New Mets Music Direction in Clubhouse
The music played throughout the
stadium during warm-up, and the music played in the clubhouse, has always
matched the makeup of the team. In the history of the Mets, this music was
dominated by rock artists like The Eagles,
and Allman Brothers, as well as Motown artists
like The Ojays, Kool
& The Gang, and Smokey.
But these days the makeup of
the players tend to more be solid fans of Bad Bunny, Karol
G, or Fied.
Oh, there were also country
artists like George Strait and Lainey
Wilson, but, to be honest, the 2026 Mets "bats" have currently been
reduced to only one Caucasian starter.
Pete Alonso, Jeff McNeil,
and Brandon
Nimmo gone. Of the nine bat positions, only Brett Baty remains.
The rest are either African-Americans like centerfielder Tyrone Taylor, or
Latin at first, second, short, catcher, right field, and DH.
Is this a plan or just a
coincidence? I have no idea, but it is what it is. I mean, the pitching staff
is more blended.
It will be interesting to see who David Stearns chooses to play left and if Baty will be replaced by someone else
And the last of the three
pitchers the Mets drafted last season that we haven’t seen spit on is 6-4, 195,
19-yr old RHP Camden
Lohman, who was drafted in the 8th round, directly
out of Fort Zumwalt North HS (MO).
He signed for $797,500,
forgoing his commitment to the University of Missouri.
Lohman has a projectable,
athletic frame with room to add strength. He experienced a significant velocity
jump as a senior, going from the high-80s/low-90s to sitting 92-96 mph with his
fastball (touching higher at times). His delivery features a high three-quarters
arm slot, long arm action, and high release point due to his height, creating
deception and downhill plane.
Pitch Repertoire
Fastball —
Primary pitch, 92-96 mph (up to 95+ reported), with good command.
Slider — Sharp breaking ball,
his main secondary offering.
Splitter —
Recently developed (morphed from a changeup), thrown in the 80-84 mph range; still
needs more consistency and incorporation.
Changeup —
Around 82 mph, less emphasized now as he's shifted
toward the splitter.
Scouting notes indicate
questions about developing reliable third/fourth pitches beyond the fastball
and slider/breaker, which adds some reliever risk despite his clean delivery
and strong control (evident in his senior HS stats: 0.80 ERA, 92 K in 44 IP).
He's viewed as a high-upside
projection arm, potentially a starter if the off-speed pitches
progress.
MLB ETA around 2029.
My guess, because of his young age, he will open up the 2026 season as part of the FCL Mets rotation.
Tobey Schulman @tschulmanreport
The Mets picked up one of
the best JUCO players in the nation in the 17th round of the 2025 MLB draft. Sam Robertson, a
SS out of the Northwest Shoals Patriots stole 60 bases in 55 games, while
slashing .362/.469/.546, with 14 doubles, 5 triples, 4 home runs. Flashed
great plate discipline with 33 BB to 26 SO in 2025.
Amazing Avenue
Robertson stands square at
the plate, holding his hands up at roughly the shoulders and angling his bat
head at 2:30 behind his head and swinging with a slight leg kick and short,
simple stroke. There is not much power projection in his thin 6’2”, 180-pound
frame, but the right-hander shows plenty of speed. The infielder has posted
above-average-to-plus times in the 60-yard dash and has demonstrated himself to
be a strong base stealer. In the infield, Robertson has plenty of range and a
strong arm. His arm has been clocked around 90 MPH, and thanks to his speed, he
has plenty of infield range.
Sam Robertson
2B/SS/LF 6-1
180 turns
22 in July RHH 17th rd. 2025
2025 – St. Lucie: 68-PA,
10-H, 0-HR, 8-RBI, 9-SB, 27-K, .172/.294/.172/.467
MACK –
Impressive JUCO stats, but
that is all they are. JUCO stats mean squat in this game. Robertson is going to have to cut
way back on his strikeouts and step up his OBP game or he won’t be around for
that long.
Thomas Nestico @TJStats
2026 Projected WAR by Team -
Fangraphs Depth Charts
Projected Home Run Leaders
Running From The OPS @OPS_BASEBALL
Francisco Alvarez was
in the Top 5% or higher in Avg EV (93.1 MPH) & Hard-Hit% (54.3%) while
putting up a 124 wRC+ in 277 PA. The most impressive thing about his 2025? His
73.9% Hard-Hit% against the FF was tied for #1 in baseball while also posting a
.343 BA w/ a .608 xSLG.
