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 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!

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.

This is going to be a fun one folks, today we look at Pete Alonso 2019 Prospect profile. You know Pete Alonso. He hit 53 homers, setting a record for a rookie. He won the home run derby. He coined “LFGM”. He won the Rookie of the Year Award. All around good fun for Mets fans.

Before the 2019 season, BA wrote that Alonso led the minors with 36 homers in 2018. They also discussed his homer in the Future’s Game that year that left his bat at 113.6 mph. He was breaking stat cast numbers. foreshadowing his 2019. He has 70 power. He has 20 running ability. He’s not great defensively. Etc. He’s an “American League player in the National League”. They ended with he’ll be ready in early 2019.

And it’s easy to forget that last year it was unknown if he was going to start the season with the Mets! But he started the season with the Mets and had a tremendous offensive impact. As the season went on he wasn’t as big as a liability with the glove than originally thought. Going into his second major league season he has graduated off the prospect list in the best way possible. He has personal hardware and he’s hoping to bring the Mets some team hardware in short order, so he can be “on a float drunk as hell” in October.

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?

This isn’t the first time or the second time we’ve written about Patrick Mazeika. Just to quickly catch you up on the long time Mets farm system catcher, Mazeika was drafted in 2015 with a .348 batting average from Stetson University. In his first season he dominated hitting .354/.451/.540 at Kingsport. For the next several years he would continue to hit well, with numbers dropping a bit each way up the ladder in the minors. In 2018 he hit just .231/.328/.363, a steep decline from his previous year, at Binghamton. Last year we ended our NRI with, we have no idea where he’s going to play in 2019.

And the answer was Binghmaton. He went back to Binghamton. In 462 PA’s, 413 AB’s he hit .245/.312/.426. So, improved greatly with power, slightly with batting average and saw a dip in OBP. The Mets then sent him to the Arizona Fall League where he hit .174/.208/.239 over 48 PAs (a league where he was 2.9 years older than the average player). At 26, I guess he’s going to Syracuse next year? Maybe?

Again tricky for Mazeika is where all the catchers are in the system. Wilson Ramos is a lock as the starter. Then Rene Rivera and Tomas Nido, despite, Rivera not being on the 40 man, are battling for back up. That leaves Mazeika and David Rodriguez battling for next in line but the Mets need a long term solution, they also have Ali Sanchez, who is going to next defensive long-term back up solution. So we are just back to where we were last year, not knowing where Mazeika fits, and looking forward to the spring to figure it out.

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 what may go down as the worst free agent signing in the history of the Mets, Jed Lowrie was brought in before last season on a two year, 20 million dollar deal. BVW signed his former client even though the Mets had a crowded infield already, made more crowded by trades for both Robinson Cano and J.D. Davis. But he was signed and then right before spring training games last year he got a mysterious leg injury. He somehow played a little bit at the end of the year for no explicable reason outside of getting him into games. He arrived to camp this year in a brace.

2019 Stats: 8 PA, 7 AB, BB, .000/.125/.000

(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 most projections see Lowrie playing about half a season, which seems optimistic considering we still don’t know the state of his health. At a .720ish OPS, he’s a solid hitter but wouldn’t be a starter compared to the other hitters on the Mets. But his price tag dictates he plays.

We’ll see if any of these projections are right at the end of the season. If they are, I’m curious to hear how they handled Lowrie. I really am not excited for him right now. He’s going to squeeze someone out of a roster spot, his position seems superfluous, there’s not a lot of hope that he is the player that was with the Athletics and finally the only way someone takes him a trade is if the Mets put a real prospect with him.

Happy first day of baseball in 2020! In short order we will be able to hear the SNY tune with the Mets booth welcoming us to St. Lucie and the Mets renovated stadium. The Mets will play a split squad schedule to open up spring, with half the squad taking on the Marlins at home and the other half going to Jupiter to take on the Cardinals.

And right away this year we jump into the main position battle for the Queens squad today – who will be the 5th starter – with newly acquired pitcher Rick Porcello making the start at home. On the road Marcus Stroman makes his first start of Spring.

There are plenty of other interesting pitchers listed on lineup cards today as well. At home Drew Smith and Ryder Ryan could make their spring debuts and Non-Roster Invitee hopefuls like Shreve, Uceta and Gilliam are all listed as available. On the road Ramirez, Payano and Blackham, all with the Mets on NRI’s are listed as possibly going.

Lineup vs Marlins:

1. Jeff McNeil
2. Pete Alonso
3. Michael Conforto
4. Wilson Ramos
5. Matt Adams (DH)
6. Jake Marisnick
7. Andres Gimenez
8. Jarrett Parker
9. Max Moroff
10. Rick Porcello

Lineup vs Cardinals:

1. Amed Rosario
2. Brandon Nimmo
3. J.D. Davis
4. Dominic Smith
5. Eduardo Nunez
6. Luis Guillorme
7. Ryan Cordell
8. Rene Rivera
9. Jake Hager
10. Marcus Stroman

It looks like pretty much every starter the Mets have are in the lineup somewhere today. Being the first split squad game, there are heavy amount of Non-Roster Invitees in the lineups as well. At home we’ll get our first look at Matt Adams, Jarrett Parker and Max Moroff. On the road we’ll see Ryan Cordell, Eduardo Nunez, Rene Rivera and Jake Hager. As a fun trivia note, Ryan Cordell in the lineup and Johneshwy Fargas on the bench were drafted in the same round of the same draft (11th round, 2013).

