213 Miles From Shea

The Mets start off the 2022 tonight in DC!

The universe had one more delay planned for the 2022 season – weather. The Nationals made the smart move last night and moved the start of the game back 3 hours to 7:05 to allow the rain to clear out of the area.

The Mets come into tonight’s game with sky-high expectations and after a tumultuous week. The Mets greatly improved their roster this winter and had one of the top rotations in baseball until a week ago. Tylor Megill, who at the start of spring training seemed slated for Syracuse, will make his first Opening Day start after a strong start and a wise tactical move by Showalter to not rush any other pitchers in the Mets rotation to pitch Opening Day.

In two games and 6 2/3 innings during spring training, Tylor Megill allowed two unearned runs from five hits and five walks while striking out 7. Over 18 games last season he pitched 89 2/3 innings with a 4.52 ERA, 4.69 FIP, 1.283 WHIP and an 89 ERA+. Homers were his big weakness – he allowed them at a 1.9 HR/9 IP clip last season. In two starts against the Nationals last season he allowed 6 earned runs from 8 hits and 4 walks over 11 innings of work. The Nationals have the following stats against him:

• Alcides Escobar 2-6, HR, K
• Lane Thomas 1-6, HR, 4 K
• Josh Bell 2-5, HR, 2 K
• Carter Kieboom 1-5, 3 K
• Juan Soto 0-2, 3 BB
• Ehire Adrianza 0-3, BB
• Luis Garcia 1-4, 2B

The Nationals tore down their roster at the trade deadline last year and are committed to the rebuilding process for this season. Tonight though the Mets draw the veteran in the rotation, Patrick Corbin. Corbin had his worst season in his career last year posting a 5.82 ERA, 5.41 FIP, 1.468 WHIP and a 70 ERA+ over 31 starts and 171 2/3 innings. This includes a league leading 111 earned runs and 37 homers. Spring training was much nicer to Corbin where he allowed 4 runs, none earned, over 9 innings of work from 6 hits (including a homer).

Corbin made three starts against the Mets last season and allowed 9 runs from 22 (!) hits and 5 walks over 17.0 innings of work. Mets batters have the following numbers against Corbin:

• Pete Alonso 10-30, 2 2B, 4 HR, 4 BB, 11 K
• J.D. Davis 10-29, 3 2B, 4 HR, 3 BB, 8 K
• Starling Marte 7-26, 2 2B, 2 BB, 5 K
• Brandon Nimmo 4-21, BB, 9 K
• Jeff McNeil 4-19, 2B, BB, 3 K
• Francisco Lindor 5-15, 2B, 2 K
• James McCann 3-10, 2B, BB, 3 K
• Eduardo Escobar 2-8, HR
• Tomas Nido 1-5, 2 K

Let’s Go Mets!

The Mets play the Nationals in their final spring training game before heading north to play … the Nationals again!?!

The Mets tied with the Astros after 9 innings yesterday. Spring records do not matter, but the tie yesterday guarantees that the worst the Mets can finish spring training at is a .500 record today. Carlos Carrasco worked around a couple of early runs, allowing a total of two runs from four hits and a walk in 4 1/3 innings of work. More importantly, he didn’t allow any home runs, which sunk him in his last start. Dominic Smith was the other big star yesterday, hitting a massive 3-run homer to tie the game. His spring training batting average is now at .440 and his OPS is at 1.413.

What We’re Watching For Today:

Taijuan Walker will make his final spring training tune up before the start of the season. In his first two spring starts he has tossed 5 2/3 innings allowing four hits and nothing else. This is the Taijuan Walker the Mets need this week!

The Nationals expected started, Erick Fedde, recently had an injury scare. He was scratched from a start last week due to arm soreness. He got cleared with a clean MRI and today will determine if he’s back on track to join the Nationals rotation during the first week of the season. Fedde pitched in 29 games last year, including 27 starts, with a 5.47 ERA. 4.66 FIP, 1.440 WHIP and a 74 ERA+ over 133 1/3 innings. In spring training this year he has pitched 4 2/3 innings over two games without allowing any runs from three hits and three walks.

