HEY!! I SEE SOME PEAKS AND VALLEYS
(MULTIPLE TOPICS TODAY. I STARTED WITH ONE, AND KEPT LAYERING.)
Sometimes, a game on a Sunday can tell a lot about a prospect.
Sometimes, though, it is just one game.
Binghamton?
They got meekly shut out on 1 hit on Sunday.
Nick LoRusso had the one hit. He added a walk. Best AA Mets hitter.
- promote him.
On the debit side of the ledger?
JT Schwartz & Jaylen Palmer? 0-7, with 7 Ks.
- Two Slices Of Burnt Toast? Maybe Schwartz isn’t.
- He rebounded to hit a HR and drove in 4 Tuesday night.
- At 1st glance, Schwartz’s 2026 looks weak, but has 9 HR in last 36 games.
- Which I like.
- So, play him every day and promote him to AAA, and see how he does.
Jon Santucci was superb in the loss, allowing 2 hits, 2 runs, and fanning 10 in 6 innings. But you cannot win when your feeble team gets shut out. Naturally, they scored 10 the next night.
Syracuse?
They lost.
“Fireballer” Ryan Lambert walked 3 more, in one inning of inaccurate toil.
His 22 walks/hit batsmen in 20 innings are worse than the wildness of Bryce Montes de Oca when he was a Mets prospect. (See more on him below).
But, on the other hand:
Nate “the GREAT” Lavender?
- He fanned SIX in 2 IP, and seems to be an authentic budding relief stud.
- Nate’s 57 Ks in 34 IP? Super duper wow.
Nick Morabito remains hot. 50 runs scored in 74 games. I like runs myself.
- Make him a Met by August 1. Once someone old and decrepit leaves.
St Lucie?
They trailed 5-1, heading into home 7th, but added 9 runs late to win 10-5.
Antonio Jimenez (.174), in a rough season, had 3 hits.
Maybe his big Sunday will get the 102nd pick of 2025 going.
(It seems so. In his next game Tuesday, Jimenez had 4 hits in a 11-2 win.)
Brooklyn?
Yonaton Henriquez finally cracked .200, with a serious hot streak.
He was somehow hitting a miniscule .145 in mid-June.
To jump 60 points with a 22 for 63 (.350) break out in 3 weeks?
That tells me to think he is perhaps getting close to AA ready.
No one, including, I imagine, Yonaton thought AA was near-term possible 3 weeks ago.
His teammate, Colin Houck, OTOH, had a hit and an RBI - and 3 more Ks.
Making it 111 Ks in 69 A ball games.
18 Ks in his last 10 games, even while hitting a little better.
If he had not missed 10 games, but played every one of Brooklyn’s 79 games, he’d likely have 127 Ks, give or take one or two.
As of the July 4 weekend. A bit rich for my “Low K” diet.
He mostly has hit 6th, 7th or 8th, limiting his total plate appearances.
He did bat leadoff in 62 PAs this year, fanned in 28 of them, and hit .145, so lead off was not working.
In 280 plate appearances YTD, he fans once every 2.5 PAs.
To me, a true hitting prospect should be more like one K every 5 PAs.
So his task is quite simple…cut his Ks in half.
Houck, due to the 10 slot penalty, was drafted 32nd overall in 2023.
Otherwise, the Mets would have drafted 10 slots earlier, at 22nd overall.
Who was actually drafted 22nd overall?
Colt Emerson.
Colt is already in the major leagues at age 20, a year younger than Houck, hitting .212, but with an impressive 7 HRs and 19 RBIs in 132 at bats.
And playing great SS and 3B, defensively. Better in that regard than Houck.
So…the “Ten Slot Penalty” can (did) have enormous negative implications.
As it clearly has in this case. To the Mets’ long term detriment.
YES…WANDY ASIGEN IS PLAYING
The 16 y/o bonus baby had his first hit on Monday. He is now 1 for 6 plus 6 walks in his ns ent career in the DSL League of Free Passes.
