The Metropolitan: A new bullpen option emerges
Plus, catching you up on today’s news
Good Morning,
Today we’ll talk about side-arm right-hander Trevor Hildenberger’s early spring success, but we start by catching you up on a busy weekend of Mets news.
⏰ Catch me up on what happened over the weekend…
⚾️ SPRING TIES: You know it’s Spring Training when there are ties in baseball, as the Mets beat the Astros 6-1 on Saturday and tied the Marlins 4-4 on Sunday. They are now 3-2, third best record in the Grapefruit League.
💰 EXTENSION TALKS: The Mets will begin contract extension talks with superstar Francisco Lindor this week, per Jon Heyman. He notes it gives them 24 days to get a deal done with April 1 a soft deadline.
🍎 OPENING DAY: To nobody’s surprise, Jacob deGrom was named the Opening Day starter by manager Luis Rojas.
READY: deGrom looked in mid-season form during his spring debut on Saturday, striking out three in two innings of work, while touching 99 MPH on the radar gun.
3 IN A ROW: This will be deGrom’s 3rd Opening Day start, which ties him with Al Leiter and Bobby Jones for 5th most in team history. The Mets are 2-0 in those games with deGrom yet to allow an opening day run, while striking out 18 and walking 2 in 11 innings of total work.
🥳 BIRTHDAY: Outfielder Michael Conforto celebrated his 28th birthday week by hitting not one, but two home runs off deGrom in batting practice on Saturday.
💨 WINDY: After an impressive spring debut, Marcus Stroman struggled a bit on Sunday, allowing 2 runs on 3 hits, while losing command on his pitches due to 35+ MPH winds (leading to a walk, a wild pitch, and a hit batter): “The wind was pushing the ball everywhere,” Stroman told reporters after the game. He also noted his sinker had more arm-side movement (like a two-seamer) from the wind.
🤦♂️ MISTAKES: The Mets made four errors in their Sunday exhibition against the Marlins, with three of them by Jeff McNeil who committed a trifecta of defensive miscues with a throwing, fielding, and catching error, while manning third base for the first time this spring.
LESS ACCLIMATED: “The versatility is always a strength,” manager Luis Rojas told reporters after the game in reference to McNeil’s defense. “We believe in his ability to play third. If you want to rank his positions, I know he’s more acclimated playing second base and even leftfield.”
THIRD BASE: In a recent edition, we highlighted the issues McNeil has had adjusting to third base after being moved around the diamond. However, with Jonathan Villar better suited at second, the Mets don’t have a strong alternative to J.D. Davis at third base right now, with the potential exception of increasingly dependable utility man Luis Guillorme.
⚾️ POWER: Speaking of Villar, he connected on a three-run HR on Sunday with a smooth looking swing:
🤕 HURT: Veteran bench candidate Jose Martinez twisted his left knee on Sunday and will be evaluated by team doctors today.
🍎 MISSING THE METS: Veteran reliever Jerry Blevins — who has allowed one run over his first two spring outings — explained why he signed a minor league deal with the Mets: “I still have that want,” Blevins said. “I want to win a World Series. Literally the only team I would have come back for is the Mets. My body still feels great.”
🔝 PROSPECTS: 19-year-old shortstop prospect Ronny Mauricio is off to a strong start in camp, going 4-10 and driving in his first RBI on Saturday with a hit that plated another young prospect, the speedy Pete Crow-Armstrong, who had clubbed a stand-up triple.
🔥 HOT: Slugger Pete Alonso is 4 for his last 9 at the plate, smashing two doubles on Saturday, while demonstrating power to the opposite field.
👋 DEBUT: Starter Carlos Carrasco is set to make his Mets debut this week.
🎙 BRUNCH PARTY: Steve Cohen and Sandy Alderson had brunch with the Mets’ TV and radio broadcasters in Florida on Sunday. How much would a seat at that table fetch in a charity auction?
📚 March 8, 1966: The Mets announce legendary manager Casey Stengel’s election to the Hall of Fame. Stengel was voted in by the BBWAA Veterans Committee using the rule that any manager/ump/exec 65+ is eligible 6 months after retiring.
Do the Mets have something in Trevor Hildenberger?
🧓 by Jeffrey Bellone
Side-arm reliever Trevor Hildenberger is fun to watch. Let’s just start with that.
Beyond the aesthetics of his delivery, he can also be very effective. While pitching for the Twins in 2017 and early 2018, the righty was lights out. During that first season, he pitched to a 3.21 ERA while striking out 25.9% of the hitters he faced, walking only 3.5%, and turning nearly 60% of balls in play into grounders.
He appeared to be Minnesota’s closer of the future and then like the sobering reality that comes from turning the lights on during a school dance, the party ended. He struggled with his mechanics, losing the release point on his sinker (and his command of the strike zone with it), and was non-tendered after pitching to an ERA over ten during the 2019 season.
