Spring Clock-Cleaning

Hello hello hello and welcome to spring! And Free Thursday! We accidentally had a Free Tuesday this week! That was exciting! Hope you took advantage of my silliness there! Feel free to smash that subscribe button just in case I’m not a dummy every single day and you want to read The Mets Newsletter daily.

By the time you are reading this, the spring solstice has arrived, and there is exactly one week left until the Mets play their first regular season game of 2025. But possibly the clearest sign of all that it’s all going to count soon came last night. Facing their upcoming Opening Day opponent in the Houston Astros, manager Carlos Mendoza penciled into his lineup what is likely to be the actual nine that will begin the season: Francisco Lindor, Juan Soto, Pete Alonso, Mark Vientos, Brandon Nimmo, Starling Marte, Luis Torrens, Brett Baty at second base, and Tyrone Taylor. 

It’s no secret that the Mets have had stellar pitching and crummy offense this spring - they’re sporting both the best ERA in the majors and the worst OPS. So maybe Mendoza wanted to see his likely starting lineup in action against one of Houston’s starting pitchers, Ronel Blanco, and see if there was legitimate reason for concern. If he was to significantly factor last night’s results into his thinking, he should be feeling good, because the Mets won the fake game 8-2. New York slugged 12 hits. Seven were extra base hits. 

The lone home run came off the bat of Alonso, who before last night had a decent on-base percentage but weirdly had yet to smack a dinger this spring. His shot into the left center field berm in West Palm Beach must have been satisfying for the Polar Bear. He of course was going to hit a home run sooner or later in the calendar year, but after a long time of not hitting one, it must start to feel impossible to ever do again. You want at least one dinger before leaving camp, right?

It seems like Brett Baty has second base locked down. It appears he can handle it decent.

And his hot February/March is continuing to the point where you just might think this time around it ain’t no fluke. Baty doubled to the right center gap in the 3rd and discovered triples is best down the right field line the very next inning. His Grapefruit League OPS is back to four digits (1.010) after a brief dip the last couple of days. 

Nimmo went 2 for 4 with an RBI double off of old chum Rafael Montero in the 5th.  Playing left field, he caught a fly in the 5th and fielded a single in the 6th with seemingly no knee or foot issues.

Marte doubled. That’s nice. Tyrone Taylor hit two doubles, one off of Montero and the other off of Bennett Sousa (you’d think March would be the best time of year for a guy named Sousa. No, I will not delete this.) Double T’s spring batting average jumped to .184. You may roll your eyes, but his competition for center field, Jose Siri, is hitting .129. The only flaw in Taylor’s evening was when he was picked off third base. He first thought he could score off a wild pitch, realized he was sorely mistaken, and didn’t get back to safety in time. The hustle in a spring training game was appreciated more than anything else, I’d say.

David Peterson got the start, and pitched well, because he’s a really good pitcher now who deserves to start one of the first two games of the season, but it turns out I’m not in charge around here. Petey threw 75 pitches in five innings, allowing two hits, no earned runs, striking out four, but walking three. His spring ERA is an absurd 0.57. But the Mets don’t want him facing the mostly right-handed Astros lineup. 

Ok.

There wasn’t any Statcast available so we can’t go under the hood and worry endlessly over any velocity dips. The good news though is we can do that, again, with Edwin Díaz. According to Anthony DiComo, the stadium radar gun had Sugar’s fastball at just 93-95 mph last night, similar to where it was a week ago. Mendoza, pitching coach Jeremy Hefner, and Díaz have repeatedly sworn they’re not concerned and assume the velo will go up when good old adrenaline kicks in, but as DiComo noted, he was hitting 97 mph just fine last spring in Grapefruit League play. The optimistic angle the longtime Met beat writer pontificated on is that Díaz can still be effective without throwing ridiculously hard - his average four-seam in 2018 was “just” 97.3 mph, and he had a 1.96 ERA in 73.1 innings.

In any case, Díaz had another meh outing, striking out one in a scoreless inning, but allowing two hits in the process. It’s never easy with closers. I wish I cherished 2022 more I suppose.