In his team’s 13-8 loss Monday, there were 25 walks, of which he had two. Wandy also plated 2 runs, and made his 3rd error. (He added another hit and walk on Tuesday).
ESCAPED AND THRIVING
“Let’s Go Brandon” Sproat, the guy traded for Never Ready Freddy, has allowed just 3 earned runs in 15.1 IP over his last 3 MLB Outings.
- All Sproat needed to do to succeed?
- - Leave Queens.
CRAZY WILD
The Mets minors, for possible closer-quality pen help, is bleak.
Dylan Ross and Ryan Lambert, both of whom I was very optimistic about entering 2026, have been beyond extraordinarily disappointing this season, and can’t be counted on any more than Bryce Montes De Oca could.
Can I be honest? Bryce was an almost a control freak compared to these two.
Those two bums have surrendered 37 runs in 40 combined AAA IP this year.
And given up a staggering 43 walks and 8 hit batsmen in 40 frames.
WHAT???
I hate to call them bums, but those stats scream “BUMS”.
My advice? Aim for the absolute dead center of the plate. Every pitch.
You’ll still miss a lot, I’m sure, but you’ll miss less.
Let hitters make contact, rather than coughing up prodigious levels of walks and HBPs.
WINNER OF THE GOLDEN METS MINORS DELIGHT AWARD SO FAR
Daviel Hurtado
21 year old lefty has simply been BRILLIANT IN BROOKLYN.
36.1 IP, JUST 15 hits, JUST 5 walks, 1.49 ERA, 4-1, JUST a 0.55 WHIP.
In a season of poor performances in the Mets minors virtually all across the board, THAT performance is frankly incredible.
Daviel….Congratulations!
BO BICHETTE TURNS 50
It happened a few days ago. Up to 50…RBIs? Hitting .333 after May?
Guy is awesome. Quit griping about him.
He just needed to adjust, just like Lindor did in his first Mets season.
A first season in Queens through May is almost always painful for hitters.
The Mets are already bottom 3 in scoring with him.
Without him, they’d be ranked maybe 40th in a 30 team sport. Maybe. So…
Keep him if you don’t get GOLD for him at the trade deadline.
BRAVO!
A 17 year-old young man named Royner Bravo went 3 for 3 with 3 RBIs and a walk on Monday in his DSL game. What else can we say, but BRAVO.
Also worth a bravo is my guy, outfielder Randy Guzman, playing a rehab FCL game on Monday after missing a full month with an undisclosed injury. It was suspended after 4 innings, but Randy had a double and an RBI in 2 PAs.
OTHER MINORS INJURY NOTES:
The only remaining significant prospect with significant injury is Boston Baro, who went 4 for 5 in a brief rehab, then was shut down. Sadly, I read this recent Baseball America blurb about a guy who seemed to have the potential to be another AJ Ewing:
“SS Boston Baro remains on the 60-day injured list at High-A Brooklyn as he recovers from a shoulder injury. He attempted a rehab assignment in May before shutting things down again. The Mets expect him to be out until August or September.”
- I wonder if he hurt the shoulder on a head-first dive. I prefer feet first.
Jacob Reimer is out still, too. Regarding him, I read this BA blurb:
“AA third baseman Jacob Reimer tweaked his groin and went on the injured list on June 18. It is expected to be a short absence.”
- Maybe Reimer returns this week, if it truly is “short term”? Not last nite.
If the minors system right now had the bats of Reimer, Guzman, and Baro, that would have been a true offense boost. Trey Snyder had missed much time, but is hitting a solid .271 since returning in over 100 ABs. Trey is fast, but needs to stay healthy.
LASTLY…
Matt Seelberger had pitched in the minors since 2017. Not in the Mets organization. Never in the bigs.
