back in 2013 out of Kean University. He would eventually make his major league debut with the Rays in 2022 when he was 31 years old. Since then he has pitched the Reds, Brewers, Mets, Braves and then back to the Mets.

Herget pitched 12 innings for the Mets last season over six games allowing five runs, four earned from 11 hits and three walks. He struck six batters and had a 3.00 ERA, 2.89 FIP, 1.167 WHIP and a 138 ERA+. His Statcast metrics were intriguing even in a small-sample size. Herget didn’t fool anyone, hitters chased him 25.5% and whiffed only 12.5% of the time (below 10th percentile). The average exit velocity though on his pitches was 87.2 mph, which would be around 90th percentile. It looks like no one even hit a barrel off of him last season.

Most of Herget’s innings last year came in four outings from late August through September after a terrific campaign with Syracuse. Over 23 games he had pitched 32 innings with a 2.81 ERA and 1.125 WHIP. This was better than his 14 2/3 innings with Gwinnett in the Braves system last year where he had a 3.68 ERA and a 1.295 WHIP.

Last season Herget used his low-90’s four seamer 44% of the time, and low-80’s changeup 36.6% of the time. He also had a cutter that worked in a bit and a curveball he litterally tossed twice. Hitters had .211 batting average against his fastball, but his xBA was .298. The results on his changeup (.227 BA) were closer to their expected value (.231).

Herget is probably not going to win a job with the Mets bullpen straight out of spring training. His role is the same as last year – he’s available when the Mets need a veteran arm to fill a gap. Herget was that pitcher for the Mets from late August through the rest of the season, saving the bullpen by throwing multiple innings in a game three times in his final four appearances.

Death. Taxes. Playing the Marlins, Astros, Cardinals and Nationals in spring training.

The Mets have already played the Marlins and the Astros and will play their first of six spring games against the Cardinals this afternoon at Clover Park. For those who like to look ahead, the Mets will play the Astros again tomorrow followed by the Cardinals again on Friday. There’s nothing quite like spring training on the east coast of Florida.

The Mets are coming off of tied baseball game where they used 10 (!) different pitchers over 10 innings. The Mets were in cruise control early thanks to a first inning, 3-run home run from Mike Tauchman who is trying to break camp on the Mets roster as their starting right fielder. Ronny Mauricio hit an absolute tank in the first to make 4-0. Duarte ran into some problems in the 7th leading to three runs and the eventual Astros come back to tie the game.

After the game the Mets announced starting pitchers for the rest of the week with Jonah Tong going today, Nolan McLean tomorrow and Freddy Peralta making his Mets Grapefruit League debut on Friday. It’s going to be a fun week!

Three Things To Watch For:

1. Jack Wenninger’s Best Friend. Jonah Tong, best friends with yesterday’s starter Jack Wenninger, makes his 2026 spring debut this afternoon. Tong cruised through Binghamton in 2026 with a 1.59 ERA over 102 innings. He didn’t allow any runs in two starts (11 2/3 innings) in Syracuse. The Mets rushed him up to the majors and there were some growing pains. Over five starts, 18 2/3 innings, he allowed 20 runs, 16 earned. (7.71 ERA). On the positive side, he struck out 22 batters and had a 4.31 FIP. One of the questions in camp right now is where will Tong start the season? In Syracuse or the major league rotation?
2. Challenges. In both televised games on SNY this year, Gary Cohen has mentioned that Carlos Mendoza wants the Mets to be aggressive with challenges. Luis Torrens yesterday was certainly aggressive and challenged two balls that were fairly far off of the plate. He took both challenges while catching. Let’s see how the Mets handle their challenges today.
3. Cristian Pache. There was a time where Pache was one of the highest ranked prospects in baseball. He’s now trying to make a comeback with the New York Mets after a season where he spent time with the Phillies, Orioles and Marlins. Across the three teams he got 183 PA’s and hit .200/.273/.279 with a 54 OPS+. He’s been crushing it early this spring with three hits in his first two games including a homer.

Let’s Go Mets!

Mike Baumann has traveled a lot. He made his major league debut with the Orioles in 2021 things were going along well. Over parts of four seasons Baumann pitched 127 1/3 innings over 94 games with a 4.45 ERA, 4.46 FIP, 1.437 WHIP and a 91 ERA+. He was solid, major league pitcher getting a lot of work with the club that drafted him.

Then 2024 happened. The Orioles traded him to Seattle in May. Then the Giants purchased his contract. He pitched one game with them and ended up with the Angels. He pitched 10 games with them and then ended up on the Marlins. Five different organizations in one season.

