Good morning.
We need to revisit Brett Baty.
I am well known for saying there is no place for this guy to play. Mark Vientos is the third baseman, Pete Alonso is on first, Francisco Lindor is on short, and Luisangel Acuña and Jeff McNeil fighting it out for second. This would leave one more utility infield slot TBD.
Sources say that Baty is (almost frantically) burning the midnight oil taking extra reps at all four infield positions.
Ernest
Dove @ernestdove
Brett
Baty having himself a spring and he seems to often be putting in work behind
the scenes doing fielding drills all over the infield.
My concerns at this approach have always been that his offensive game could suffer with all this attention to his defensive limitations.
How's that working out?
Well, as of end of game Friday, Baty is hitting .545, with a 1.727-OPS.
Ya know, if he continues to show he can hold his own as more established pro pitchers are thrown at him in ST, there is another option to consider.
DH
Sure, he might then qualify as the youngest full time DH in baseball... maybe ever... but he would have a full time "position" for the team both he and you love.
And just imagine him producing the same kind of stat line he has produced in the minors, in this lineup?
Who needs pitchers.
Next up, with the help of my friend Thomas Nestico of TJ Stats, and the guys over at Pitch Profilers, let’s take a look at what some of the Mets
pitchers looked like this past week:
First up is Brandon Sproat. I mean, wow'! We've been hyping this guy all last season, but the world got to see two remarkable things on Friday... that WH press conference and the two perfect innings thrown by Sproat.
Thomas
Nestico @TJStats
Brandon
Sproat made his Spring debut!
Sproat is
one of the best pitching prospects in baseball and he showed why today. He
fired off 2 perfect innings while flashing his deep arsenal and high 90s heat
Mets fans have a lot to be excited about with Sproat!
Mets' top
prospect Brandon Sproat made his Spring Training debut this afternoon!
Sproat
boasts an MLB-ready arsenal with elite secondary pitches. The Nationals never
stood a chance as he cruised through two perfect innings!
Where does this go? Fun stuff on a team looking for another starter.
Second up is Dom Hamel, who definitely needed to spend some time in the pitching lab during the off-season. According to Thomas, so far so good:
Thomas
Nestico @TJStats
Dom Hamel fired off a scoreless inning in his Spring debut
The most notable aspect of his outing was a change in release point compared to 2024. His vertical release droped 0.3 ft while he saw a slight increase in iVB on his 4-Seam. These changes helped his it grade out well
What if Hamel can keep this up and come back to become a starter
prospect again? I have him pinned in as a future reliever, but this is a nice
start on a long road ahead of Dom.
Next is another starter prospect that hit a wall in AAA:
Thomas
Nestico @TJStats
Blade Tidwell didn't have a great start, but his pitch metrics looked phenomenal today!
His velocity was up +2 MPH and his cutter showed a ton of life. This is the stuff you want to see!
The real good news here is he hit 99 in his two-inning outing. Tidwell is another starter that I have targets for the Mets pen, especially if he can go scoreless in the first inning he pitches, while producing this kind of velo.
Now for one of the longshots:
Thomas
Nestico @TJStats
Max Kranick looked good in his Spring debut for the Mets today
His
fastball graded out well while he weaved in a trio of breaking balls with solid
traits. He could be a strong depth piece for the Mets this season
More good news in a first outing.
On to the next outing...
Thomas Nestico @TJStats
Max Kranick continues to look the part of a potential impact
arm for the Mets this season
The fastball is really good!
Pitch Profiler @pitchprofiler
Oh hey, look—Max Kranick is back on the mound!
And his stuff STILL looks incredible!
Pitch Profiler @pitchprofiler
Excuse me, but Max Kranick has 7 pitches???
This dude is PRIMED and READY for a breakout!
Isaac @isaacgroffman
What
makes Max Kranick unique and hard to hit?
3 of his
pitches have more "rise' than expected for his arm angle
Thomas Nestico @TJStats
Clay Holmes made another scoreless Spring start!
His stuff wasn't as strong as his debut, but he continued to
show off his new suite of pitches. His sweeper and slider are legitimate
ace-level offerings
Mets fans should be very excited for him this season!
