Tom Brennan - MY # 6 METS PROSPECT: TYLER BASHLOR

Tom Brennan - MY # 6 METS PROSPECT: TYLER BASHLOR

One thing 2017 showed me: a bullpen of (relatively speaking) soft tossers will lose a lot of games for you.  Fireballers like what a team like the Yanks roll out, in Betances, Robertson, Kahnle and Chapman, are a backbone of a winning team.

As much as I like Paul Sewald, and appreciate what he has done for the Mets in 2017, he is 0-5 in part because he is not a fireballer.  Fireballers can often reach back and punch guys out when it gets sticky.  When MLB hitters amp up in RBI late inning situations, I think softer tossers are more vulnerable.

One such ascendant fireballer is Tyler Bashlor.  

Drafted in the 11th round in 2013, he did not pitch well in his brief 2013 cameo.  So what - it is rookie ball.  Let's skip it.

2014 and 2015, though?  The doctor showed up, and the anesthesiologist, and introduced Bashlor to Tommy John, the man no pitcher wants to meet.  Total innings count in those two seasons?  ZERO.  

Pitchers like to put up zeros, but not that kind.

In 2016, he returned finally to relieve for Columbia in A ball.  He fanned 73 in 56 innings and held hitters to a .194 average.  A 2.50 ERA, and 3 of 6 saves.  Nice.  Promising enough, but could he build up on it?  YES, YES, YES.

Pitching for St Lucie to start out in 2017, he was stellar in relief except for a few brief horrid stretches.  

He was then promoted to Binghamton and killed it there, in the regular season and playoffs, going 16.2 innings, allowing 8 hits, 5 walks, no runs and fanning 27.  KILLER.

It is those numbers that have me slotting him in at # 6 on my prospect list - I frankly don't care if others disagree.

For the season, he ended up with 52 innings, 88 Ks (15.3 K / 9), 3.31 ERA, and 14 for 18 in saves.  As noted, the ERA is inflated because he had two brief but horrid 3 game stretches (early April and late June / early July), where in those 6 games, he allowed 14 earned runs in 4.1 IP.  Ugh!!  But other than those 6 horrid games, his ERA was well under 1.00 in the other 42 outings.

After that last ugly trio of games, he was sheer murder.  

In fact, in 21 more games through the end of the playoffs, he allowed just 2 earned runs in 22 innings and fanned 39. 

Now THAT is a Craig Kimbrel-like in-your-face answer to a stretch of adversity if I ever saw one!

Yep, Tyler Bashlor is my # 6 prospect, and I expect to see him in the Mets pen in 2018.  Hopefully having a lot of folks saying, "Wow, where did THIS GUY come from?"