Let’s Go Mets!

The last entry in our series this year feels like a time warp – Matt Reynolds returned to the Mets system this year on a minor league and saw a little bit of time in major league camp. Over 5 games he had 7 PA’s. He walked once, scored and had no hits. Currently, Reynolds is on the Syracuse Mets roster.

Matt Reynolds was drafted by the Mets in the 2nd round back in 2012. He made his major league debut in 2016 and saw significant time in 2017. Matt played in 68 games, had 130 PA’s and hit .230/.326/.301. Before the start of the 2018 season his contract was purchased by the Nationals. At this point he bounced around from Washington, to Kansas City, to the White Sox and now he’s finally back home with the Mets. Welcome back Matt!

2017 remains the last time he saw a large stretch of the season in the majors. Matt played 12 games with the Nationals in 2018 and 11 with the Royals in 2020. Unlike other players we looked at this spring, I don’t think his path to the majors this year is too tough, despite not being on the 40-man roster. He profiles as a good fit for a very short term solution if multiple injuries arrive at the same time and the Mets don’t want to burn an option with a younger player. This happened a lot with the Mets last year, hopefully it doesn’t happen again. The National League DH also makes his inclusion in the lineup easier if a short-term infielder is needed.

Welcome back Matt!

It’s the penultimate spring training game!

The Mets will spend the last two days of spring on the same field with an early game against the Astros today and then an early game with the Nationals tomorrow. After that the Mets get a day off and play the Nationals in the season opener in DC.

Do you ever watch a spring training game and wish “I hope they save some of those hits for the regular season”? Yesterday was one of those days as the Mets had 15 hits as a team and scored 8 times against the Marlins. Robinson Canó had a huge day at the plate, going 4-4 with a double raising his spring OPS to .872. Nido collected three hits and raised his spring OPS to 1.114, making a strong case to see more playing time behind the plate. Starling Marte and Pete Alonso also had nice days collecting two hits each. Pete struggled early this spring but now has an OPS of .864 after a few good games this past week – hopefully he keeps this momentum going in DC later this week.

Pitching has been top of mind for the Mets the last several days with the Jacob deGrom news and Max Scherzer possibly missing his first start of the season. This puts even more attention on this afternoon’s starter, Carlos Carrasco. Carrasco was always going to be an x-factor on this team. Any significant steps he could make this year to his career numbers would push the Mets rotation over the edge. Before his last spring training start, we discussed that his weakness last season was the home run ball. All three runs that he was charged with over his four innings of work last week came off of two homers. We’re looking forward to seeing him get ready for the season today!

Let’s Go Cookie! Let’s Go Mets!

As spring winds down, we wind down our Non-Roster Invitation coverage. Today we’ll look at Daniel Palka who the Mets signed as a free agent out of the Nationals organization.

Daniel Palka got a long look this spring and impressed with his size and his bat power. On April 1st he hit a ball with an exit velocity of 114 mph! Overall he got into 13 games this spring and had 24 PA’s where he hit .238/.333/.333.

Palka was drafted by the Phillies in the 19th round back in 2010. He was drafted by the Diamondbacks a few years later in the round of the 2013 draft out of Georgia Institute of Technology. At this point he started to bounce around different systems – first being traded to the Twins, then being claimed by the White Sox (who he later made his major league debut with). He was then signed by the Nationals last year before coming over to the Mets.

Palka saw significant playing time in the majors back in 2018. He played 124 games for the White Sox with 449 PA’s where he slugged 27 homers and put up a .240/.294/.484 line. The following year he played 30 games and had 93 PA’s where he only hit two homers and had a .107/.194/.179 line.

Palka is an intriguing depth signing for the Mets and flashes quite a bit of power. The difficulty for Palka to make it to the roster is finding a spot for him to play. He plays first and outfield, which is a rather common combination on the current Mets roster. That being said, last year the Mets needed to go deep into their farm system so Palka might make sense to call up in a scenario where the Mets want to protect consistent minor league playing time for someone else.