Thomas Nestico @TJStats
Clay Holmes made another scoreless Spring start! His stuff wasn't as strong as his debut, but he continued to show off his new suite of pitches. His sweeper and slider are legitimate ace-level offerings. Mets fans should be very excited for him this season!
Underdog
MLB @Underdog__MLB
Clay
Holmes pitch usage this spring:
Sinker -
26
Sweeper -
15
Slider -
13
4-seam -
11 (new)
Kick
change - 8 (new)
Cutter -
3 (new)
6 IP / 0
ER / 5 K
Thomas Nestico @TJStats
Griffin Canning has a new cutter!
Canning was acquired this offseason by the Mets, and their
pitching lab has made some notable changes. He added in a cutter and his sinker
may be his go to fastball now
It's always fun when a pitcher makes changes like these!
Pitch Profiler @pitchprofiler
Mets
reliever Huascar Brazobán made his Spring
Training debut today—and he was lights out!
Hopefully,
he can return to being the dominant reliever he was before arriving in New York
last year.
2-27-25
Fantasy
Baseball 2025: Breakout Sleepers at Every Position
Francisco Alvarez, New York Mets
At just 23, Alvarez has already established himself as one of baseball’s top catchers. His defense is strong (88th percentile in framing), and he’s a respected leader behind the plate.
While his power dipped in 2024 (11 HR vs. 25 in 2023), he improved in nearly every other offensive category. If he can regain his home run stroke while continuing to develop, Alvarez could take another big leap forward in 2025.
Medium - The Really Big 2025 Mets Prospects Ranking
https://medium.com/@mdonodeo8/the-really-big-2025-mets-prospects-ranking-5c0fbaaa49f0
1.
RHP Brandon Sproat
Another way to take pressure off the fastball is through usage of the secondaries, of which Sproat has a lot of intriguing ones. The best is the changeup, which is already one of the best pitches in any level of the organization. It’s thrown hard in the upper 80s, but manages to have significant depth and fade at 1 vert and 15 armside in AAA.
The result is a pitch that visually looks like the fastball before diving down at the last minute and creating a ton of swings and misses. It’s capable of getting whiffs against both sides of the plate, although mixing in a sinker to righties could affect the tunneling ability some. If that becomes the case, his new-for-2024 sweeper should be an above average option.
It’s thrown in the mid-80s with slight lift and average sweep — 84 with 4/-12 in AAA, although he didn’t have great feel for it when transitioning to the MLB balls, so the final stuff profile could look a little different in time.
His most used secondary in AAA was a gyro slutter thing with
slight lift and cut at 87. This pitch is fine in a vacuum — even though it’s
not quite a gyro slider, it’s close enough, and 86+ is the threshold where gyro
sliders play well — but I wonder if there is some lost deception due to the
pitch being slower than you would expect for someone with his fastball
velocity. At worst, it should still be a platoon-neutral bridge pitch that
serves its purpose in the arsenal. He rounds out the five-pitch mix with a
curveball that works best as a strike stealer early in counts.
Overall,
the profile is one of a starter who can get whiffs with multiple secondaries
but might struggle deeper into games if the four-seam fastball usage remains
high. Even if that happens, it’s a mid-rotation starter profile with upside for
more. He should get playing time in 2025, and it could be fairly soon if good
results in AAA force the organization’s hand.
Scouting
grades: 50 FF, 50 SL, 70 CH, 55 SW, 45 CU, 50 command
Optimistic
comp: Paul Skenes, but a bit worse at everything
Jim Koenigsberger @Jimfrombaseball
His
Gravestone Inscription
"I
may not have been the greatest Yankee to put on the uniform, but I was the
proudest"
Billy Martin
"Baseball
is the best announcer game, the game that I first enjoyed playing, and the game
I had a passion for. If you have baseball in your soul, it doesn't go away.
It's there forever."
Dick Enberg
"Ain't
no one in heaven or earth ever knew more about fishing than me"
Ted Williams
"Sure
there is," says Boston writer
"Oh,
yeah? Who?"
"Well,
God made the fish."
"Yeah,
awright," Ted says. "But you have to go pretty far back."