After all that chaos he went to Japan for a season and pitched 26 innings over 27 games for Yakult with a 4.15 ERA and a 1.577 WHIP. Now he’s back state side trying to break onto the Mets roster.

When Baumann last pitched in the major leagues he had a mid-to-high 90’s fastball that was in the 87th percentile for velocity. His extension was in the 71st percentile. Usually this is a combination for success, but not in 2024. He had a 4.71 xERA (18th percentile) and was only getting hitters to chase 27% of the time (29th percentile). Hitters were barreling up on him 9.2% of the time (21st percentile) and hitting the ball hard 43.7% of the time (12th percentile).

Baumann used his fastball 40.6% of the time in 2024 and leaned on his knuckle curve 33.5% of the time. He would change things up with his low-90’s slider 23.9% of the time and occasionally mix in a changeup and a sinker.

Baumann has a lot of different pitches in his arsenal. Let’s watch this spring how the Mets pitching lab makes adjustments. He made his debut against the Yankees on 2/22 and pitched a scoreless inning allowing one hit and striking out one batter. He has a lot of competition between getting on the 40-man roster and then on the active roster, but the Mets did use 46 pitchers last season.

The Mets return home this afternoon after two road wins in a row! A home spring training game (generally) means more regular starters in the lineup and SNY coverage of the game!

This is the second time this spring the Mets are rolling out Marcus Semien, Juan Soto and Bo Bichette as the top three hitters in the lineup, possibly hinting what the top of the lineup may look like on days when Francisco Lindor does not play. Today is also the second time this season we are seeing Bichette at third, Soto in left and Ronny Mauricio at short, the most likely fielding alignment for those players.

The Mets go for their third win in a row, let’s go!

Three Things To Watch For:

1. Jonah Tong’s Best Friend. Jack Wenninger, also known as Jonah Tong’s best friend, gets the start today. Wenninger is the next major pitching prospect coming up for the Mets and was recognized as the #79th prospect in baseball by Fan Graphs a week ago. Wenninger started to put results together in 2025 with an ERA of 2.92, down from 4.30 the year before. He is not going to overpower hitters, he mainly utilizes a low-90’s fastball and low-80’s splitter, mixing in a sweeper, cutter and curveball all out of the three-quarters arm slot.
2. Fielding. You’ll go insane as a baseball fan taking a small-sample size of attempts and extrapolating from there. That started to happen in some corners of the internet after Bo Bichette’s slightly off throw in his first game at third base. It was one throw, on one attempt. Hopefully he has a game today to turn down the temperature in Panic City.
3. Mike Tauchman. Tauchman signed a minor league contract with an invitation to major league camp eight days ago. He was signed as an insurance policy for right field in case the Mets current plans (Baty and waiting for Benge) doesn’t work out. Tauchman is coming off of a solid year for the White Sox where he put up a 1.9 bWAR over 385 PA’s, slashing .263/.356/.400 with a 112 OPS+. He’s had an OPS+ over 100 for three seasons in a row now. Maybe Tauchman is the minor league contract that ends up being the x-factor for the Mets in 2026.

Let’s Go Mets!

On Monday, 2/24, Ryan Lambert made his spring training debut with a bang. He tossed 22 pitches, allowed a hit and struck out the side. His fastball was hitting 98 mph and hitters were swinging and missing at his mid-80’s slider. He looked all the part of a player without a roster spot trying to force a conversation about how he could fit on the active roster.

Ryan Lambert is the youngest pitcher (23-years-old, a few months younger than Jeff Wenninger) in major league camp this season. He was drafted in the 8th round in 2024 out of the University of Oklahoma where he had a 2.57 ERA over 23 games and 21 innings.

All of Lambert’s strengths and weaknesses were on display during the spring training breakout game in 2025. He struck out two batters but also allowed a run from two walks, a hit and three stolen bases. Lambert can over power hitters, but he has difficulty reliably delivering the ball in the zone. Runners can take advantage of this on the base paths.

Lambert had a quick stint in Brooklyn in 2025 where he allowed one run over eight innings while striking out an absurd 17 batters. He spent the rest of the season in Binghamton where he tossed 42 innings with a 1.71 ERA, 1.286 WHIP and a 13.7 K/9. The only blemish was a 5.6 BB/9. He’s throwing incredibly hard and missing the zone a bit.

At the end of last season MLB Pipeline listed Lambert as the Mets #20 prospect with a predicted major league debut of this season. His hard throwing will get him to the majors but they are concerned about him throwing only two pitches and missing the zone. That’s were performances like his spring training debut come in. If he can continue to get hitters to chase, he’s going to be an electric part of the Mets bullpen.

