Mike's Mets - Spring Training Thoughts

By Mike Steffanos February 28, 2021

When you have a team that's been together for a while, with most of the key players returning, spring training becomes boring fairly quickly. That's certainly not the deal with the Mets this season. Two, possibly three, members of the starting rotation are brand new to the club. In the field, there will be a new catcher, shortstop, and a rebuilt bench. There will be new guys in the bullpen this season as well.

The coaching staff has undergone some changes, too. Dave Jauss is replacing Hensley Meulens as bench coach, Tony Tarasco replacing Tony DeFrancesco as first base coach (an exchange of Tonys, if you will), and hitting coach Chili Davis doing his job in person rather than remotely this season. Plenty of changes are taking place behind the scenes, also, as the new front office overhauls a Mets organization that has become synonymous with inept management and losing for most of the last couple of decades.

We'll be getting our first look at pitchers Carlos Carrasco, Joey Lucchesi, Sam McWilliams, Jordan Yamamoto, Trevor May, and Aaron Loup in a Mets uniform. We've seen some positive reporting on McWilliams, with thoughts he can be an effective multi-inning reliever as well as a spot starter for the Mets. Having pitchers in the bullpen who can do more than one-and-done inning outings will be crucially important this season, and really in the long-term also. The regularity of starts that last 5 innings or less will demand that successful clubs build flexible bullpens. As I noted in Thursday's post, manager Luis Rojas has indicated that he hopes to have almost all of his bullpen arms stretched out to go a couple of innings by the end of spring.

In the field, we can begin to learn if James McCann is the player that the Mets evaluated him to be when they signed him to that 4-year contract. If he is — and he can stay healthy — the Mets will have some stability at their catching position for the first time in a long, long time. It's almost irrelevant how much he hits, as long as it's enough to justify a lineup spot. What matters is that McCann earns the trust of the pitching staff and is solid defensively.

Behind McCann, it's also important that Tomás Nido prove that he really has made strides offensively. Nido offers enough defensively to hold down a backup catching job, but he has to prove that he's more than the offensive lightweight who carries an anemic lifetime OPS+ of 49 into this campaign. I'm sure he'll get enough at-bats this spring to prove himself. While some players can mess around in March, secure in their place on the team, Nido clearly does not fall into that category. If he struggles at the plate, the Mets will be under some real pressure to find someone better than Bruce Maxwell or Caleb Joseph to backup McCann.

Francisco Lindor will be making his game debut for the Mets tomorrow. Many of the Mets' hopes of shoring up their defense center around their new shortstop. Not that Andrés Giménez wasn't solid at the position last year, but he was also a 21-year-old kid in his first Major League experience. Beyond his own abilities, Lindor will be asked to be a leader in the field, with the hopes that he elevates everyone's game a little. Also, while I understand that Jeff McNeil and Luis Guillorme offer some value with their defensive flexibility, my preference would be for one guy (McNeil) to get the bulk of the playing time at second base. I think teams are better defensively when their middle infield combo has a chance to really know each other well. I'd like to see McNeil get at least 120 starts at second.

Unless there's a last-minute compromise on the DH, Dom Smith and Brandon Nimmo will be spending a lot of time together in the outfield this season. Both players have already spoken this spring about their belief that they can improve their defense in LF and CF, respectively. No one expects either player to win a Gold Glove, but a commitment to improving their defense is important and something that Rojas and the rest of his staff should be stressing all season long. My sincere hope is that the days of just shrugging and accepting sub-par defense for the Mets are over.

DH or not, I expect Kevin Pillar to be an important contributor to the Mets in 2021. Pillar doesn't feel as if his defense in CF has regressed as much as metrics are indicating. As long as he can be solid in that position, he'll be a valuable contributor. Moreover, he's a right-handed hitter who has handled lefties well over his career, slashing .286/.320/.464 with an OPS+ of 121 against southpaws. Unless there is a DH this season, I'm not sure that José Martínez even makes this roster out of spring training, which would only increase Pillar's importance as a RH bench bat.

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