24 comments:
Very intriguing material. Since you offered it, I read it, and then went to research “it”. And I found this:
“A higher spin rate on a fastball results in less drop and can create the perception of a "rising" fastball due to the Magnus Force, meaning the ball appears to stay up longer in the strike zone compared to a fastball with a lower spin rate, which would drop more significantly; essentially, more spin means more movement and potential for late break on the pitch.”
So, I compared the spin rates of all pitchers offered and saw Sproat’s was by far the lowest. But, reading the scouting report for medium.com (never heard of them before now), I see that this was already acknowledged. Ok, we have some good stuff in the minors… how good? We don’t know yet, but at least there is something. I still think Stearns jumped the gun a little bit on Montas, but the man deserves some acceptance and much forgiveness if not every move works.
I think what this really does is show San Diego that they might just be interested in some Mets prospects right now for their #84 pitcher. Say, Tidwell, Hamel, Marte, and Ronald Hernandez?
The good news, so far, that I take away from the early pre-season games is that the Syracuse rotation is stacked
Seems like the lads did their homework in the off season - good!
Lots of talent - AND DO NOT OVERLOOK KRANICK.
How about Tidwell yesterday...2 perfect innings, fanned the last 5, 2nd inning only needed 9 pitches for his 3 Ks. Say what??
Siri apparently hit a rocket where the left fielder didn't bother to turn. Great fielder, great power, I just hope he worked on adjusting with 2 strikes this off season - his career 57% K rate when he gets to 2 strikes is a career-threatener.
all those stats about pitch spin made my head spin.
All of this promising information shows that the prospects in our system were touted for a reason. As fans we tend to be very impatient for guys to perform at the MLB level. Sometimes it takes time. Baty and Hamel were both "given up" by many who follow the team, but maybe it is just taking a little longer for them to gain the knowledge and confidence to succeed at the MLB level.
KRANICK - agree
DARTH BLADER - he really looks like the real deal
But do you like these graphs included here?
Right now...
The addition of the labs ate NOT a subtraction
Great to finally hear some positive feedback for the pitching lab. I was beginning to believe that was a myth.
Fingers crossed on Baty, hope he's finally figured things out. If he hasn't adjusted to the low inside off-speed pitch it will be same old, same old. I hope Alverez is paying attention to Baty's new approach. The power will come. Nothing wrong with crushing 40 doubles. You have to crawl before you walk.
Very excited about Kranick. He would help out immensely.
agree on all you outline here
I was at the game y/day and Tidwell reminded me of my all time favorite player Sandy Koufax now the question will be of course can he keep it up and he did it against the A team. Siri HR was a blast and his ST performance impressive and credit to the hitting lab I guess. We can only hope Sproat is our poor mans version of Paul Skenes which I'd sign up for in a heartbeat and I guess with all the excellent pitching performances so far this spring we have to again thank Mr. Sterns for having a plan and sticking to it and not rushing into trading prospects.
By the way I did "ask siri" for a HR for Jose and she answered. You go girl!
Graphs were hard to read. Will look again later.
Our future pitching looks bright with Sprout, Tidwell, Tong, McLean close to being MLB ready. And Scott, Ziegler, and maybe Allen ready to contribute in 2026.
If they can stay healthy, the pitching for 2027-28 looks pretty good!
Heck, I think this even bodes will for 2025. The depth is there and a couple of those guys could come up and pitch as well in the majors as some of the journeymen that have gone through here.
Siri has as many home runs this spring as strikeouts. And more walks than Ks. (the SSSS working again here).
They can be enlarged
I have my eyes on that Marlins pitcher named Sandy
The development of at least 2 of those pitchers into our starting rotation would go a long way to stabilizing our payroll and lowering the Cohen tax. The inclusion of 1 or 2 of these prospects into solid bullpen arms would be even better.
Can someone please tell me why there is so much hype for McClean? Several of our posters are much more versed on our minor leagues than me. I just don't see this can't miss status and high ranking.
98 fastball with a killer 83-86 sweeper with 3000 spin
Thank you, Mack. Are you real high on him?
The graphs are super bad ass! Or, “coooooooool” as my nephew would say.
If you press on the graphs, they open to another page and then you can really open them up.
Yes I am
Gus, thanks for the tip on the graphs enlarging. Kranick at 96? Much better than Blackburn’s.
Post a Comment