Ryne Stanek and Reed Garrett pitched great at least, the latter striking out all three batters he faced. The only blemish on the Mets’ otherwise pretty bullpen face came from A.J. Minter’s line. The Mint Man, as nobody calls him, served up top prospect Cam Smith’s 4th home run this spring, allowing Houston’s only two runs of the night. This was only Minter’s third Grapefruit League appearance since undergoing hip surgery last August. According to Tim Britton, Minter is likely to start the year on the injured list.

In case you think Baty doesn’t have the starting job virtually locked up: Luisangel Acuña made his second throwing error in as many games.

Of course Nimmo signs the Pikachu hats.

I have no idea what’s going on in this TikTok video. All I know is José Buttó has piercing blue eyes?

Keith Hernandez wore a shirt with a cat looking concerned over a UFO, explaining that Hadji had a fear of UFOs, which of course raises several questions. Declassify the Hadji files already.

Matt Allan, a Met pitching farmhand who is healthy for the first time in four years, reached 99 mph the other day, striking out four batters in two innings in live BP in the Port St. Lucie backfields. Helluva story. From several surgeries and setbacks to saying he can throw harder than Edwin Díaz!

In happier Sugar news, he appeared on the latest Meet at the Apple episode and nixed a pitch to add fog to his epic entrances, but he seemed receptive to the concept of a spotlight.

Only Kodai Senga and Sean Manaea were mentioned in The Athletic’s starting pitcher rankings. Manaea has started throwing from 90 feet away, so his recovery from an oblique strain seems to be coming along. 

A David Stearns interview in The Athletic hyped me up. The Mets’ POBO admitted to being more proactive earlier in a season than in years past. This strategy of not waiting until the trading deadline to make rooms really worked last season (the promotion of Jose Iglesias, reworking virtually the entire bullpen on the fly, etc.) “I have gotten to the point where I would rather make mistakes of commission rather than mistakes of omission,” was the Stearns quote that had me ready to run through a brick wall. I also loved it when a rival executive admitted, “Stearns with money is dangerous.” 

You damn right he is.

I always liked Edgardo Alfonzo. He was my first favorite Met. So it’s cool he’s going to be around the organization again. I recall that while he was managing the Brooklyn Cyclones to a 2019 short-season Single-A championship, those “in the know” claimed Fonzie wasn’t interested in managing for a full-season, and that was why he wasn’t in consideration to get a promotion. It was still surprising when Alfonzo was fired from the gig literally 10 days after the title was won, and in a New York Post article that came out yesterday, Fonzie admitted he was surprised too. The Mets offered to keep him around in an ambassador role, and Alfonzo agreed, but he missed doing “on the field stuff with the guys.” Carlos Mendoza, a fellow Venezuelan, met Alfonzo in Venezuelan winter ball in the early 2000s. Their paths crossed again later in the decade when the two were both in the San Francisco Giants organization. Remembering how much he learned from Fonzie about how to comport oneself on and off the field, Mendoza and the Mets invited him to serve as a guest instructor in major league camp last season. He accepted in 2024 and again this year, and for 2025 he’s going to work as an advisor and visit the minor league affiliates all season long. So the not wanting a full schedule excuse just might not be a thing anymore, if it ever was.

The Jackie Robinson story on the Department of Defense’s website was restored yesterday. Fucking around with the Brooklyn Dodgers always leads to finding out. 

Drafting only farmhands not on their preseason top 100 prospects list, Baseball America’s Matt Eddy selected third baseman Boston Baro from the Mets organization. “He put on good weight in the offseason, and if he keeps it on, he’s definitely a keeper,” Eddy wrote about his pick. I guess one might say adding muscle makes him Boston Strong? Nope, not deleting this one either!

Hitting coach Eric Chavez went there yesterday. “I think Bonds was as close to a perfect hitter as I’ve ever seen and Soto is right there on his heels.”

The Dodgers remain on pace for a 162-0 season (boo), and the Cubs for a 0-162 one (huzzah).

Kodai Senga will be starting tonight against the Nationals in West Palm Beach. First pitch is 6:05 pm eastern. I thought last night’s game couldn’t be viewed anywhere until I discovered a home plate camera view was available on the Astros’ home website. So it’s possible this game will be on nationals.com, considering the fact that it’ll be on the same exact field. Either way, it’s the last game of the year not on TV, so hallelujah and all that.