213 Miles From Shea

There are four spring training games left before the start of the regular season. If the Mets win today’s game, they will guarantee that they cannot end spring training with a losing record – not that it matters anyway.

Yesterday the Mets lost to the Yankees 5-3 in Tampa. Mark Vientos had the highlight of the game hitting an early two-run bomb. It was a team leading fifth home run of the spring. With the J.D. Martinez signing, the Vientos is no longer the starting DH for the ball club. Martinez may start the season in the minors to ramp up baseball activities, so there’s a chance Vientos is the Opening Day DH. His playing time in the coming days is something to keep an eye on.

With José Quintana on the hill this afternoon, there’s a lot of Opening Day rehearsal energy at the ballpark. We are so close to meaningful games!

Three Things To Watch For:

1. José Quintana, Opening Day Starter. There’s a lot going on for Quintana right now! Quintana became an American citizen this week after passing his naturalization test in Miami. He talked about his experience with reporters including how one of his major concerns, after waiting half a year to get the appointment, was missing time in the regular season to travel to Miami to take the test. Focusing on today, Quintana has his final tune up before his big Opening Day start in Queens. Over four games this spring he has allowed nine runs, only six earned, in 13 innings while striking out 12 batters.
2. Mark Vientos: Mark Vientos hit his fifth homer of spring in yesterday’s game. His spring has been punctuated with moments of power between small stretches where he has racked up strikeouts. He has 18 strikeouts over 54 at bats, but they are clumped. For example, six happened on back to back days. The result has been a low .250 OBP with a high .537 SLG. As spring winds down we are hoping he can work on increasing his OBP clip without sacrificing power.
3. Jiman Choi: Choi can become a free agent tomorrow if the Mets do not add him to the 40-man roster. He is 6-for-35 this spring spread over 15 games. His OBP his 120 points higher than his batting average as he has also worked six walks this spring. Since the Martinez signing, it is more difficult, but not impossible, to see a path forward for Choi on the Mets roster.

Let’s Go Mets!

For the second day in a row the Mets hit the road and play a team that is not named the Cardinals, Astros, Marlins or Nationals as they head across to Florida to take on the Yankees in Tampa.

Yesterday was a pretty good day in Mets land. The Mets beat the Tigers 10-5, hitting three home runs. Harrison Bader had his second homerun of the spring, raising his spring OPS to .859. Brett Baty hit his third home run of spring. Zack Short had a grand slam to put the game out of reach for the Tigers.

A couple of hours after the game the Mets announced that they signed J.D. Martinez to a one-year, ending a long search for a DH. Martinez completely changes the Mets lineup and finally provides Pete Alonso with significant protection. The Martinez signing now makes it more difficult for DJ Stewart and Jiman Choi to break with the team out of camp. The signing also makes finding playing time for Mark Vientos difficult.

Three Things To Watch For:

1. Tyler Stuart gets a start! Tyler Stuart last pitched in a major spring training game for the Mets on February 26. He tossed two innings allowing a hit, a walk and nothing else. Stuart was drafted by the Mets in the 6th round back in 2022 out of the University of Southern Mississippi. He had had a tremendous year last season making 21 starts between Brooklyn and Binghamton tossing 110 2/3 innings with a 2.20 ERA.
2. Zack Short: Short doubled his RBI’s this spring in one at bat yesterday after hitting a grand slam. He’s hitting .303/.410/.485 over 15 games and 33 AB’s. Is his strong spring enough to grab one of the last bench spots on the team? With the Martinez signing, there’s probably room for only one of Mark Vientos, DJ Stewart, Jiman Choi and Zack Short on the team.
3. Brett Baty continues his recent surge. Baty has hit home runs now in consecutive starts. All of his homers have come in the month of March and this month alone he is hitting .294/.385/.588. He has hits in nine of eleven games he’s played in this month. Let’s keep the momentum going into the regular season!

Let’s Go Mets!

