213 Miles From Shea

Phillip Evans has a non-roster invite for a second straight year for the Mets. The only difference this time for the 25 year old who was drafted in the 15th round of the 2011 draft: he actually made the majors last year.

We previewed him last year around this time. This was our critical takeaway:

Now there’s a lot of players in the way of Phillip Evans getting the bench spot (Reyes, Walker, Wright, Flores, Rivera and Cabrera) for three positions. I’m curious to see what happens if Evans is given time in the PCL. does he keep up the hitting? He hasn’t put numbers like he did last year at any other time.

Then we went on to make a really wrong prediction:

I am confident about this though: If Phillip Evans puts up similar numbers, or close numbers, to what he did in Binghamton last year, and somehow doesn’t make the 40-man by the end of the season, he’s going to have to be traded otherwise he’s going to get snatched in the Rule V draft.

Oops. When you’re wrong its only polite to admit it.

Last year in the majors Evans got 38 PA’s and hit .303/.395/.364. Last year he hit .279/.341/.418. Even though he took a step back in the minors in 2017 compared to 2016 in terms of raw numbers, he did it all at Triple A and was successful in an extremely limited outing in the majors.

So far this spring he has spent some time learning to catch, something he has never done, in order to stretch his value. He once again this season has the same issue he had last year. There are a lot of players on the active roster ahead of him for the infield. It will only get worse when TJ comes back. But if Evans keeps hitting, he’ll have to come up at some point.

It’s another season in Mets baseball land and it’s also another year of “The National League doesn’t have a DH? Where does Wilmer play?”. Let’s just jump right to the stats projections for 2018:

Wilmer had an odd year last year. He wasn’t worth that much in terms of wins but he still hit .271 (his OBP was only slightly higher, which provides insight into this WAR) and he had a lot of pop last year. But so did a lot of players. He was hampered due to bizarre injuries last year. But so did a lot of (Mets) players.

When looking at the stat projections, there is a wide set of projected PAs, probably due to when the data set was ran. For example, Baseball Prospectus, which was sent to print sometime in January happened before the Mets signed both Gonzalez, Reyes and Frazier. Before that it looked like Wilmer was going to get significant playing time.

The average of all of the projections have Flores putting up a similar slash line. With the Mets projected lineup, Flores coming off the bench and hits .271/.311/.465 would be perfect.

Guess who’s back?
Back Again?
Kelly’s Back.
Tell a Mensch.

Ty Kelly has been a member of many organizations since being drafted in 2009 by the Orioles. He was traded in 2013 to the Mariners for Thames, he then was traded to the Cardinals for Gaviglio. He was then selected off waivers by the Blue Jays and signed with the Mets in November of 2015. The Mets DFA’d him in April and he was selected off waivers by the Blue Jays and then was purchased by the Phillies. In January he became a Met again.

Last year we concluded the following about Kelly:

It will be a hard road for Kelly, there are a lot of players in front of him. He’ll also get a good amount of playing time since he’s heading off to play for Israel in the WBC.

And ultimately the Mets needed him early in the season, which led to the Mets having to DFA him which started Kelly’s 2017 journey around the majors. He only had 1 PA with the Mets were he struck out in 2017 and then for the Phillies he had 104 where he slashed .193/.260/.341 (thanks to two homers in 88 ABs). In the previous year for the Mets he hit .241/.352/.345 in 71 PAs.

The Mets shouldn’t have to rely on Kelly heavily at any point this year unless something goes wrong. This being the Mets, that’s completely possible as a lot went wrong last year. He’s a solid depth signing that gives the Mets flexibility without need to expose any prospects to the majors too early.

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).