Tom Brennan: Mets' Weak A Ball Season Results; and Mets WIN!

HEY!! THOSE TWO A BALL METS TEAMS GOT A COMBINED “D”

The Brooklyn (High A) and St Lucie (Full A) seasons came to a close on Sunday.

How did they do? I was waiting for you to ask just that question.

No playoffs for either team.

BROOKLYN (65-67)

Primarily the "Nick Morabito, Brandon Sproat, and Jonah Tong Show."

Hitting wise, the team was 11th out of 12 in both runs scored and batting average.  Home .223, road just .220.  Ugh. 

Cyclones pitchers were 6th in ERA at 3.94 (home 3.44, road a run higher at 4.46).

Nick Morabito, in St Lucie and Brooklyn, was awesome, except for lack of HR power.  

Nick the Quick started out in St Lucie like a house on fire, then hit very well for the majority of his season for Brooklyn. .312 overall, 59 steals.

If Nick Morabito is not promoted to Binghamton this week for their final week, I'd be very surprised, and saddened, after he had the best offensive season of any Mets minor leaguer (or perhaps share a hitting award with the much older Luke Ritter).  DO THE RIGHT THANG.

Brandon Sproat started his first pro season in High A, and made it look easy.  AAA has proven to be his point of resistance so far.

Jonah Tong was also a St Lucie House on Fire, then getting promoted for much of the season to Brooklyn.  He dazzled in his September AA debut.

Back to the hitters:

Nick Lorusso hit well in Brooklyn (.267, 11 HRs), got promoted to AA and pretty quickly thereafter went on the IL and missed the rest of the AA season.  And ranked prospect Jacob Reimer got hurt twice and got up less than 100 times, a lost season.

Chris Suero, though, at age 20 hit pretty well for St Lucie and Brooklyn (.236, 60 RBIs).

No one else impressed at the plate. Sorry. 

FLASH! RESULTS IN FOR DE LOS SANTOS HITTING COMPETITION!

Omar DeLos Santos, now 25 years old, hit .196, with 10 HRs and 43 Brooklyn steals in just 327 PAs, edging out Jefry De Los Santos, 21, who hit .194. 

Both tried, but failed, to reach the Mendoza line.  

Omar showed improvement, hitting .263 in 85 at bats in August and September, while Jefry heated up in limited September action, going 6 for 18 (.333).  Omar is a remarkable base stealer, with 152 steals in the past 3 seasons in 309 games where his OBP was only in the .290s.  That said, Jack Bauer told him "You're running...out of time!"

Brooklyn pitchers? 

45 of them in 2024.  Did that many fans spin thru the turnstiles? 

No pitchers other than Tong and Sproat made me jump up and say, YEAH, BABY.  Nolan McLean, perhaps - he pitched solidly for Brooklyn before his promotion to AA, and hit better than most of Brooklyn’ hitters.

Pitchers (besides Tong, McLean and Sproat) who had decent years in Brooklyn included Doug Orellana, Jack Wenninger, Justin Lawson, Joshua Cornielly, Felipe De La Cruz, Ryan Ammons (1.33 ERA in 14 Brooklyn relief outings), Zach Thornton, and Josh Hejka (who recently ran into a AAA Yankee affiliate buzz saw in his AAA debut).  Lefty Ammons had 45 innings between Brooklyn and St Lucie, with a 2.18 ERA and 60 Ks in 45 IP.

ST LUCIE  (45-84)

In a 10 team league, 8th in average and HRs, 9th in runs scored. Pitching-wise, 9th out of 10 in ERA, and an ugly 20 of 39 in saves.

Overall, a poor performance. 

A mere 38 games behind the Cardinals A ball team.

Nick Morabito was a meteor early in 2024 offensively, hitting close to .400 before quickly moving on to Brooklyn. He finished at .312 overall with 59 steals.

Boston Baro hit well (.288) with St Lucie, then got promoted to Brooklyn (9 for 44). He's a good very young player and will no doubt will start next season with Brooklyn.

Jesus Baez was one of their best hitters, .262 with 10 HRs, but he played just 64 games before an injury which cost him the second half of the season.  Ronald Hernandez hit .272 with a .369 OBP. As a catcher, he threw out just 17 of 112 jack-rabbit base runners.

Colin Houck, the first Mets pick in 2023, fanned a bloated 171 times in 112 games, while batting just .207. That said, he hit .237 in September with an improved K rate. He had 5 HRs and 51 RBIs, and made 29 errors ar SS and 3B.  

I would repeat him at St Lucie in the first few months of 2025, as a 20 year old.  In retrospect, he should have been assigned to the Complex League in 2024, based on the numbers.

New draftees OF Carson Benge, 1B Corey Collins, and 2B Nick Roselli all hit much better than Houck.  Combined, they had 67 times on base via hit (37) or walk (30) in 163 PAs (.411 OBP) with 4 HRs and 18 RBIs.  Add in 7 steals in as many tries.  All 3 are ready for Brooklyn, I'd think, in 2025.

Pitching-wise, Anthony Young was pleased to note that Ernesto Mercedes finished 0-11, 5.54, and a 1.71 WHIP. Ouch. 

He did fan 89 hombres in 65 IP, so that was positive for the 20 year old.

The only good Lucite pitcher, frankly, after Jonah Tong and Ryan Ammons got promoted, was lefty reliever Gregori Louis, who was 5-0, 1.33 in 54 innings, mostly for St Lucie.  I'd keep an eye on a guy like Louis, who also ought to be Brooklyn-bound in 2025.

Jack Wenninger had a 5.02 ERA for St Lucie, but markedly better in 40+ innings in Brooklyn, where his ERA was 3.12, so he may well be a future starter of value for the Mets.

A-BALL METSIES OVERALL? 

The two A ball teams combined to go 41 games under .500. 

That is awfully bad, don’t you think?  

Rome, David Stearns might retort, wasn't built in a day.

But the Mets minor league system ends up sub .500 almost annually.

For decades.  

No excuses. 

METS ON MONDAY NIGHT

Bats are still on vacation in Metsville. Three stinking hits, but…

Tylor Megill was a beast…6 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 9Ks. Retired his last 16 batters. Don Drysdale showed up. Are you sure you want to put Paul Blackburn back in that rotation spot? Or Megill? No, really, that is a serious question.

The Mets had 1 run on 1 hit through 6, and relievers Danny Young and Jose Butto immediately gave up 2 runs. The Mets then scored 2 runs on a wild pitch and passed ball.  Classic Mets baseball.  The winning run was scored by Eddy Alvarez (who? wha’?)

Ryne Stanek got straightened out and is now a beast. He fanned the side in the 8th with high heat (blew away Vladimir on 99 MPH heat, after almost taking his head off on the previous pitch). 

Sugar in the 9th?  Strikeout looking, pop up to short left, looked like a breeze and a lock. 

Then, an infield single that zipped past Diaz and was gloved by Iglesias, but could not make the transfer to his throwing hand, and then….a heart attack. Ball looked like a game-winning HR off the bat, but was caught at the wall by Marte.  Phew! 

3-2 win, and Diaz save # 17.  And 14 Jays batters whiffed.

The Broken Braves lost to the pitching-rich Reds, 1-0.

Mets lead them by a game, while trailing the Dweedlebacks by just 1 game, and the SD Franciscan Monks by 1.5 games. Onwards and upwards. To God be the glory.