The Mets are getting on a roll as they wrap their spring training schedule. The Mets have won four of their last five spring training games and depending on how you look at the split-squad situation last Sunday, they are either on a two or three game winning streak right now.

The big story in yesterday’s game was Christian Scott. The Mets prospect got the start as the Mets are starting to hide their starters from major league games in the final week of the season (which is normal!). Scott pitched four innings allowing one run from two hits and struck out seven batters. The Mets will continue sending out their top prospects as Dom Hamel gets the start in today’s game!

There are some familiar and interesting names in the other dugout to pay attention to as well. For the second time this spring the Mets will face off against an old friend in Mark Canha. The Tigers also have two of their top prospects in the lineup today – Colt Keith and Parker Meadows.

Three Things To Watch For:

1. Dom Hamel’s big start! We last saw Hamel during the Mets Spring Breakout game where he started off the game pitching two innings allowing one run from two hits and a walk while striking out two batters. Hamel burst on the Mets scene back in 2022 when he posted a 3.25 ERA over 119 innings across St. Lucie and Brooklyn. He followed it up with a 3.85 ERA over 124 innings in Binghamton last year. There is a significant chance that Dom makes his major league debut at some point this season.
2. Brett Baty: Baty went 1-for-3 at the plate Tuesday working a walk and hitting his second home run of the spring. Overall this spring he is 10-for-41 hitting .244/.311/.415. The line is a far cry from his line in 2023 that hyped up the fan base (.325/.460/.425), but his current batting line is being weighed down by his slow start. If you look at only March, he’s hitting .290/.371/.516 with all of his extra base hits happening in the last 20 days. Let’s keep this momentum going!
3. Francisco Álvarez’s Arm: The hype around Álvarez is usually about his bat, but we need to talk about his arm. He threw out Herrera on Tuesday trying to steal second base. This spring he has already caught eight batters stealing (take these numbers with grain of salt as they also include catching batters at home and it’s spring training). Last spring, in eight games as a catcher, he didn’t catch anyone stealing. Last season he caught 15 batters stealing. This is something to keep an eye on this season.

Let’s Go Mets!

Across the world, the (RESULT OF GAME) opened the 2024 season in the first ever Korea Series. We have less than a week of spring training games left before the Mets head up north. You can already see the signs of things starting to wind down at camp. The Mets made another round of roster cuts yesterday, everyone left with the team is in a position battle. The lineup in yesterday’s game had all of the batters (although not necessarily in that order) we expect to see on Opening Day. The Mets sent starting pitchers Luis Severino and José Buttó to start minor leagues games, which is common at this point of the year – we are so close!

This is the part of spring where momentum becomes important. The Mets split the results for their split-squad game on Sunday and won last night 3-1 behind a strong start from Sean Manaea. Francisco Álvarez and Brett Baty’s bats carried the team. Let’s keep the vibes going this afternoon!

Three Things To Watch For:

1. Christian’s Scott big start: Christian Scott gets the start today. So far the Mets prospect has only been in one official spring training game allowing one run over one inning of work, so potentially this could be the first extended look in an official spring training game for him. If you were unaware, Scott had a terrific year last year in the minors making 19 starts pitching 87 2/3 innings with a 2.57 ERA. There is a high chance we see him make his major league debut this year.
2. Ji-Man Choi: Choi will be allowed to walk away from his major league deal if he is not added to a major league roster soon. Over 12 games this spring Choi is hitting .222/.364/.497 where has walked six times and struck out seven times.
3. Joey Wendle’s quiet spring: It’s a small-sample size, but Wendle has put together a good spring with the Mets. He is 7-for-15 over six games so far with two runs scored. The only thing missing from his spring so far is power – all seven of his hits have been singles.

Let’s Go Mets!

The Mets return to the diamond tonight after only their second off day this spring. It was a busy weekend for the Mets who played five games over the course of three days. The Mets will now play straight through the rest of the spring with no days off until the two-day break before Opening Day. This final stretch is when spring training starts to feel more like a dress rehearsal for the regular season. Batters will get longer starts. As starters go deeper into games, relievers will start to be used in their normal innings. Some relievers will be brought in for specific situations (like one or two out with multiple runners on).