Francisco Alvarez after
being recalled by the Mets on July 21st:
41 GP .276 BA
.360 OBP .561 SLUG .921 OPS
157 wRC+ 9 HR 21 RBI
Jon Anderson @JonPgh
Breakout Pick: Francisco Alvarez
- Elite power
- Very bad injury luck last
year, two different broken hand issues
- If he can lift the ball
just a bit more, he has 30+ homer potential
Very cheap in early fantasy drafts
Daniel
Wexler @WexlerRules
Francisco Alvarez posted a career best 124 wRC+ in 2025 and that was largely overlooked because of his injuries (and overall poor season for the big club). PLEASE stay healthy Francisco!!
FanOfNY626
@JNMets
The 2026 Mets will see these
five 20 something year olds have an opportunity to earn the right to become the
core of this team for years to come.
Carson Benge (23)
Francisco Alvarez (24)
Nolan McLean (24)
Brett Baty (26)
Juan Soto (27)
For those still upset about the old core
MACK –
Boy, there is a lot of
positive chatter out there right now on Alvy.
As I have said in the
past, no one questions his star potential. What’s needed here is more maturity,
better use of his decision making, and, of course, good health throughout the
season.
Here’s an experiment you
may consider… go get a hammer and break your throwing thumb. Or, break the
other one… I don’t care. All I need here is a broken thumb… go to the emergency
room, sit in the lobby for around 10 hours, then eventually come home with it
re-set, and placed in a cast… take the time directed for it to heal, get the
cast removed, and begin the rehab program you are given by your doctor… now… go
to your local electric batting cage, turn it up to the highest setting, and
stand in hitting baseballs with your maximum controllable swing.
Better yet, don’t have
the surgery. Just have a doctor reset it and send you home. Now, go immediately
to that same batting cage and stand in.
You will find out quickly
that you simply will not swing 100% for quite a while due to the pain you will
still feel every time your bat meets a baseball.
THIS is what a good
portion of Alvarez’ 2025 season was before being sent to Syracuse, totally healing,
returning to Queens, and finishing out the season.
41, 9, 21
That’s the number of
games played, home runs, and RBIs he had once he returned.
About 25% of a season
(162 games).
Prorate that over a
season and you get:
36 home runs… 84 runs batted in.
I’ll take it.
19 comments:
I’ll keep this brief:
- penalty for signing QO is two draft picks and $1MM international signing bonus. Not to mention the 10 draft spots. I fully expect this to be much worse after the CBA. They have to reset! Maybe they need to wait until after January 15th to sign a QO?
The packages out there for Peralta are ridiculous! I didn’t realize they were trading for Bib Gibson in his prime!
At this point, I prefer a reset and just sign Chris Bassett and Austin Hays and let’s go!
Great stuff in the draft picks Mack. Nice to hear some good news in Christian Scott, but his fastball average of 94 wasn’t very impressive from MLB standards. The bullpen may just be the best place for him.
Gus
I expect a lengthy strike. The owners and players association simply hate each other.
There will be much change when settled
I expect teams will pull back on long term deals now because of this
A full, healthy year for Alvy will do wonders for this team
Clocked last month at 97
And this will happen, my friend
The next Mets All-Star
The 20-something future “core” is exactly the cycle reset Stearns is mango g towards. Add on a few more starters as the season progresses & this is a vastly different team.
Now 28-29 year old Tucker on a team-aligned deal looks very, very interesting.
Alvarez? Stay healthy, please. Cal Raleigh did.
Lohan sounds intriguing.
But Cal Ziegler is my minor league dark horse break out pitcher in 2026.
Don’t mortgage the future. Bring in Da Yoots.
White Fans in the NBA largely have adapted to rooting for non-whites every bit as hard as whites. I think fans are mostly turned on by wins and excellent play.
Best man up.
Soto came in and attendance spiked up 900,000. He is a winner. And a superstar.
Mack, as I have stated many times in the past, I will gladly eat crow if Alverez reaches his potential. I will always root for the uniform.
We actually really need him to step up and replace some of Alonso's run production
I did a 180 on Tucker when I saw he played exclusively last season in right and produced a -2 OAA
Lohan?
Lindsay?
True dis
No one should doubt Alvarez's potential. If you look at his swing, however, it has two glaring issues: Have you ever seen anyone who looks like he is working harder to swing at the speed he does; this is because his kinematic sequence is poor and he generates energy from his upper body with minimal transfer of energy efficiently from the ground through the core. Second, the upper body movement so early in the swing makes him especially vulnerable to pitches up and in which look more over the plate to someone who opens up so early than in fact they are. It also makes him extremely vulnerable to pitches with late horizontal movement away from the plate. Because so much effort comes from the upper body it must start earlier and since one's arms follow ones shoulders his bat barrel is through the hitting zone early leaving the end of the bat to catch a lot of the pitches he could otherwise do damage with. Finally, in ballistic sports (like hitting a ball with a swinging club or bat), its the rate of acceleration at impact that is the measure. Early acceleration almost always results because the levers are being unlevered too early in the motion. The bat goes from behind the hands to outside the hands as they slow down and follow the body around and back. Arms and hands forward then around then back. Hands speed up as arms slow down; bat is swung out in opposite direction of the direction the hands move and at greatest acceleration.
