How are the Mini-Mets Doing in the Very Early Going?
Mets minor league baseball seasons are starting to roll.
Who’s playing, and how are they doing?
Brandon Sproat in 41 degree Worchester, Ma. weather on Sunday in AAA gave up 4 runs in 2 IP.
Thus ends the argument as to whether he is already MLB ready. He's not.
He IS, however, ready for warmer weather.
He ain't no Eskimo. He is a Freezing Former Floridian.
The Syracuse line up is “AAAA City”. No doubt, some will depart when prospect are ready to step in at AAA. Joey Meneses has 5 hits in the first 3 games, but this line up is sucking it at .204. Maybe it really is a "veteran AA City" pretending to be AAA caliber. Where are the injured returning to the front lines as reinforcements?
Lefty Brandon Waddell, 30, started Tuesday. He last pitched in the majors/minors in 2022. A frosty 39 degrees and windy for a 2:00 PM start. First opponent up lined a single. He gave up 8 hits and 2 runs in 3.2 IP, then Grant Hartwig had a rough outing. 4-2 loss.
Dom Hamel threw 5 shutout innings on Wednesday, in a 5-1 win. Yeah!
And pro hitter Joey Meneses is 7 for 16, and he drove in 2 runs.
Hamel and Tidwell mean business in 2025. Nasty. Joey is ready, too.
Baty is a .211 career hitter. Joey? .274. You do the math.
AA Binghamton opening day is Friday, April 4. Naturally, they open in New Hampshire. And yes, it is an early April NIGHT GAME. Bring your kiddies, bring your woolies, watch out for signs of hypothermia. (As of Monday AM, the Friday forecast for Manchester NH was 63 in the daytime, dropping to 38 at night. Daytime or Nighttime baseball…Draw your own conclusions.)
ALL the opening day games for AA that day are night games. Saturday and Sunday in Manchester, NH will smartly be playing day games, but neither day will get out of the 40s. "PLAY B..B..B..BALL!"
AA Binghamton will have Jonah Tong and Nolan McLean on the mound, two major headaches for opposing flailing bats, and jackrabbits in Jett Williams and Nick Morabito. Not to mention Parada, Clifford, Ramirez, and Willie Lugo. Ought to be interesting.
High A Brooklyn opens April 4 at home at night, followed by afternoon games the following 2 days. Ryan Lambert, Joltin' Jack Reimer, Boston Baro, and Jonathan Santucci will add spice to the Coney Island crew. They of course will also have the return of both tall wild man Jace Beck and Brian Metoyer from TJS.
The Matt Allan-led St. Lucie Mets also opens up on Friday April 4 with a night game, in weather-comfortable Florida, followed by 2 day games.
Joining mighty Matt Allan are righty Nate Dohm, Jesus Baez, Colin Houck, and many others of great skill and acumen like Daiverson G., AJ Ewing, J Rod, and Mighty Marco (not to be confused with Secretary of State Little Marco). Yovanny (whoa-oh-oh)? Please see below.
The FCL Rookie Mets play their first game on Tuesday May 6, five weeks away.
Why not sooner? Beats me. Roster composition? Beats me. I could probably try to figure it out but injuries could throw that into chaos, so let's just wait and see. Maybe bonus baby Elian Pena at age 17 will be so darned good, he'll start out stateside.
INJURIES
As Mack noted on Sunday, the injuries are not confined to major leaguers like the "M Boys" - Manaea, McNeil, Montas, Madrigal - and to Alvarez.
And Manaea, as we know, just filed for an extension, meaning the first $10 million of his 3 year, $75 million contract will be paying him whilst in rehab until he returns in June(?).
The minors have their own Malady Mets - here is a partial list of just the AAA dudes - of course, Ronny "the Mirage" Mauricio is still M.I.A. too:
1B JT Schwartz on the 7-day injured list.
1B Jared Young on the 7-day injured list.
RHP Yacksel Ríos on the 7-day injured list.
RHP Oliver Ortega on the 7-day injured list.
CF Drew Gilbert on the 7-day injured list.
CF Rafael Ortega on the 7-day injured list.
Two of them, I fear, have likely contracted the dreaded Ortega Syndrome. (I did not even realize we had 2 Ortegas, did you?)
Gilbert and Schwartz (not to be confused with composers Gilbert and Sullivan) sure seem to get hurt a lot. Or is it just me? Aren't you supposed to PLAY your way into the major leagues?
Also, did you ever notice how 7-day injured list stints seem to mysteriously lengthen? We wish them all miraculous healings. After 7 days, they are all of course immediately returning as Ted Williams and Sandy Koufax. (Reminds me that at age 37, after the 1957 All Star Break, Ted Williams hit .464. Hopefully, Juan Soto can do that in 2025).
Lower than AAA injured player lists will be forthcoming. We did recently hear that St Lucie’s Yovanny Rodriguez went on the 60 day IL with a hammy that simply went poof. Maybe he got a bad case of the contagious Ortega Syndrome. A similar immediate assignment to the 60 day list for a hammy injury cost Jack Reimer several months on the IL in 2024, so maybe Yovanny (whoa-oh-oh) will be back by the ASB.
Lastly, one pitcher who will soon mark the one year anniversary of TJS and likely will return in late 2025 threw just 7 innings in 2023 and 2024, but what a 7 innings it was: no hits and 16 Ks. Remember Calvin Ziegler.
For all you know he might pitch in games sooner than Manaea and Montas.
GOOD NEWS AND BAD NEWS
GOOD: The Dodgers rallied to whip Atlanta, dropping the Braves to 0-7.
BAD: The Dodgers are 8-0. Will they be baseball’s first 130 win team?
OTHER BAD NEWS: The Mets still have to play the Dodgers this year.
5 comments:
Too bad 'Cuse and/or Bingo can't use the field the FCL team doesn't need until May.
If teams didn't have to take days off every Monday, they could start their seasons in mid-April and have a small chance of better weather.
I think they use The St Lucie Mets field. But no reason they couldn’t have a day and night game with 2 teams on the same day on that field
Being injured while on a major league roster is tough. Being injured while trying to make it to the majors is worse. There is so much competition out there for each roster spot, that if you lose your place due to injury, players tend to rush back too soon to recover. It only sends them back again.
The Rays share a field with the Yankees A league team.
Paul, so much worse for hitters than pitchers. If you are a good pitcher, and get hurt, you are merely delayed. If you are a hitter, your best opportunity may bypass you if you have a lengthy injury. Jake Mangum missed 2020 due to COVID, then missed about 40 games a year in 2022 and 2023. So he got delayed in reaching the majors until age 29 this year.
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