The big news today is Jeff McNeil returns to action, which means the Mets are sending out a lineup that looks pretty close, if not identical, to their Opening Day lineup. The only difference may be the order as Jeff McNeil is batting cleanup today.

Three Things To Watch For:

1. Jeff McNeil’s Return: McNeil’s spring training was derailed at the start of the month due to bicep soreness. Since then he’s slowly progressing to get to game strength and finally reached that mark over the weekend after a minor league game where he went 2-for-3 at the plate, played five innings at second and had a strikeout. Todd Zeile during Sunday’s Mets broadcast talked about how the strikeout might be a good sign – you want your bicep to feel good after good swings and bad swings. Anyway with McNeil’s return we can finally start to starting rosters in the final week that look like the Mets actual Opening Day roster.
2. The Mets will go as far as the back third of the lineup lets them. Let’s assume, and this is a dangerous thing to do, that the last three batters in the lineup are Brett Baty, Mark Vientos and Harrison Bader when the first real lineup is posted at the end of March. These are the three bats that are key for the Mets having a season better than the pundits are expecting. Does Brett Baty make the next step? Can Mark Vientos’ exit velocity numbers translate into homers consistently. Does Harrison Bader return to his 2020 and 2021 form at the plate?
3. Was it the haircut? Sean Manaea had a rough first outing with the Mets allowing seven hits over 2 2/3 innings that translated into three runs. He then got a haircut for the first time in years. In his next outing pitched four innings allowing two hits and three walks but no runs while striking out five.

Let’s Go Mets!

The spring training schedule has been slightly different this year compared to previous years. So far this spring the Mets have had way more evening games and no split-squad days. The latter point changes today as the Mets have their first of two Sundays in a row playing two split-squad games.

Most of the Mets starters stayed in St. Lucie this morning, but a few of them are making the trek to West Palm beach including Pete Alonso and Brett Baty. They’ll get to face MacKenzie Gore who is starting his second season with the Nationals. Gore was a key part of the blockbuster trade that sent Juan Soto to the Padres back in 2022.

Out of the two games the Mets play today, this is the more difficult one to follow if you live in the Mets media market. The game is being broadcasted by MASN (the Orioles and Nationals regional sports network) and can be watched in the New York area on MLBTV.

Three Things To Watch For:

1. Tylor Megill continues to battle for the last rotation spot: José Buttó continued his strong spring his last time out, so now it’s Tylor’s time to impress again. Before his last spring start, we commented about how it was his fourth and fifth spring training start last year that gave Tylor difficulties. He dominated in his last start, his fourth start, allowing one run from three hits over four innings of work. He’s now allowed only two runs in 12 innings this spring, and one of those was from the very first inning he tossed.
2. Pete Alonso: Alonso is off to a good start this spring, hitting .250/.368/.594 over 32 at bats spread across 13 games. He only has two homers so far but has ripped five doubles and has already walked six times (for comparison, he has hit six walks two other times in spring training). He’s the engine of the Mets offense and we are starting to get to the point of spring where you want your big hitters to gain momentum to carry them into the start of the regular season.
3. Ben Gamel: Gamel has had a quiet spring training for the Mets so far going 3-for-18 over 10 games with a double and eight strikeouts. Gamel signed as a free agent this off-season and is trying to get onto the 40-man roster. In 2022 he saw a lot of playing time with the Pirates where he hit .232/.324/.369 with a 97 OPS+ over 115 games.

Let’s Go Mets!

The spring training schedule has been slightly different this year compared to previous years. So far this spring the Mets have had way more evening games and no split-squad days. The latter point changes today as the Mets have their first of two Sundays in a row playing two split-squad games.

The game against the Marlins will probably be closer to a normal game for the Mets. Yesterday the Mets played an evening game on the road and gave most of their starters the night off. Out of the two games the Mets are playing today, this is the home game so most of the regular players will return to action here.

