213 Miles From Shea

The Mets 2018 season is going to depend on the bat of Yoenis Cespedes. Yoenis is not just one of the most feared hitters in the Mets lineup, he has the swagger the Mets need on the field. Once the Mets lost him and Syndergaard last year, the team lost a lot of its swagger. Let’s take a look at some of the numbers the projections see Yoenis posting:

Cespedes last year was hampered by injuries. What the numbers don’t take into account are the changes to Cespedes’s health in the off-season. He is supposedly drinking water now, lifting less weights and doing more yoga. Will it protect his hamstrings? That’s what the data is having a hard time taking that into account.

Baseball Prospectus and ESPN sees Cespedes playing a whole season, Steamer and MLB.com sees Yo playing a whole season with some time off. Everyone else is looking at some significant time off.

The projectiosn are pretty consistent on his power numbers and see a regression in power and a slight, slight regression in OBP and batting average. The slash line means nothing though if Cespedes doesn’t play the whole season.

The first 2016 Mets draft pick with a non-roster invite, Peter (Pete) Alonso last year saw stock soar and Mets fans started to notice him in the latter part of the season once Dominic Smith was called up. Alonso next season is completely tied to Dominic Smith. Smith is facing pressure from Adrian Gonzalez, from below with Alonso. Plus, Smith is facing pressure from Flores looking for AB’s and Bruce once Conforto comes back.

Anyway, this isn’t an article about Smith, its an article about Alonso. Last season between Binghamton and St. Lucie he had 393 PAs slashing .289/.359/.524. In 2016 with Brooklyn he hit .321/.382/.587.

When you post a .969 OPS and then a .883 OPS the following season, especially when the power development was a bit of a surprise, you turn heads, which is what Alonso has done.

Ultimately, something needs to go drastically wrong with the Mets for Alonso to get playing time before September, if he even sees the majors in September but for an organization with a light farm system, it would be wonderful for the Mets to get a surprise from Alonso, even if they trade him before he ever sees time in the majors.

Out of all of the position players with the Mets in camp who aren’t on the 40 man, Alonso is clearly the one to watch.

Today we start a yearly labor of love – stat projection review! We look at the stat projections from several sources including Baseball Prospectus, ZiPS, Steamer, MLB.com, Baseball Reference, etc to find out what the pundits think the Mets are going to do this season.

What a difference a year makes for Michael Conforto. At this point last year Terry Collins was debating putting Conforto into Vegas or let him be the 4th outfielder. Then the season started and Collins rotated Conforto in and out of the lineup until it was clear he was putting up career numbers.

For the first month or so of the season, Conforto was rivaling Aaron Judge in OPS. Then Conforto suffered a bizarre, Mets-esqe injury.

Now for the projections, they see Conforto having a similar season, they mainly disagree with how much playing time he’ll get. For example, Baseball Prospectus at print still had Conforto playing a whole season. ESPN is the most bullish, but they run the most bullish normally.

The Mets season will depend on the numbers that Conforto is able to put up and how quickly Conforto can back to the field. At this point, I’m not expecting seeing him everyday in the lineup until the first week of June.

Today we take a look at another 2015 draft pick for the Mets getting an NRI to major league camp: Patrick Mazeika. Mazeika was drafted in the 8th round out of Stetson University and the 24 year old throws right but bats left.

After spending all of 2015 in Kingsport and 2016 in Columbia, Mazeika split time last year in St. Lucie and Binghamton (but mostly in St. Lucie) where he played in 106 games and 437 Plate Appearances slashing a .290/.389/.416. In his career he has posted a .311/.413/.445 in 998 PAs.

While he has spent most of his time in the lower levels of the minors, whenever a player posts a .413 OBP, they are going to turn heads.

Overall in the minors, his power has slowly improved each season which is going to garner attention for him. The question for Patrick is going to be does the defense improve. If it doesn’t he’ll have to go to first base so his power would have to radically improve in order to be considered a valuable prospect. With Nido in front of him, there is no pressure long term on the Mets to rush Mazeika. It should be interesting watching him in Spring between established players like d’Arnaud, Lobaton, slightly established players like Plawecki and the rising stock in Nido.

After Rene Rivera signed with the Angels this off-season, the Mets needed to find a veteran catcher to back up both Plaweck and d’Arnaud who are about as reliable health wise as the G train. This is the first season in the while the Mets do not have Xorge Carrillo as a far down the depth chart option and don’t want to call up Nido again unless they can provide an extended amount / consistent of playing time, so here comes Jose Lobaton.

The long time National, Jose Lobaton slashed .170/.248/.277 over 158 PAs last year and is a .218/.295/.324 career hitter over 8 years spanning from 2009 on. He has bounced around the last couple of seasons in terms of being a boost defensively. In 2011 he posted a 3 DRS, then the next two years he was negative and 2014 he posted a 6, by far his best season. Last year he was a -5. For the Mets, he’s a good veteran to bring in for a just in case situation that reliably seems to occur for the Mets throughout the season.

Jose Lobaton was a smart signing for the Mets. He’s not going to have a knock out season, if he stays with the Mets after Spring Training, he will probably find his way to Queens before the end of the season. The Mets don’t need him to be a surprise, they just need Lobaton to be himself.

I love baseball. I love food.

When I went to Seattle, I knew I would have to eat some crickets before leaving. I didn’t want to get a whole portion of them. Not because I think crickets are gross but if beer costs about 10 dollars and fries are at least 5 dollars, I didn’t want to know how much a portion of crickets were. (I found out the day after having them it’s only $4 for a portion, a bargain!)