It’s baseball! There are a lot of new names and we are just so excited to see the greatest sport again! LGM!

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.

In 2019 Ronny Mauricio was the #3 prospect in the Mets system according to Baseball America. Ahead of him was Pete Alonso at #2, the reigning rookie of the year, and Andres Gimenez, who is way closer to the majors than Ronny. That being said, going into this season, Ronny is the most exciting prospect in the Mets system.

When the Mets signed him to a 2.1 million dollar contract in 2017, he was the third best international prospect. He made a strong debut in 2018 at 17 years old in the Gulf Coast and Kingsport. BA wrote that “Mauricio has all the attributes to develop a plus bat with plus power. Both his hand speed and bat speed stand out…” BA went on to give him a 70 grade arm, keeping him at short. They predicted that he would go to Columbia and he projects as a first-division regular at either short or third.

2018 Gulf Coast: 212 PA, 197 AB, .279/.307/.421
2018 Kingsport: 35 PA, 30 AB, .233/.286/.333
2019 Columbia: 504 PA, 470 AB, .268/.307/.357

Mauricio put up those numbers last year at 18 years old, 3.5 years below the average in the league and he only had 8 games in Kingsport the previous year. He essentially skipped the more rigorous of the Rookie leagues and skipped Brooklyn at all, which if it wasn’t for the talent he showed in 2018, probably would have been his next stop. He’s on his way to high A ball. He’s still growing and is developing into the Mets most exciting prospect. We cannot wait for his 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?

Austin Bossart is the first, and possibly only, player on the NRI list I was surprised to see get a NRI only because a reasonably ran organization would never extend him one with his current stats / other players at his position already getting an NRI. But those organizations probably wouldn’t trade a starting pitcher doing fairly well for him either so there’s that.

Last year the Mets acquired Austin Bossart for Jason Vargas in a trade with the Phillies. For one season in college, he was teammates with Bradley Wilpon, the son of Jeff Wilpon. You can take that for what it’s worth. If you are trying to figure out why the Mets acquired Bossart, he was one of the highest ranked defensive catchers but has really, really struggled at hitting.

When the Mets acquired him last year,he was hitting .195/.303/.335 at Reading despite being almost a full year above the average age at that level (in 63 games, 236 PA, 200 AB). He hit just about the same with Binghamton over 70 PA, 60 AB with a .200/.300/.300 slash line. Overall in 1009 PA’s across 5 minor league seasons he has hit .257/.318/.370.

It’s just difficult to see where he fits in right now. Rene Rivera is the NRI pick to eventually fight back onto the roster, David Rodriguez and Patrick Mazeika are next inline fighting to make it to the majors and Ali Sanchez is the defensive catcher prospect (plus Francisco Alvarez as the actual catching prospect). Bossart has to force himself as a better option than the veteran Rivera, more appealing than a roll of a dice with Rodriguez and Mazeika.

Giving him an NRI doesn’t cost the Mets anything. Maybe it’s to get him more practice catching the starters in camp also on NRI’s? This move is just an overall head scratcher for me.

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.

Luis Guillorme got into 10 more games last year but somehow had 4 less trips to the plate. Which is surprising because by most metrics he improved at the plate last season going from a .209/.284/.239 line to .246/.324/.361 and going from -0.3 WAR to 0.3 WAR. We all know his bat isn’t the reason why the Mets want him around, it’s his glove, which is probably why he got into more games last year – more a late inning defensive option.

2019 Stats: 45 G, 70 PA, 61 AB, HR, .246/.324/.361, 0.3 WAR, 85 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)

The problem with projecting Luis is figuring out his playing time. I think he makes the team out of camp. The only thing really blocking him at this point is Lowrie and Cespedes’ health. If both of them are healthy and ready to go out of camp, then Luis gets squeezed out of a roster spot. That’s a shame because the Mets don’t have a defensive minded middle/corner infielder anywhere else on their roster. My secondary concern is Eduardo Nunez. I would pick Guillorme over Nunez every day now, even if Nunez has an amazing Spring Training. If they both have an average spring training and there’s a spot for one of them, despite Nunez not even being on the 40 man yet, I don’t trust the front office to make the right decision because Nunez used to be a star.

His projections have him hitting about what he did last year if not a tick better. I think that’s more than worth the intangibles that he brings. Plus a not fully healthy Lowrie is probably a strain on everything rather than Luis he just feels like he fits.

But I’ve been supporting Luis for a long time now and it still feels like the Mets refuse to lean into him. Use him! He’s the only one who fits his profile Here’s hoping we see more Guillorme this year!