To honestly break camp with the Mets he would need to be sterling the rest of the month, which probably won’t happen. Lambert will most likely start the season in Syracuse and face more veteran hitters more consistently. If he dominates in Syracuse he’ll find himself to the major league roster in short order.

The Mets are the on the road again today to another AL East team! Today they’ll face off of the Blue Jays and the Mets look to pick up where they left off yesterday hitting four home runs on their way to their first spring training win of the season. Yesterday’s game against the Yankees when exactly how you would expect on paper with homeruns from power-hitter household names like Jared Young, Luis Torrens, Hayden Senger and J.T. Schwartz. Jared Young and Hayden Senger are getting rewarded with starts today!

We’ll get our first spring looks at Clay Holmes and Tobias Myers today. Holmes is coming off his first year as a starting pitcher and is the first member of the Mets rotation to pitch in a spring training game this season. Myers came over the to the Mets with Freddy Peralta and was featured as a swingman last season. They’ll be facing a lineup of regular, starting players from the Blue Jays!

Three Things To Watch For:

1. Clay Holmes. The Clay Holmes starting pitcher experiment was a success last season with Holmes pitching 33 games including 31 starts totaling 165 2/3 innings. Like many pitchers on the Mets roster, Holmes struggled sometimes to go deep into games, but that made more sense for Holmes as he was adjusting to a new work load. From 2021 through 2024, Holmes topped out at 70 innings per season, so this was a new frontier for him. Holmes had a 3.53 ERA, 4.11 FIP, 1.304 WHIP and a 114 ERA+. He was more effective in the first half of the season (19 starts, 103 1/3 innings, 3.31 ERA, 1.258 WHIP) than int he second half (14 games, 12 starts, 62 1/3 innings, 3.90 ERA, 1.380 WHIP).
2. Tobias Myers. Myers pitched in 27 games and made 25 starts in his 2024 rookie season totaling 138 innings with a 3.00 ERA, 3.91 FIP, 1.174 WHIP and a 138 ERA+. Last season he started the season off on the injured list due to an oblique strain. When he returned, he pitched in 22 games including six starts with a 3.55 ERA, 3.92 FIP, 1.362 WHIP and a 117 ERA+. Last year the Mets experimented with throwing two starters together to make a full game, Tobias Myers gives the Mets the flexibility to do that again.
3. Vidal Bruján. Bruján is on the 40-man roster competing for a spot on the active roster to be the Mets back-up, utility infielder. The Mets are looking for a player who can play short as Lindor recovers from his surgery. The Mets are going to want to keep Polanco and Bichette at the positions they are learning, so shortstop will probably fall to Ronny Mauricio or Bruján (or several different players on NRI’ deals trying land a spot on the 40-man). Last season Bruján played for the Cubs, Orioles and Braves totaling 60 games slashing .253/.305/.310 with a 77 OPS+.

Let’s Go Mets!

Next up in our NRI preview series is Chris Suero, from the Bronx! Suero moved to the Dominican Republic when he turned 15 and attended school there. This allowed Suero to sign as an international free agent. This also meant at 15 Suero left his family to pursue his dream, just an incredible thing for a teenager to do. I highly recommend reading MLB’s profile on Suero, which goes deeper into his story.

Suero has started to sky rocket up the Mets prospect list. Back in 2024, MMO and Mets Minors had him at 37, he’s going to be in the top 20 this season. At the end of last season MLB Pipeline had him as the Mets #13 prospect, he wasn’t even in the top 30 the previous year.

Chris Suero can play in the outfield, first base and at catcher. In his second year in the Mets system, his first year state side, he slashed .281/.422/.469 over 22 games at only 19-years-old. He started 2024 with St. Lucie and hit .265/.390/.434 in only 25 games, forcing a promotion to Brooklyn where he finished the season hitting .228/.353/.350 while being 2.2 years younger than the average player in that week.

He started 2025 in Brooklyn, furthered his development and hit .240/.382/.455 with 13 homers in 74 games, forcing another promotion, this time to Binghamton. He finished the season hitting .221/.374/.324, which was similar to when he was promoted mid-season the previous year. He finished his 2025 with a stint in the Arizona Fall League, turning heads with a .283/.354/.567 thanks to five homers in 15 games. Suero has also impressed on the basepaths, stealing 20 bags in 2024 and 35 and 2025.

Defensively, the Mets have used Suero primarily as a catcher. His versality makes him an interesting prospect, especially if he keeps his OBP up. It is unlikely that we see Suero in the majors this year, unless he starts hitting the cover off the ball in Syracuse. The Mets have created a roster that looks flexible in 2027, 2028 and 2029, which feels on par with his development right now. We’ll be looking this spring to see where the Mets use him in the field and specifically who the Mets want him to catch.