Reese Kaplan -- The Long and Short of MLB Success

Some people are just born looking like athletes.  Take a look at Pete Alonso and right away you suspect there’s a lot of home run power there.  Gaze at Noah Syndergaard and you can believe he will light up the radar gun in triple digits.  Even the much maligned (toward the latter stages of his career) Jose Reyes just had that energy that told you he was going to be something pretty special out there on the diamond.

Then there are the little guys who have to do everything twice as well as everyone else to get noticed.  Do you remember shortstop Freddie Patek of the Kansas City Royals?  He may not have hit for a high average, but he swiped nearly 400 bases and was a three time All Star.  The diminutive Mr. Patek was listed as just 5’5”. 

In my home state there’s a guy by the name of Jose Altuve playing for the Astros.  Yeah, you may have heard of him.  All he’s done in his career thus far is hit .316 while average 16 HRs, 69 RBIs and stealing 34 bases.  He’s a 6 time All Star and the 5’6” 2^nd baseman already has an MVP award on his shelf. 

The short pitcher is an even rarer breed.  You’d have to go back to Bobby Shantz to find a shorter-than-average pitcher who had sustained success in the majors.  He finished his career mostly with the Athletics and Yankees with a 119-99 record and a 3.38 ERA.  His best season was in 1952 going 24-7 with 27 complete games and an ERA of just 2.48.  His high watermark for strikeouts came that year as well with 152, a nice number but not one to get the scouts excited.

So all of this petite player history is a prelude to an open question about the career of the Mets’ 2014 29^th round draft choice by the name of Matt Blackham.  At 5’10” and 150 pounds, he’s a bit taller than these other players, but does give off that “get sand kicked in his face” size given his skinny frame.  Granted, low level draft picks also have to fight doubly hard to get noticed, but you’d think someone would be paying attention to what he’s done on the field.

He started off in Kingsport in 2014 going 2-0 over 11 games and 19 IP with a 1.42 ERA, striking out 25 in that span.  The bugaboo with him has always been control and he showed that weakness then as well with 9 walks allowed.  Still, he kept people from getting hits and finished with a WHIP of 1.00.

In 2015 he made it to Brooklyn where he didn’t fare quite as well but was quickly shut down after 6 games (as a starter!) with an injury that cost him the remainder of the season as well as 2016.

In 2017 he was already age 24 and just reaching Columbia.  Over 40 games in the bullpen he was brilliant, going 4-2 with a 1.43 ERA and striking out on average 13 batters per 9 IP.  So unlike Shantz, this small guy could fan batters with the best of them. 

2018 saw him pitch split time between St. Lucie and Binghamton.  He hit something of a wall in AA and started off 2019 there again.  This time around in 27 games he was 5-0 with a 13.27 K per 9 IP rate and a WHIP of 1.06 despite giving up a lot of walks.  That resulted in a promotion to AAA and at age 26 he’s currently pitching to a 1.08 ERA over his first 6 games there.  The strikeouts are down, the control is still iffy, but a 0.84 WHP is nothing to sneeze at.

Obviously injury played a large part in his delay to the majors after his graduation from Middle Tennessee State University.  A scouting site called 2080baseball is not overly high on him, thinking his ceiling is a AAAA type and filler at the upper minors level.  For his career he has an 18-9 record with a 2.33 ERA and batters hitting just .175 against him.  I don’t know, but I think he might have a little more in the tank than that evaluation would suggest.  Given the sad state of the Mets pen, might he be worth a look?