Well, if you are rooting for a comeback story, it’s hard not to get excited about Hildenberger’s first two spring outings with the Mets. In two innings of work, he has six strikeouts, buoyed by a perfect frame on Sunday in which he struck out all three batters he faced.
Strikeouts are good. I mean, they are the best. If you are a pitcher who misses bats, you will have a very successful major league career. This is common sense. But for a hurler like Trevor Hildenberger, strikeouts are sort of the offspring of his contact pitches. He doesn’t stand on the mound with an evil scowl before throwing 99 MPH up in the zone. No, he throws three pitches at well-below league average speed, and gets hitters to whiff at a 77 MPH change-up. And, as we said, he does so while throwing side-armed. He’s a magician who relies on deception to succeed.
And the key to this deception is the way he offsets a pitch made for contact with another that looks like the same pitch until it drops. When things were going well in Minnesota, it was Hildenberger’s sinker/change-up combination that led the way. He was effective in reducing the amount of time hitters had to differentiate between the two pitches by throwing them at similar release points and fooling batters with late movement. This is why his change-up, which boasts impressive drop, has been able to rack up whiff rates in the 40 percent range even though it is thrown extremely slow (even for an offspeed pitch).
This is also what makes his initial spring results interesting. Hildenberger only threw one change-up on Sunday. For the second straight outing, he relied on a sinker/slider combination. He has been able to get called strikes with his slider and swings-and-misses with his sinker. Whatever works, right?
Sort of. Even when Hildenberger was pitching at his best, his sinker was used the way a sinker is supposed to be used and that was to reduce hard contact by getting hitters to swing on top of the ball. You can’t expect major league hitters to miss 80% of their swings against a pitch you actually expect them to hit, which is astonishingly what Hildenberger has achieved this spring.
Getting people out is a good thing. It’s great to see the former Twin find new ways to do it after missing the 2020 season because he couldn’t make a major league roster. But before we get too excited, it’s hard to know how much his initial results are the product of Hildenberger figuring something out, or if the Marlins (whom he faced in both outings) were just a little overeager at the plate. While it appeared he was doing well masking his slider from his sinker based on his release points, four of the whiffs he earned with his sinker were on the first two pitches of different at-bats (so not sequenced after a slider).
We will find out over the next three weeks what happens when Hildenberger doesn’t generate whiffs with his sinker. And luckily, two people who know him well from Minnesota — pitching coach Jeremy Hefner and reliever Trevor May — are around to give the Mets added insight.
⚾️ Cleveland third baseman José Ramírez and outfielder Franmil Reyes were forced to isolate after breaking team COVID-19 protocols.
⚾️ The Astros signed free agent starter Jake Odorizzi to a two-year deal, with an option, per Jeff Passan.
⚾️ The Nationals released reliever Jeremy Jeffress after only two weeks with the team for “personal reasons,” as first reported by the Washington Post.
⚾️ Former Mets prospect Jarred Kelenic will be sidelined due to a strained adductor muscle in his left knee.
📺 Mets profiled by MLB Network’s 30 Clubs in 30 Days: You can watch Jonathan Mayo discuss the team’s top prospects here; watch James McCann talk about catching deGrom here; and Francisco Lindor on the possibilities of 2021 here.
🔗 Mets’ George Springer what-if filled with intrigue, by Joel Sherman, NY Post: “I love Lindor’s game and persona. Having him and Carlos Carrasco makes the Mets better. But was there another way to go? Was Springer the better short- and long-term play overall considering what else could have been done with the personnel/money? I cannot shake how much I like Andres Gimenez as a player. He is not Lindor. But I would bet on his skills and precocious savvy to be an above-average shortstop with cost-friendliness for six years.”
🔗 Will the Mets ever go over the luxury tax? via Andy Martino, SNY: “The plan in year one of Steve Cohen’s ownership was to stay under the tax. Sandy Alderson went to Cohen and made a case for exceeding it in order to sign Trevor Bauer. He received approval for that one splurge. Cohen’s willingness to stretch indicates that he’ll be willing to go over the tax in future seasons. Keep in mind, too, that next year will bring a new CBA and probably new luxury tax rules.”
🔗 Secret behind Jacob deGrom defying the velocity odds, by Ken Davidoff, NY Post: “The physical commitment to such delivery mastery requires the most time and effort and might carry a velocity bonus. For years now, deGrom has been throwing off a mound twice between starts, defying the current conventional wisdom and honoring the belief system of Cy Young Award winners and Hall of Famers from a generation ago.”
And… take a time machine back to 2000, to devour this new deep dive in Sports Illustrated into the real story behind the Mike Piazza rivalry with Roger Clemens (and if you want more Mets stories like this, pre-order author Devin Gordon’s new book, So Many Ways to Lose).
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Good piece on Hildenberger - looks great and will be fun to say his name all year if he makes the team LOL