All this is lost if the initial major source of energy comes from effort put in by the upper body to get the arms moving in the first place.
If he is able to correct this and stay with it, he can drive the ball consistently while reducing his vulnerability to certain pitches.
There is a certain difficulty in understanding this issue, but in a very efficient swing, the hands move quickly from the top and they stop moving that quickly surprisingly early. But it is their slowing down that speeds the bat up and accelerates it. The bat actually lags behind the hands and is thrown out and around as the hands slow down and their path goes around and back.
One useful illustration may help. Imagine a water skier connected to a motor boat. As long as the skier is directly behind the boat, she goes at the same speed the boat does. But now imagine the boat turns left at say 90* (an exaggeration of course). What happens to the water skier? She continues straight ahead and at a much greater speed than the turning boat. The motor boat represents the hands and arms and the skier is the bat.
In the baseball swing you want the early movement of the 'forward swing' to come from the rotation of the pelvis as the short stretch cycle transfers energy into the upper body and speeds up the arms, and only then as the hands reach the maximum speed do you want them to slow down so the bat can whip through the zone with greatest acceleration and least relative energy.
Beyond the question of what we might get from Benge and the rookie pitchers, Alvarez and Baty are the wild cards on this team. It wouldn’t be a total shock if they each hit 30 HR (it also wouldn’t be a total shock if they both regressed). I’m fully on board with Stearns building a new core of younger players. The issue is that that core is probably a year+ away from being complete, and he’s got to find a way to keep the team competitive this year while that evolves, and flexible enough to let it happen.
One simple addition. Think of the baseball swing as a 'system' that recruits energy, transfers the energy it recruits to the ball'. The swinging motion does two things. it takes the energy into the system from the interaction with the ground (try swinging a bat while standing on ice or imagine yourself doing so while floating in the air -- not going to happen). Eventually that energy gets transferred to the ball through a bat you hold in your hands at the other extremity of your body. So you have to get that energy from the ground to the bat; and you have to get that bat on the ball with good impact alignments to maximize the energy transfer. And you have to do that in under a second. Other than that it's an easy game.
It's easy to see why an untrained 'swinger' would move their hands and arms early to accomplish this feat. Ironically that is the last thing you want to do -- literally and figuratively speaking
If Alvarez stays healthy and he gets 500+ at-bats, he will hit 30+ homers
I’m very surprised that you never mentioned the snapping of the wrists in conjunction with the slowing of the hands. Is that not accurate?
@TexasGus -- A snap release is one kind of release pattern and not the only one. Some players have such a release and those who do in effect treat the bat like a whip: the wrists not only stop and snap, but the feeling is as if they then go backwards, as they would were you snapping whip or rope. A second type of release is more common, however. This involves the lead forearm supinating and the trail forearm pronating. This shows up in pictures as if the trail hand is getting on top of the lead hand. This is not driven by wrists but by the forearms. The third kind of release is one in which the wrists both ulner deviate (unlever, that is, go from a wrist cocked position to a wrist uncocked position) and the lead wrist goes from flexion into extension while the trail wrist goes from extension into flexion.
It is worth noting that some players (notalby Aaron Judge) ulner deviates his wrists at the start of his forward swing in order to shallow his swing path. This is very similar to what the golfer, Scottie Sheffler does at the start of his downswing. Ulner deviation, in effect, unlevers a lever in the wrists and yet both Judge and Scheffler are capable of incredible power nonetheless. In fact, Scheffler doesn't even fully cock his wrists (radial deviation) to 90* at all. I haven't closely studies Judge's wrist loading pattern.
I first got interested in the ways in which the wrists work in a baseball swing watching Henry Aaron as a kid. He could generate amazing power in what to the naked eye looked like little more than a flick of the wrist.
Maybe in the future I will do a post on translating various phrases that baseball players and announcers use in describing hitting, e.g inside outing the ball, keeping or getting the right (i.e. trail) hand on top of the ball, swinging level ( a favorite of Keith Hernandez) and explain what this all means biomechanically and how it can be accomplished, and the strengths and weaknesses of each.
Hope this helps
@Mack -- I hope you are right! Nothing I would like more than to be wrong about Alvarez's motion. I know I'm right in describing it, but just maybe this is how he does it and barring injury, what is natural for him turns out to be effective and a blessing for us all.
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