Mike's Mets - At the Gates of Spring

By Mike Steffanos February 14, 2021 

It's hard not to feel the excitement of baseball returning this week, even amidst the still-ongoing concerns about COVID-19. Mets pitchers and catchers will report Wednesday, while the position players will be in camp a week from Monday. While Acting GM Zack Scott has indicated that the Mets are not done improving their roster, it will still be a blast to see the team they've assembled so far over the offseason. A new era of Mets baseball truly began when Steve Cohen took over the team in October and handed the keys to Sandy Alderson, but it will all start to get real this week.

Even without concerns from the pandemic, this would be an interesting year as the Mets try to implement the organizational changes they were working on this winter. The new regime's stated goal is to get more out of their farm system than the club has traditionally done. On top of all of the changes they're attempting to implement, there will be a necessity just to get everything on track following what was mostly a lost season for all but a few prospects. Even the prospects who could take advantage of the opportunity to work on their game at teams' alternate sites had a very non-traditional workload in 2020 and need to prepare for what will be at least closer to a traditional minor league development year.

And, of course, even that will be affected by COVID protocols in place for spring training. Traditionally, the bulk of the minor league players not seeing time in big league camp arrive at the beginning of March for minor league spring training. The players who got some time in big league camp traditionally get sent back to work with their fellow minor leaguers as the season gets closer. None of that is happening quite that way this spring. Minor League spring training won't even begin until the Major League players break camp, which will delay the start of Minor League baseball's season. Most experts expect this to happen around Memorial Day.

Once the Triple-A season gets underway, clubs like the Mets will get reinforcements in the usual way, calling players up from their affiliates. Technically, the Triple-A season is supposed to begin on time, as the 75-player limit for training camp would allow for those players at the highest level of the minors to be ready. However, from what I've read, they could still decide to bump the start of the Triple-A season back and utilize alternate sites in the interim.

As I see it, the Mets Player Development folks face some diverse challenges with their charges, depending on what happened to the individual players last year. As I've said, no kids enjoyed a traditional year of development. A few top prospects enjoyed some work at the alternate site, which could even prove to be a boon for the lucky few able to enjoy quality one-on-one work with coaches and trainers. The Mets also ran an expanded Fall Instructional camp for their prospects after the season ended, but that ended a bit early when a couple of participants tested positive for COVID-19. Indeed, all of the top prospects were able to take advantage of some development opportunities from the season, but other players were on their own.

There was no short-season baseball last year for the 2020 Mets draft picks to get their first taste of pro ball. Top pick OF Pete Crow-Armstrong, third-round pick SS Anthony Walters, fourth-rounder C Matt Dyer, and fifth-rounder RHP Eric Orze were all invitees to the fall camp, as was Isaiah Green — since traded to Cleveland. Second-round pick J.T. Ginn is recovering from Tommy John surgery and won't pitch until sometime this summer. Of that group, Crow-Armstrong will have the opportunity to work in Major League camp this spring; the rest will have to wait until April.

From the 2019 draft, P Matt Allan and 3B Brett Baty enjoyed time at the alternate site and the Fall Instructional camp but are awaiting their first full-season minor league assignments. Both players will join Crow-Armstrong and #1 prospect Francisco Alvarez in big league camp, which will certainly benefit them as they seek to make up for lost time. The full list of non-roster invitees to camp can be found here.

I guess now would be the time to express an opinion on Tim Tebow being invited to camp. I know many Mets fans have strong feelings one way or the other on the man, but I'm Tebow-agnostic. I'm not outraged that he's received an invite to camp, but he's 33 and hasn't displayed the skills that would signal any potential to ever contribute to a major league club. I know he's demonstrated a great attitude and is popular with minor league fans and his teammates, so it's hard for me to hate on him, but I can't help but wonder if that spring training slot might be better used by someone else. But I'm not going to lose any sleep on it.

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