However, the pitching starved Mets acquired him for cash, and due to the bullpen running thin, The Mets put him in last night for his major league debut. In his first inning, he gave up the seven deciding runs.
But he rebounded to throw a scoreless 2nd inning. Hard hit balls, but a zero.
After that difficult debut, I don’t know if he’ll get to throw a third inning in the major leagues, but he finally made it, in what became a Mets 16-12 loss. Four field goals were not enough.
He actually has pitched well in the minors in his career, but I see one flaw:
Just three hit batsmen in 390 innings. Matt, you’re being too nice. Start nailing some hitters, it might help.
Adam Warren sucked, too. Eve warned me about Adam.
However, AJ Ewing, the Mets new superstar, had 4 hits and 4 runs scored. Soto, the current superstar, hit another big blast.
Only Mets hitter to go hitless was Hamate Bone Lindor (.210).
Besides Seelberger and Warren, Senga (8.92 ERA) sucked, again.
That trio gave up all 16 runs against one of baseball’s weaker offenses.
He can quickly again become an ace, though. If he goes to the Dodgers.
14 comments:
I did not want my article to get infinitely long, but on the subject of Bichette
There is a bona fide adjustment, for stars who join the Mets and come to city Field in cold April and May when the ball doesn’t carry. A very real headwind.
I looked at Soto and Lindor in their first two respected months with the Mets.
In 378 combined at bats, these two stars hit .203, with just 13 homers and 38 RBIs. Thereafter, other than this injury riddled Lindor season, both hit like superstars, but in those first two months, they hit like DJ Stewart.
So I am warning, my fellow writers, and whoever reads these columns: do not sour on Bichette. He also had his early struggles. But the early two months our history. The dude can hit. We need the dude. Don’t chase him out of town. I have a better solution: move the darn fences in.
JT SCHWARTZ HAS BEEN AN ENIGMA. He had a miserable 2025 and was also miserable for the first six weeks of 2026. Since then, however he’s been trying it appears to emulate Kyle Schwarber. I am not saying he is Kyle Schwarber. He certainly is not. I am saying if a guy can hit 9 home runs in 36 games, tell him to go with a home run swing and see what happens. It might be his version of a career Hail Mary. He’s already 26. What does he got to lose, just keep turning up the power and see what happens.
Unreal.
Bichette did not fail because of the cold months. He hit feeble rollers and pop-ups with RISP as the Mets re-established themselves as the worst team in baseball with runners on. Bichette proved during that period that he can't play under the lights of the big city, even though it was cold under those lights. If this team ever makes the playoffs again, Bichette would be the last guy I want up in a high leverage situation (well, maybe second to last behind Baty). Hope he is gone by then and the prospects we get for him are making headway.
Schwartz is a great example of how the Mets development system has failed us. He could absolutely rake when he came up - best lefty swing I have seen in a long time. Suddenly, he stopped hitting and only occasionally shows some power. They have corrupted his swing and his timing.
You can enter Beltran with his slow start as well. We all know how that turned out. Will this adjustment entice Bichette to opt out at year end? If you think he may opt out, why not move him?
Paul - I am not so unhappy when a batter has hit .296/.341/467 with runners on base and .267/.341/.413 with RISP.
With 2 out, in 40 ABs, .300/.391/.575. When the bases were loaded, in 9 ABs, .417/.462/.833
Paul, the Soto/Lindor opening two months numbers were equally, if not more, dismal than Bichette. The park in April and May is like a neutron bomb to the team’s offense.
He needs to shun any and all advice and go all-in for power or go home.
I’m thinking that Stearns’ constant meddling and micromanaging are keeping the Mets from having better organizational coaches?
He wants puppets and we learned that right away with Showalter
The bullpen crap out last night was because Senga got removed after 3 innings. I know he hasn’t been good, but I also know that he is best when throwing high and they have hime pitching low.
Stearns has to GO now! So they'll wait and he will make the moves at the deadline ugh SC wake up.
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