Mets spend big on pitching depth
An overview of Rule 5 Draft protections
Catch me up in 30 seconds…
Sandy Alderson is set to talk to the media at 4:30 on Monday, although don’t expect any big news.
Steve Cohen will be on SNY on Tuesday at 7:00 for an interview.
Amed Rosario will “likely” play multiple positions next season.
Steve Cohen is acting as the team’s fact-checker on Twitter, dispelling rumors that Sandy Alderson and Luis Rojas are on a “short leash” in 2021, as well as providing the first hint that Indians GM Mike Chernoff is not a candidate to become team president.
Mets remained quiet in prep of Rule 5 Draft (more to follow).
ON THIS DATE IN 1964: The Milwaukee Braves sold the winningest left-hander in the history of baseball, Warren Spahn, to the New York Mets.
Quick note on the Jets
I’m going to presume if you are a Mets fan like me, you probably also root for the Jets. It’s a shared experience. If you were like my dad, growing up in the sixties with long hair and a counter-revolution propensity toward liking things that your square parents didn’t, the Mets and Jets offered the perfect sports combination. From Joe Namath in his white shoes and fur coat to the new baseball team in New York who wasn’t the recently departed Dodgers or Giants, but at least wasn’t the uptown Yankees, either.
What has been strange since Steve Cohen purchased the Mets is readjusting my brain in thinking about the 0-10 Jets. It’s like marrying into money, moving into a penthouse overlooking the park, but still spending my Sundays driving back to my humble beginnings in central Connecticut.
While Adam Gase runs Frank Gore into the line for another no gain, let’s focus back on the Mets.
Rule 5 Draft
If you’re a baseball fan, you’ve surely heard of the Rule 5 Draft, but maybe you have never thought about what it really means. Basically, it is designed to give players opportunities to find an active roster spot in case they get buried in a particular organization.
On Friday, it was the deadline for teams to add players to their 40-man roster or risk losing them in this year’s Rule 5 Draft, which is scheduled for December 10.
If you are interested in this kind of stuff, there is nobody better to follow than Jacob Resnick of MetsMerized Online and Mets Minors.
The Amazin’s currently have 37 players on their 40-man roster, including Sam McWilliams, who we will talk about in a second, and who, by the nature of his signing, sort of becomes a de facto Rule 5 protection by the Mets.
Based on this tracker by Baseball America, the Mets were the only team without a Rule 5 protection this year. Why is this the case? As Resnick explained in his excellent preview article:
“With 11 of the Mets’ top 13 prospects (according to MLB Pipeline, the other two being Thomas Szapucki and Franklyn Kilomé) too young for Rule 5 selection, the highest-ranked eligible players fall in the ‘interesting, but not an automatic add’ category.”
The top-ranked prospect to be left unprotected was infielder Shervyen Newton, who was also unprotected last year. Newton has never played above Lo-A, and while it’s uncommon for a player as raw as him to be selected and kept on a major league roster all season (as part of the Rule 5 agreement), it is happening more often recently, and perhaps could again due to the pandemic.
The most notable headline-grabber player left unprotected was Tim Tebow.
Sam McWilliams
The fact the first free agent signing under Steve Cohen was for a really tall dude whose ERA in Triple-A (8.18) looks like an assists number for a free agent point guard in the NBA is a good thing.
It means the Mets are officially open for business. And they proved it to you by handing out the largest salary of the past decade for a non-Asian player with zero Major League service time.
McWilliams struggled upon being promoted to Triple-A in 2019, as he appeared to be victimized by the long ball — in fact, he served up three home runs in a 17-0 loss to the Syracuse Mets in the same game that Drew Gagnon threw seven perfect innings — but the 25-year-old flamethrower reaches 98 on the gun and pitched extremely well that same season in Double-A, over a larger sample size, while showing consistent strikeout-to-walk rate peripherals across both levels of competition.
According to Tim Healey of Newsday, he received offers from 15 other teams, including multiple major-league offers, before agreeing to a deal with the Mets.
Scouts seem to like the right-hander’s size (6-foot-7, 230 pounds) and fastball, which he just recently boosted, finding a few extra MPH in the pitch this past spring working with Rays’ minor league pitcher slash data cruncher Tyler Zombro. After spending 2020 at the Rays’ alternate site, it’s unclear how his improved velocity will impact his performance, but obviously it’s something that got people’s attention around baseball.
What does $750,000 buy you other than a pitcher who at least looks like a Thor 2.0?
An arm on the 40-man roster who can begin the season in AAA and still has 3 minor league options, something none of RHP Franklyn Kilome, RHP Corey Oswalt, RHP Ariel Jurado, or RHP Paul Sewald, can offer, because they are all out of options (and who represent 4 of the 9 minor league pitchers on the 40-man roster);
A pitcher the Mets have under team control for six full seasons;
If McWilliams is suddenly really good, they don’t have to worry about paying him for a long time, which explains why signing him to a large-sum deal up front makes sense, beyond his tantalizing stature and arm strength.
The former Phillies and Diamondbacks prospect was selected in the Rule 5 Draft by Kansas City in 2019 but struggled to make an impression so was returned to the Rays, who seemed to view him as either a spot starter or long reliever.
When things are going well for the right-hander, he generates ground balls with a heavy sinker. Turning his changeup and slider into reliable secondary pitches will tell the story of whether he ends up as a starter or bullpen arm going forward.
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Thanks for the shout out on the History - Great read today