☀️ Good Morning:
Baseball is back!
We are still nine days away from the Mets’ opener, but baseball fans opened their eyes this morning to a game that counts in the standings.
At publish time, the Dodgers are winning. The chase to dethrone them is already on.
☕️ Grab your coffee for your morning dose of Mets Fix!
Without injuries, it would be a pretty boring spring for making Opening Day roster projections. There aren’t many unspoken for spots on a $325+ million roster.
That reality quickly changed after injuries to Sean Manaea, Frankie Montas, Jeff McNeil and Nick Madrigal. Not to mention a hobbled Brandon Nimmo and Starling Marte, along with a recently banged up Jesse Winker, and others trying to prove they are healthy from offseason rehab programs.
It leaves us with a few key questions to answer before the Mets break north:
Who fills out the rotation?
Who fills out the bullpen?
Who plays second?
Who plays left field versus DH?
Who plays backup catcher?
🔷 Who fills out the rotation?
We discussed this yesterday, and many of you believe Tylor Megill and Griffin Canning deserve to start the season as the starters behind Clay Holmes, Kodai Senga and David Peterson.
That would leave Paul Blackburn as the odd man out, but considering he doesn’t have a minor-league option remaining, and an extra starter could easily prove useful while ramping up Senga, it’s no surprise the Mets are looking to carry him as a swingman in the bullpen.
👉 Canning made his third Grapefruit start on Monday and looked as sharp as ever, striking out nine Tampa hitters in 4.2 innings of work. The right-hander’s only blemish was a solo home run, the only earned run he has allowed all spring.
Canning leaned into his slider and found strong results. Tampa swung at it 20 times and whiffed on nine of those swings. It was impressive considering we didn’t see a lot of the new sweepy slider Canning has been trying to incorporate; we actually saw more of his single-plane slider that drops sharply with minimal horizontal movement.
We also didn’t see any sinkers or cutters, two pitches he has been expected to add to his mix this season.
The results have been solid without these tweaks. We will see if he has been saving some of his new stuff for real games and how he looks then.
🔷 Who fills out the bullpen?
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