The last several days for the Mets have been absolutely wild and not the fun kind of wild:

• Thursday Night: World learns of a possible Jacob deGrom injury
• Friday Late Morning: deGrom has an MRI – Mets say they will comment later
• Friday Afternoon: Mets lose to the Cardinals
• Friday Afternoon: Mets announce that deGrom will cannot throw for four weeks and then will be evaluated again
• Late Friday Night: Rumors start swirling that the Mets are considering trading Dominic Smith to the Padres for Eric Hosmer/Chris Paddack
• Saturday Morning: A deal is on the table that sends Dominic Smith to San Diego (thankfully the deal is dead a few hours later)
• Saturday Morning: Max Scherzer is scratched from an intrasquad game because of his hamstring
• Saturday Mid-Day: Mets consider using an opener/bullpen game on Opening Day

Just a head spinning last few days. We are down to the final three spring training games before the Mets open the season on the road. At this point of spring the most important thing for any team is to build momentum. After the last few days the Mets need that and some positive energy. I appreciated Buck Showalter’s comments yesterday that the Mets aren’t going to reorganize things around one day, meaning, the Mets aren’t going to force pitchers out of their routine just for Opening Day. A big day today for the Mets can go a long way to resetting the last few days.

What We Are Watching For Today:

Chris Bassitt.

After the deGrom news on Friday, the Bassitt trade becomes much more important. He is now the No. 2 pitcher in the rotation for at least the first two months of the season. His last game was his first official game in Spring Training and he tossed 4 2/3 innings allowing four hits and nothing else while striking out 3 batters. We will gladly take more of that today.

Let’s Go Mets!

Mets Opening Day is only a few days away (and depending on when you read this, it may have already happened!). We are winding down our coverage of Non-Roster Invitees trying to make the team and as expected, we are now previewing players who have already been optioned to the minors / reassigned to the minors – which is the case for today’s prospect Jake Mangum.

You’ll notice something unusual about Jake Mangum on his Baseball Reference page – Jake has been drafted three times! It is common to see baseball players drafted after high school and then at one point in their college career. Jake was drafted in 2017 (30th round) by the Yankees, 2018 (32nd round) by the Mets and 2019 (4th round) by the Mets again. MLB.com‘s prospect page clears up the reason – Jake was chasing the SEC all-time hit record. He reached his goal, collecting 383 hits over his four years at Mississippi State.

Mangum debuted in 2019 with the Cyclones (back when they were a short season team) hitting .247/.337/.297 over 210 PAs. After the pandemic stoppage in 2020, he played from Brooklyn and Binghamton in 2021. Over 368 PA’s he hit .285/.337/.454. In Binghamton he was a little over a year older than the average player in the league.

We’ve been talking a lot about Mangum’s hitting but he’s actually known for his defense. MLB.com notes that he may be “the best defender in the Mets system with enough range and arm strength to play quality center field”. He also has speed.

The issue for the Mets right now is where does he fit? The roster needs another outfielder, but the Mets are having trouble right now squeezing in Travis Jankowski. Khalil Lee, also speedy, and Nick Plummer are prospects who both already have 40-man roster spots.

That being said, considering Jake’s age and how things for the Mets generally go, we’ll probably see him at some point this season with the big league club. His defense and hitting ability have created a following on MetsTwitter. If he can add some pop this year as well then maybe he becomes a sleeper prospect.

Will I finish the Non-Roster Invitation Preview series before the start of the season? Maybe! We’re cutting it close! We have a few more players to look at and today’s – Travis Jankowski – has gotten a long during spring training.

Jankowski was drafted in the first round, 44th overall, back in 2012 by the Padres out of Stony Brook (which if you have watched any games on SNY this year, you probably have heard he’s local about 23,000 times by now). He made his major league debut in 2015 and has played parts of every season since seeing significant playing time in 2016, 2018 and 2021.

In 2021 with the Phillies he played in 76 games and had 176 PA’s hitting .252/.364/.351 which is pretty good compared to his career line of .239/.322/.318.