This is also the easier game for those in the Mets media market to tune into. This afternoon’s game against the Marlins is being broadcasted on WPIX. The Mets road game against the National is being handled by MASN. You’ll need an MLBTV subscription if you want to watch both Mets games at the same time.

Three Things To Watch For:

1. José Quintana, Opening Day Starter: The Mets named Quintana as their Opening Day starter earlier this week. So far this spring he has made three starts totaling 8 2/3 innings allowing three runs, two earned from eight hits while striking out nine batters. His last start was his best on yet holding the Nationals to only two hits and no runs in four innings. Look to see how deep the Mets let him go into this game as he starts to wind down his spring ramp-up period.
2. Francisco Álvarez: It’s a small sample size of only 25 AB’s but so far this spring Álvarez is hitting .240/.345/.985. Last season he hit .209/.284/.721. In addition to hitting for power this spring Álvarez is working walks, four of them already this spring. Let’s hope this trend continues into the regular season.
3. Mark Vientos looks to recover from a rough day. Mark Vientos had about as bad of a game as you can last night. He went 0-for-4 with four strikeouts. This came after Friday night’s game where he went 0-for-3 with two strikeouts. Before the alarm bells start to wring, we can put this in perspective. In the four games before this, Mark went 4-for-13 with two home runs and a double. Six of his 13 strikeouts in March are from the last two games. Nine of this 13 strikeouts are from three of ten games he played in.

Let’s Go Mets!

The Mets had two games yesterday! First the Mets prosects beat the Nationals prospects in both franchises first ever Spring Breakout Game. The veteran Mets then dropped the nightcap to the Nationals 7-3. Houser and Fujinami allowed all seven runs on the night. It wasn’t all bad for the Mets as the offense finally got going, collecting 10 hits. Harrison Bader and Francisco Lindor both went 2-for at the plate and DJ Stewart hit his first home run of spring.

Today the Mets are sending out a lineup like they played an afternoon/evening doubleheader. Almost all of the regular position players except for Brandon Nimmo, Pete Alonso and Mark Vientos are getting the afternoon off and the rest of the lineup is rounded out with bench players and players trying to break on the roster.

Three Things To Watch For:

1. Michael Tonkin: Tonkin completed along journey back to the majors last season. The long time Twins’ pitcher last pitched in a major league game back in 2017 where he had a 5.14 ERA over 21 innings over 16 games. He then played in Japan, Mexico and Long Island. Last season he got into 45 games for the Braves, pitching 80 innings with a 4.28 ERA and 104 ERA+. He’s had a good spring this year, allowing two hits and a walk while holding opponents scoreless over 3 1/3 innings. At this point he has pitched himself into the conversation to break camp with the major league club.
2. DJ Stewart: Stewart came onto the scene in a huge way last year, hitting 11 homers over 58 games for the Mets. This spring has been the complete opposite. Before last night’s game he was 4-for-22 this spring no extra base hits. Last night went 1-for-3 hitting his first homer of the spring. Is this the start of a Stewart hot streak?
3. The King of Cold Springs. Brandon Nimmo likes to take things slow in spring. Over seven games this year spring he has gone 5-for-21 at the plate hitting .238/.273/.286, which is not very Nimmo-regular-season-like. It is very similar to his previous springs. Last year he played in only six official spring training games and hit .143/.294/.286. The year before he played in eight games and hit .192/.323/.308.

Let’s Go Mets!

Doubleheader at Clover Park! The Mets top prospects took the afternoon this afternoon in the Spring Breakout game and now the veteran players take the field for the night cap.

The Mets veterans are coming off of a tie in Jupiter, where the Mets and Cardinals each had three hits last night, but didn’t score any runs. For the Mets only Brett Baty and Zack Short collected hits. Luke Voit had the toughest night in the lineup going 0-for-3 with three strikeouts.

