CARSON BENGE MADE THE TEAM! YEAH!
PHENOMENAL!
That gives the Mets TWO legit Rookie of the Year candidates.
Carson Benge and Nolan McLean.
Both are from Oklahoma State U.
Henceforth, the data is overwhelmingly clear:
ONLY draft OSU guys!
LET’S GO CARSON!!
NEXT TOPIC: SPRING STATS CAN SOMETIMES MISLEAD
Anthony DiComo on Mark Vientos:
“Vientos is a great example of how Spring Training statistics can lie to us.
“Did you know that among the 308 batters with at least 25 balls in play this spring, Vientos ranks 27th in average exit velocity?
“He's been crushing balls directly into gloves. He’s not striking out much.”
So, that helps someone like me to rationally minimize the pain of his 4 for 51 spring/WBC malaise. I am clearly just being misled here, that’s all.
Obviously, though, when a slugger hits home runs, the only “gloves” they may directly land in are fans’ gloves, so Mark needs to make more balls disappear into outfield fans’ gloves. You bat 1.000 on those.
OTHER SCATTERED OBSERVATIONS
From scattered minds come scattered thoughts. Here are just a few:
Mets‘ Luis Robert, Jr.
On Sunday, Luis Robert Jr. was up 3 times and fanned 3 times.
A reminder he is talented but can be offensively frustrating at times.
Little Luisangel Acuna through Sunday meanwhile was a dandy 17 for 41 for his new team after the Roberts trade. The Luis duo may just end up co-starring in a remake of the great Murphy/Akroyd flick: Trading Places.
More:
The forgotten ace of most of the 2025 season, David Peterson, pitched a nice five innings on Sunday. Which was great to see. Most of his fast balls were in the 91+ mile an hour range, with a handful getting up to about 92.5. So he’s about 3 mph faster than Sean Manaea in his last spring outing. But Petey was still a little underwhelming speed-wise. Hopefully, DP adds some velocity, too, as the season progresses in the weeks ahead.
More:
The last two innings on Sunday were thrown by 23 year old Packer Carlson, with no presumable relation to blogging Tucker Carlson.
Packer, undrafted, was amazingly hurling his first two pro innings on Sunday. He lost in part due to Nick Roselli failing to glove a seemingly catchable triple.
So are his stats, which worsen the Mets’ spring team ERA, meaningful? I’d vote no. Stats only count starting Thursday. More:
More:
Yunior Amparo, now 19, and who raked in the DSL last year, singled in his lone spring training AB. He did, however, go 0 for 2 in the prospects game last week, which doesn’t count toward official Spring stats.
His position? I dunno…he played 5 positions last year, which is hard to do in just 50 games. Whatever position he plays, may he become a spokesperson for Burger King, which will change their menu name to a Whopper Yunior when he makes it big in a few years.
More:
Besides Sugar Rush Diaz with LAD, former Mets prospect Ryder Ryan - AND his brother River Ryan - threw a combined 21.1 innings for LAD this spring, with 23 Ks. When I saw that, my first reaction was, “oh, brother”.
More:
My “former 6’10” high strikeout, high walk fave prospect guy”, Paul Gervase, threw 9.1 innings, with 11 Ks and just one free pass, for LAD. I had a feeling he’d straighten out that control problem.
OK. One more.
Another former Mets prospect fave, Rhylan Thomas, went a blistering 18 for 37 (.486) for Seattle this spring.
He does what he does best…hit, and NOT strike out.
Just 3 Ks in 43 PAs this spring, after hitting.325 in AAA in 2025, where he fanned 32 times in 618 PAs. That is a microscopic 35 Ks in 651 PAs.
Can we “contact” Mr. Contact and get him back to NY, please?
Wait - there’s more…
Pete Alonso? 2 HRs and 3 RBIs in his first 2 Orioles spring games. Wow.
Thereafter, he had 54 Plate appearances…with no home runs and no RBIs.
How about them apples?
Finally, back to the Mets regular season, thankfully starting this week.
May the Mets go 162-0.
Our very own Ray, to be clear, is not feeling quite as optimistic.
Me? I figure it this way:
You have no season losses yet, so just decide to kick the losing habit.
162-0. Put it in the books.
11 comments:
The Braves face storm clouds: Spencer Strider oblique, Spencer Schwellenbach and Hurston Waldrep both on the 60-day injured list, and Joey Wentz ACL tear. Ha-Seong Kim out with a hand injury and Jurickson Profar violation out for year. No raves for Braves.
No raves for the Mets yet either.
Poor Rhylan Thomas: “Thomas did everything he could to claim a spot on Seattle's Opening Day roster, slashing . 486/. 535/. 784 with two home runs, eight RBI and six runs scored over 43 plate appearances, but he will instead head back to AAA Tacoma to begin 2026.”
Baseball sucks for hitters on the cusp, like Thomas.
Weird spring, with Lindor and Soto and McLean missing 3/4 of it. I think they’ll do fine. I saw that the Mets are #5 in MLB power rankings. That is pretty much a rave.
I always forget Brandon Nimmo, who turns 33 on Friday. Fine spring: .290/.436/.1.146 in 39 PAs, with 10 RBIs. Wish him well.
That’s quite a stack of players not on the field for the Braves. They have a dangerous top of the offense but it thins out down the lineup and their pitching is super suspect to start with all these injuries.
Phillies are interesting. I think their pitching can be really solid (although we dont know when/ what version of wheeler they're getting back) and their top 3 in the lineup are great but their lineup 4-9 is very middle of the road.
Neither team is set up to weather injuries well.
I think the Mets floor is higher than either of these teams (both because of the depth of talent on the 26 man as well as the coming impact prospects in the upper minors). Sterns has built as much depth as ive ever seen.
On the ceiling side. I feel like if all of these teams hit their 90 percent outcome probability (health for all their big pieces and a few rookies making an impact from the jump) then this is anyones game and could be a blood bath in the nl east
Hopefully, for once, we prevail, Dan.
I wonder if Chis Sale, turning 37 in less than a week, will continue to be broken, and decline? Perhaps not - a good spring.
Can’t wait for the season to start! We have a very competitive team with deeper depth than I can remember. LGM!!!
Last year, McLean wasn’t ready until August, and Sproat and Tong were a bit short of readiness. Now, I feel if we needed 4 starters called up by Memorial Day, the Mets would have four ready-to-go:
Scott, Tong, Wenninger, and Santucci.
That is REAL DEPTH.
Agreed. The pitching depth is impressive. Looking forward to one of these guys jump in and take a spot and not let it go. Maybe 2 of them!
Peterson isn’t likely to be here next year. Manea / Senga both have their issues and are only here for this year and 2027 (senga had looked gooood but you have to worry about his health).
Homes is only here for this year with an option for next year.
Extend Freddy, heck extend Mclane early before he becomes insanely expensive and then find out who’s going to build out the rest of the rotation from this group of young pitchers.
Im just waiting for Tong to master that new cutter and then take the baseball world by storm
The rotation will ROTATE to young studs and Freddy by OD 2027.
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