TOM’S TASTY TIDBITS
Lefties Day at Citi Field did not go especially well.
Southpaws Peterson and Manaea combined for 7 runs allowed.
Mets lose, 7-2. Would Soto’s presence have made a decisive difference?
Dunno.
Couldn’t have hurt.
Hamate Lindor? Up 78 times in spring training and the regular season…
With no RBIs. Wow. Ahh, maybe it’s just the dimensions and cold weather.
I will say he lost an RBI on Tuesday when Alvarez watched the ball instead of the 3rd base coach. Gotta watch the coach….
….lack of fundamentals can be detrimental!
Benge got a hit in his final AB. YAY! Almost as good as a win, I’d say.
On an encouraging note, JD Martinez told John Flanagan of SNY yesterday:
“…this team is by far "more talented" than the 2024 squad that went on a miraculous run before falling to the Dodgers in six games in the NLCS.”
Do you agree?
Minors?
Syracuse lost 2 seven inning games, despite an excellent 5 inning outing from Mr. Jonah Tong (5 innings, one hit, 7 Ks) and a solid outing from Mr. Jack Wenninger.
Mr. Ryan Clifford as I see it is a 50-50 guy…as in, 20 of his 40 plate appearances have ended in strikeouts. 50%.
My observation from afar…he is taking far too many fat strike ones and twos. Leading to too many strike threes.
Matt Wallner of the Minny Twinnies has the worst strikeout rate in the majors right now, with 25 in 52 PAs (48%). Please note that Clifford’s K rate is worse than that of the worst rate in all of the major leagues. Clifford was traded to the Mets by Houston. Houston, we have a problem.
Moving along, Binghamton (clearly the best of the four minors squads) won two of two. Jon Santucci was not at his sharpest, as he allowed 4 hits and 3 walks, but he fanned 8 in 4 innings.
Master Wyatt Young slugged a grand slam and doubled in two more for a 6 RBI game from the 9-hole, in an 11-3 win.
Game 2, Mr. Zach Thornton went 5.1 innings of 2 hit, one run, 4 Ks ball. Mr. Ramos and Mr. Ewing (.438) had strong nights, as did Mr. Eli Serrano.
Mr. Kevin Parada is scarily 1 for 11 in the early moments of 2026.
Mr. Ben Simon got the win in the finale with a scoreless, 2 K inning.
Why did HE get the win?
Simon Says, that’s why.
Brooklyn’s woeful hitting woes persist…15 hits and 59 Ks in 4 games.
Do 0-4 Brooklyn’s hitters need a mass demotion to St Lucie? Or to the FCL?
By “strikeout comparison”:
HALL of FAMER JOE SEWELL, 100 years ago, fanned 61 times.
- that is, just 61 times over the final TEN YEARS OF HIS CAREER.
An interesting side point with Sewell. He was a lefty hitter. A short guy. Only had 49 home runs in his entire career. But in his second to last season, he hit 11 of those 49 home runs. He was now playing for the Yankees. The Yankees had that super short porch, 296 feet down the right field line. So what were his season splits? Well, he hit zero home runs on the road, and all 11 home runs at home, in fewer at bats.
Of course, really smart hitters know how to take advantage of ballpark dimensions. You see, dimensions DO matter. Smart hitting does, too.
Anyway, he was up 251 times at home that year. I am sure that someone wants to ask, how many times did he strike out at home?
Once. Just once.
Lastly, St Lucie?
Both a make up game and another game were postponed.
Ahh, love the dry season.
A FINAL THOUGHT:
If someone does a daily recap on Japanese minor league baseball, do they call it ASIA MINORS?
Big day in Binghamton yesterday. Great calls by Matt Levine on the home runs by Young and Ramos.
ReplyDeleteBinghamton is gonna roll big.
DeleteBy comparison to Clifford’s extreme K rate, ex-Mets farmhand Drew Gilbert is in SF AAA, hitting .300, with an OBP well above .400, and just 5 Ks in 51 PAs, or 1/5 the K rate of Clifford.
ReplyDeleteDidn’t we read that Clifford had LASIK done last year?
DeleteFire the laser! I’m not sure. Gus,
Deletewhat I do know is that in looking at his at bats on MILB. Box scores, Clifford is still taking a lot of early first and second pitch fatigue strikes. You do not want this guy getting into an extreme funk with strikeouts, so I would be telling him, pretty much ordering him, to get up there and stop trying to work walks, actually pretend walks do not exist, and swing the darn bat at strike one and two every time. He is no Juan Soto, so he cannot be that selective. Remember Luke Ritter? He’s not playing any more.
One guy who is off to a high K start also is Mitch Voit, with 10 Ks in 18 plate appearances. I hope they do not have him trying to work the pitcher already. I want him to work the baseball. Maybe he just needs a demo to St Lucie for a while.
As I was looking at the minor league box scores last night, it occurred to me that besides Elian Pena, the bottom two levels are empty of MLB quality talent hitting wise. It’s going to be a long season in A and A-+.
ReplyDeleteI am still high on Julio Zayas and Randy Guzman in St Lucie, as well as Pena. Pena obviously is THE GUY there.
DeleteFire the laser! I’m not sure. Gus,
ReplyDeletewhat I do know is that in looking at his at bats on MILB. Box scores, Clifford is still taking a lot of early first and second pitch fatigue strikes. You do not want this guy getting into an extreme funk with strikeouts, so I would be telling him, pretty much ordering him, to get up there and stop trying to work walks, actually pretend walks do not exist, and swing the darn bat at strike one and two every time. He is no Juan Soto, so he cannot be that selective. Remember Luke Ritter? He’s not playing any more.
One guy who is off to a high K start also is Mitch Voit. I hope they do not have him trying to work the pitcher already. I want him to work the baseball.
Brooklyn is last in SAL team hitting at .120….and last in ERA at 6.62.
ReplyDeleteI know…only 4 games.
The good thing for them is that they are playing this week in Lakeland, New Jersey. So they are away from the ocean winds of Brooklyn. Maybe that’ll help the bats to start functioning. But you can’t strike out 15 times a game and expect to hit - oddly enough if you took out all of their strikeouts so far, their batting average on balls and player is still poor.
Yes Gus, I think it’s going to be a very long season there. But it is only four games. They could score 20 runs today.
Saw the JD Martinez interview, and he talked in broad generalities about what he’d be doing for the club. But I don’t think it’s a confidence that Mark Vientos, who seemed to be attached at the hip to JD during his breakout ‘24 season, began mashing the ball the day after the JD hire was announced. I’m pretty sure that Martinez is here for one reason - to the the Vientos whisperer.
ReplyDeleteThat should say *coincidence* not confidence.
ReplyDeleteGlad to see JD is here to help MV, indeed.
ReplyDeleteWill Watson (0-0, 9.00) and Chris Scott (0-1, 16.20) pitch today in AA and AAA, and hopefully cut those very early ERAs in half.