If the bats on both teams had a bad night, then the pitchers were feasting. José Buttó, competing with Tylor Megill for the last rotation spot, had a great outing pitching four scoreless innings while striking out three batters. Austin Adams, who is fighting for a roster spot, struck out the side in his clean inning of work. Two of the pitchers he is competing against are scheduled to pitch in tonight’s game – Sean Reid-Foley and Phil Bickford.

The Mets will also get to face an old friend tonight – Trevor Williams. Williams found his way to the Mets in the Báez during the 2021 season. He had a solid year-and-a-half with the Mets and is starting his second season with the Nationals. Last season he had a 5.55 ERA over 144 1/3 innings spread over 30 starts.

Three Things To Watch For:

1. Adrian Houser’s fourth outing of spring. After two solid outings to start spring, Houser hit a speed bump on March 3rd where he allowed three runs from four hits and a walk over 1 2/3 innings. His last time out was completely different, he didn’t allow any runs, hits or walks in 3 1/3 innings while striking out five batters. Here’s hoping tonight is more of the same.
2. Fringe bullpen competition. Phil Bickford and Sean Reid-Foley are on the outside looking in right now. Bickford’s first outing was rough – he allowed three runs from four hits in one inning of work. Last time out he was asked to get two outs and recorded two strikeouts. Sean Reid-Foley is having a terrific spring right now. In four innings spread across four games he has allowed no runs, no hits and one walk while striking out seven batters. The problem for Sean is a lot of pitchers are having a strong spring.
3. Mark Vientos, power hitter. The Mets have been connected to JD Davis over the last week – Mark Vientos would like to remind you that he exists. After a slow start to spring, he’s been heating up as of late. In his last four games he has gone 4-for-13 with two homers, a double and a walk. Further he has only struck out two times in that stretch.

Let’s Go Mets!

One of the best parts of spring training is seeing highly touted prospects take the field in their future threads. Prospects get into spring training games frequently, but generally there are only a few on the field at a time, they are mixed in with veterans on non-roster invitations and they get limited time in the game. If you are fan of a team and don’t live near your team’s affiliate clubs, you have to hope you are tuning into a spring training game at exact right moment to see top prospects play.

Major League Baseball wanted to make it easier to see the top prospects and debuted the Spring Breakout Showcase this year. This weekend every team is playing at least one Breakout Showcase game. Rosters are made up of all of the best prospects.

The Mets system is loaded with top prospects that are today’s roster. There are seven hitters on the roster who the Mets acquired in trades last season. One of the most exciting pitching prospects, Dom Hamel, is starting the game. The future is bright and the future is literally now on the diamond for the New York Mets.

Three Things To Watch For:

1. Hitters acquired in trades last season. Luisangel Acuña (Max Scherzer) , Ryan Clifford, Drew Gilbert (Justin Verlander), Ronald Hernandez, Marco Vargas (David Robertson) and Jeremy Rodriquez (Tommy Pham) are all on the roster today. Acuña and Gilbert have flown to the top of the Mets top prospects list. Jeremy Rodriguez landed on Fan Graphs Top 101 list as a 17-year-old. This group of hitters are electric and will play all over the Mets system this year, with a few of them having a chance to make their major league debuts in 2024. Today only though they are all on the same roster.
2. Dom Hamel. Hamel is part of a group of top pitching prospects for the Mets (Christian Scott, Mike Vasil) who could debut at some point in 2024 to bolster the Mets 2024 rotation. In 124 innings last season Hamel had a 3.85 ERA and a 1.266 WHIP. In 2022 he struck out 145 batters over 119 innings split between the St. Lucie Mets and Brooklyn on his way to winning the Mets Organization Pitcher of the Year.
3. Did you know the Mets have a two-way player? Nolan McLean was drafted by the Mets last year in the third round out of Oklahoma State University. After drafting McLean last year the Mets gave him an opportunity to pursue being a two-way player in their system. As a hitter he got into eight games going 2-for-16 with a homer while working seven walks. As a pitcher he allowed one hit and one run over two games and 3 1/3 innings of work. Now a year removed from college baseball, we expect Nolan to get a lot more playing time in minor league games.

Let’s Go Mets!