I was with The 7 Line Army and the event I was banking on occurred. Someone got crickets and started asking if anyone wanted one. I bolted up, saying “Yes!” I’ve had 4 beers at that point. Normally I’m too shy to ask / accept offers of food. The beer was part of this cricket plan. I drink for crickets? Sure. Are you laughing? No. That’s why I hear crickets. Delicious. Part of the plan.

We round out our preview of pitchers in camp with non-roster invites with Adonis Uceta who is near the top in terms of velocity out of a group that includes Corey Taylor, PJ Conlon, Matt Purke and Drew Smith (Smith is the only competition with a similar fastball range).

Uceta has been playing for Mets farm teams since he was 19 in the Dominican Summer League (2013). Last year the Mets changed him to be a reliever and stock changed dramatically. The then 23 year old posted a 1.51 ERA, 1.66 RAvg over 59.2 innings between Columbia, St. Lucie and Binghamton. The previous year he pitched exclusively in Kingsport posting a 4.99 ERA, 6.46 RAvg which highlights how much of a gigantic step forward he took last season.

I would expect this season for Uceta to start in Binghamton and we’ll see what the Mets do with him throughout the season. He has fast stuff but so do several players of similar make up in the Mets system. Like Smith, he’ll probably only be added to the 40 man this season if something goes wrong with injuries (but that is also the same thing we said about Sewalk and McGowan last season at this time).

For the second time this week, we look at a non-roster invite who was a non-roster invite last year as well: Corey Taylor. The now 25 year old was drafted by the Mets in the 7th round of the 2015 draft out of Texas Tech.

From last year’s preview of Corey Taylor:

However, and stop me if you heard this before for non-roster invites, his numbers have been impressive in the minors and forced the issue that we need to talk about him. In his first season in Brooklyn he tossed 18.0 innings over 18 games with a 1.50 ERA with 16 K’s and a 1.000 WHIP. Pretty good.

This is still the case for Taylor. His numbers returned to Earth last year but he went from working in St. Lucie to putting a whole season in Binghamton. In 2015, Taylor posted a 1.50 ERA over 18.0 innings in Brooklyn. Then in 2015 he posted 1.87 ERA over 53.0 innings in St. Lucie. At the end of the season he posted an impressive 1.93 ERA in 14.0 innings in the Fall League.

Last year in Binghamton he posted a 3.61 ERA, 1.332 WHIP in 62.1 innings. Similar to Conlon, when your stuff isn’t overpowering, your numbers will jump in Double A. With a full season of pitching to better players who were a tick older than him (when he dominated in Brooklyn, he was almost a year older than the average player), I’m curious to see how he responds this Spring. He and Conlon also have a lot more competition of relievers that throw much higher coming in from all of the trades at the end of the season. You can never have too many arms, but due to Corey being a right handed thrower and the amount of flamethrowers in the system now, I find it unlikely that he makes it to the 40 man before September.

Drew Smith is a right handed pitcher with a non-roster invite to Mets camp this year. He was drafted in the 3rd round by the Tigers in the 2015 draft. The Rays acquired Smith from the Tigers in late April last year as the Player To Be Named Later in the Mikie Mahtook trade. Drew Smith made his way to the Mets in the Lucas Duda trade. He was the Rays #30 prospect.

When the Mets traded Duda, the general feeling on #MetsTwitter was that Drew Smith wasn’t enough in a return. Drew Smith was apparently requested by several teams at the trade deadline last year according to Joel Sherman who in the same report noted that Smith had a 98 mph fastball.

Source says Drew Smith, going to Mets for Duda, has “really good arm,” throws mid-to-upper 90s. Teams wanted him despite rank in TB Top 30.

— Mark Feinsand (@Feinsand) July 27, 2017

So now Drew Smith, with late game potential, is at Mets camp. Over three seasons he has posted a 1.80 ERA with a 0.952 WHIP in 139.2 innings in the Minors. Last season he posted a 1.65 ERA with a 0.900 WHIP over 60.0 innings. This was across AAA Durham, AA Montgomery, A+ Lakeland, A+ Charlotte. By the time he got to the Mets, they put him on the Binghamton roster but he didn’t pitch for them.

I’m excited to see Drew Smith’s stuff develop this season for the Mets. He is part of this glut of “C+” level relievers the Mets have all over their farm system. The goal is to get a few of them to blossom. Maybe it will be Smith?

With the departure of Josh Smoker, Matt Purke’s depth position just shot up. Blevins is the only southpaw int he Mets pen so Purke won’t have to do as much this spring to possibly break into the 40 man roster before the end of camp.

Matt Purke was drafted by the Nationals in 2011 in the 3rd round and released in 2014 and then signed again with the Nationals 4 days later. The following season he signed with the White Sox where he broke into the majors in 2016. In limited innings (18.0 over 12 games) posting a 5.50 ERA with a 3.48 FIP and 1.778 WHIP. Last year he posted a 3.48 ERA over 65.2 innings with the White Sox Triple A team.

Purke really made his name long before any of this. He was originally drafted in 2009 in the first round and went to TCU instead where he posted a 3.02 ERA over 116 innings with a 142/34 K/BB. His stock slipped by the time he was drafted by the Nationals due to injuries. He has already had Tommy John.

According to this scouting report from Minor League Ball: his fastball still sits int he low 90s, has a slider and split finger he uses. The last thing the Mets need is another pitcher with injuries woes, but the Mets are going to need another left handed pitcher. I see Purke right now as a possible lightning in a bottle situation. Maybe this is the year that he finally puts his injuries behind him and the stuff he has always had comes through.