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| Thomas Szapucki, Syracuse Mets - Photo by Herm Card, Herm4444@gmail.com |
You hear a lot about the Mets' major league pitching being stellar, but where is the depth?
The depth answer really may be: Tom Szapucki.
28 Ks in 16 AAA innings proves one thing - his pitches are avoiding a lot of swings.
A few more strong outings and he could be ready for the call.
Pen-wise, Holderman, de Oca, and Otanez are getting closer to being good enough for a call up, but to me, all 3 seem at least a few months away.
Perhaps Orze is too, after a tumultuous spring training and early AAA hiccups. 7.94 ERA, bit 19 Ks in 11.1 innings, and 86 in 61 pro innings to date. He clearly likes to miss bats, too.
Those 4 need to impress like heck, though, before Steve Cohen decides to pull out his checkbook again to acquire pen help.
I'm glad he pulled out his checkbook for starter Chris Bassitt.
Adam Oller, traded for Chris, got hammered in Oakland and got sent down, and JT Ginn, the other trade piece in the deal, has sputtered a bit early on.
Bassitt is a gem, ain't he? Seems like another Orel Hershiser in his prime, to me.
One of my minors hopefuls from last year, Brian Metoyer, is not getting results. Sure, his Ks as always are great - 11 in 7 innings, and he's fanned 103 in 73 innings since 2019, but his 8 walks (and 49 over those same 73 innings) seem to indicate he has an uncontrollable urge to lack control. He just feels like a replay of Akeel Morris - and Akeel just never was able to get over the hump. I'd like to be proven wrong.
Jose Butto went just one inning in AA the other day, and has been decent with a lot of Ks despite being just 1-3, but he needs to show he can get AAA hitters out before I factor him into the Mets' mix of bullpen potentials. I could see him in the mix for real in 2023, though.
As always, I hope I didn't leave anyone out.
Daniel Juarez is relieving in St Lucie, and the lefty in 2021-22 has fanned 68 in 45 innings, while allowing 22 hits. Can he keep mesmerizing hitters as he gets promoted? We'll find out. My guess is yes.
So....put all that in your pipeline and smoke it.
Wait, isn't Biden shutting down pipelines? Oh, those are different pipelines, thanks for clarifying.
Mack knows several 2021 drafted pitchers are doing quite well, but they won't be in the mix until 2024, one would assume. A topic for another day.
Nogosek I left out of the equation since he has already had a few MLB chances. But he was good last night.
ReplyDeleteHopefully Megill got it all out of his system last night, like a bad stomach flu.
Koufax was 0-85, 5.15 ERA in games he lost. Maybe that will make Megill feel better.
ReplyDeleteSad - for the heck of it, I posted a few quippy points on Facebook, like the former comment I posted above. Tons of likes, and a bunch of comments already. Here? Crickets.
ReplyDeleteSorry Tom
DeleteI mentioned this before & was ignored.
ReplyDeleteI clicked on the link to this article from Sports Spyder. I thought it was good. There are 4 comments that come in a shaded area. When I click on post comments, it shows a full screen of CODE. There's no way to post.
So in this case, I clicked on "home" and came back to the article through that method and was able to post a comment.
There's a problem with your infrastructure. It's broken.
Secondly, people don't read blogs the way they used to and this site, in particular, does not attempt to stay up-to-the-minute.
I thought you were backing away? I've always felt -- and once said -- that there's far too many articles on Mack's Mets. Two, three, four a day.
Anyway, good piece. Personally, I'd rather you provide the stats for each pitcher rather than cherry pick, say, strikeouts I don't really feel like I came away with good information on any of these pitchers. Just opinions.
Respectfully,
Jimmy
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteTom love when you drop a article
ReplyDeleteYou give us insights to players that’s are not top 10 prospects
I agree that bassets has been great
But I was really down on our pitching depth
Where have we really developed any relief pitchers? I can’t think of anyone who wasn’t a starter in the minors who really was significant arm as a reliever
Can you site a couple?
I feel like this is really a weakness in development
Eddie
Jimmy,
ReplyDeleteThanks for your feedback. Good thoughts for improvement.
The link to Sports Spyder is there to share other relevant Mets information, but we don't control that site, so the bug you have detected cannot be fixed by the Mack's guys.
Jimmy, thanks for your comments.
ReplyDeleteYep, it was purely an opinion piece - just seeing things that I feel are indicative of updraft or downdraft in players. I intentionally left the rest of the work to the reader, if they wanted to delve deeper into a particular player on their own.
As Mack said, the site is busted in a few ways - thanks for pointing that out, but fixing it is above my pay grade. I'm trying to figure out baby formula shortages, and why folks don't drive slower to save gas, which will drop prices, too. I recently rented a Chrysler 300 and when it is on cruise control at 60 MPH, it gets 35 MPG. At 70, it gets 30 MPG. While driving to Florida and doing a little over 80 it got 20 MPG. Help out a bombed out Ukrainian by slowing down and helping gas prices fall.
Yes, I did back away from writing, then decided to re-dabble as I saw some things that I felt were astounding - like Wyatt Young in lower rookie ball in 2021 and storming the upper minors so far in 2022. You don't see that every day - or, frankly, ever.
Or having 4 minor league teams in April that somehow have 24 sub-.200 hitters with 950 combined at bats hitting a pitcher-like .155. Just very hard to grasp such futility.
But I am about to descend back into my rabbit hole and stop writing again. Posting little quips on Facebook is more fun and far more active, if I am so inclined.
If I did this for a paycheck, as my livelihood, I'd do it a quantum leap better. But I have enjoyed doing my many quick hit articles here. I spent all of about 20 minutes on this one, and then got back to my day job.
It's been fun, though. All good things eventually end.
Eddie, thanks so much.
ReplyDeleteYou are correct - few relievers start out that way. Familia was a lousy minors starter who then became a mostly strong reliever.
One from-the-very-beginning reliever who failed as a Met, but is succeeding now, is Paul Sewald. Paul said that Seattle told him he was more effective on high strikes, so he tried it and has since had great success and a ton of Ks. Mets' coaches somehow never thought enough about Paul to have him try that.
That's how losing teams lose.