For the Mets, as of April 2nd, he has played in 10 games with 21 PA’s hitting .235/.381/.235. If he makes the team, he would be 4th/5th outfielder type with speed. Speed is his main tool and it’s a tool that’s lacking a bit on the Mets roster. The Mets have four outfielders on their 40 man roster that look like they’ll make it to the Major League roster (Canha, Marte, Nimmo, Smith). Jeff McNeil can also swing to the outfield if needed. Jankowski is also competing with two minor league players on the roster, Lee and Plummer, who are almost definitely, barring something major, starting the season in the minors. On paper, it looks like Jankowski is a fit, but it’s unclear how without someone coming off of the 40-man roster.

Weird things happen the last week of Spring Training. Let’s see how this all shakes out.

Mets fans got the news last night we didn’t want to hear – a Jacob deGrom scratch. He was experienced right shoulder tightness, announced fairly late last night, and is not expected to make his scheduled start. As you can imagine, the bulk of us handled this news well, without reading too much into and without freaking out.

The Mets also lost their game to the Nationals last night 7-3. But, it’s still spring training and the result isn’t the most important part of the game. Taijuan Walker tossed 3.2 scoreless innings, scattering 3 hits and striking out 2. Trevor May had a clean inning of work with two strikeouts. Edwin Diaz allowed a run over an inning of work and Seth Lugo had a clean inning followed by an inning where he allowed two runs. Overall, a bit of a mixed bag.

What We are Watching For:

In place of deGrom this afternoon, we’ll see Felix Pena. Felix made his major league debut back in 2016 as a member of the Chicago Cubs and has pitched six seasons across the Cubs and Angels. 2020 was the last season where he saw significant time in the majors. He pitched in 25 games and 26.2 innings with a 4.05 ERA, 3.00 FIP, 1.313 WHIP and a 113 ERA+. In one game for the Mets this Spring he has allowed 1 hit and walked 2 batters in 2.0 scoreless innings of work.

We are also hoping that Pete Alonso builds off his last game. The last time Pete played he hit a three run homer, the only runs the Mets got in their 5-3 loss. Overall this Spring he is hitting .217/.357/.435 over 28 PA’s.

Let’s Go Mets!

For the last several days we’ve been at an awkward phase with our NRI Preview series – players were are previewing have already been sent to minor league camp. This happens every year when we space out on preview a day and we had a feeling that it would happen sooner this year with the delayed start to camp leading to regulars getting more reps in games, no split-squad games early in spring, and the lockout leading to a late announcement of players invited to camp.

Carlos Cortes was drafted by the Mets, twice! The Mets drafted him out of high school in round 20 back in 2016 and he opted to go to college instead. Two years later the Mets drafted him in the third round. Carlos Cortes is also ambidextrous. In this profile from the NY Post, he talks about growing up lefty, but having righty motor schools – even to the point that he thought being an ambidextrous pitcher in high school.

MLB.com currently has Carlos listed as the Mets #15 overall prospect. He’s a power first prospect hat has shown power at various points in his life, like slugging .528 through college, despite his size at 5-foot-7 (and being 5’4″ myself, I’m all for shorter baseball players with some pop). The Mets didn’t put him on the 40-man this past year, which made him vulnerable to a Rule V draft that never happened.

Before the pandemic, he hit .256/.336/.397 in St. Lucie over 526 PA’s. He started to stand out more the following year. During the Covid shut down of the minors, he went to Australia and hit .392/.429/.706 over 56 PA’s. When he returned to minor league baseball in the states, he hit .257/.332/.487 in Binghamton. That was an 80 point OPS gain compared to his time in St. Lucie.

MLB.com suggests that he may be eventually destined for a platoon rule in the majors. His age (24 right now, will be 25 during the season) suggests that he could be ready for a taste of the majors this upcoming season. The Mets have several different platoon style players and after everything that happened to the roster last year with injuries, it’s not impossible seeing a way that Cortes is called up at some point this year.