Good Morning,
Today we’ll talk about top prospect Ronny Mauricio’s impressive spring. But we start with the news.
⏰ Catch me up in 60(ish) seconds…
⚾️ GAME RECAP: Sparked by a clutch hit from the 19-year-old Mauricio, and strong bullpen performances from some familiar names, the Mets defeated the Cardinals 5-3 on Tuesday.
🔥 STRIKEOUTS: Four relievers (Edwin Diaz, Trevor May, Jeurys Familia, and Miguel Castro) whom you’d expect to see working together in a regular season game, combined to strike out 7 hitters in 4 innings on Tuesday, while allowing only one hit—a home run carried by the wind that left May looking like this:
🍎 DEBUT: After signing a two-year contract in February, right-hander Taijuan Walker made his spring debut, hitting 95 MPH with his fastball that had impressive rise, but didn’t invite any whiffs, and got hit hard a few times. He also showcased several of his other offerings. Overall, twos were wild, as he allowed 2 runs on 2 hits, in-between 2 walks and 2 strikeouts in 2 innings of work.
BATTERY MATE: Walker came away impressed with his new battery mate James McCann: “He’s a big target back there, he’s very smart, he really knows the game and that makes it easier to trust what he’s putting down for me. He’s really good behind the plate, knows what he’s doing, I know if I throw in the dirt he’ll block it which gives me more confidence to go out and pitch my game.”
♨️ HIGH HEAT: Edwin Diaz continues to look sharp in camp, tossing two perfect frames, and throwing gas that Statcast can’t even recognize:
In other news…
✂ FIRST CUTS: After the game, the team announced they had reassigned 19 players, while optioning RHP Franklyn Kilome, RHP Sean Reid-Foley and LHP Thomas Szapucki to the Triple-A roster. This brings the Spring Training roster down to 53 players.
NOTEWORTHY: As expected, several of the youngest players on the roster, including top prospects Francisco Alvarez, Pete Crow-Armstrong, Brett Baty, Matt Allan, and the aforementioned Ronny Mauricio (whom we will talk more about in a bit) were part of the first cuts.
SURPRISING: After striking out six batters in his two innings of work, side-armer Trevor Hildenberger will have to make his next impression in the minor leagues, unless an injury happens. We wrote about the strange way he was getting strikeouts earlier this week.
🗓 DELAYED: After indicating that right-hander Carlos Carrasco would make his first appearance this week, the Mets have changed course, indicating they will instead build him up through live BP sessions.
NO WORRIES: It could be a close call, but manager Luis Rojas told reporters he still expects Carrasco to be ready for the start of the season. The veteran acquired in the Francisco Lindor trade arrived late to camp due to health precautions. He has been in remission from leukemia for over a year.
🚶♂️WALKS: Slugger Pete Alonso has been working with hitting coach Chili Davis to improve his pitch selection, which was evident yesterday when he drew three walks. “You’re sending the message about your discipline and letting everybody know they have to come to the zone,” Rojas said of Alonso. “They have got to come to you. They have got to get you out.”
A top prospect shows promise
🧓 by Jeffrey Bellone
In many ways, the most exciting players to watch in Spring Training are the ones you know won’t be making the big league club. The names you see on prospect lists, blog posts, and Twitter feeds more often than on your television set. And like a fleeting warm day in March, they represent hope of good things to come.
So as the Mets trim their roster to a football-team size (53 players), I thought it would be fun to talk about one of the players who will continue his development in the minor leagues this season: top prospect Ronny Mauricio. After striking out in two of his first three Grapefruit at-bats, he put together an impressive five-game hit streak, leaving camp after going 5-8 with 3 RBIs over the past week.
Due to the cancellation of the 2020 minor league season, this was the first stretch of competitive baseball Mauricio has played since 2019. Family issues kept him away from the alternate site until mid-August last year. And reports from there and the team’s instructional league were mixed, which is part of the reason why several prospect lists pushed catcher Francisco Alvarez ahead of him in their latest rankings.
The Dominican shortstop — who the Mets signed in 2017 to a then team record $2.1 million bonus amount — will turn 20 in April and is just starting to mature into his 6-foot-3 frame. As he continues to add strength, scouts expect his efficient swing to produce power, particularly from the left side of the plate—where he also happened to find his hits this spring.
What was noticeable in Mauricio’s limited Grapefruit action was his continued aggressiveness at the plate, which could be a weakness if he fails to make solid contact. But over his five-game hit streak, he swung at 67 percent of the pitches he saw, and only whiffed on three of them.
This tracks with what a scout saw of him before the minor league season was cancelled last year, via Baseball America:
Seeing him, I liked that he didn’t miss many pitches in the zone. There was off-barrel contact and weak contact, but he didn’t swing and miss and was right on a lot of pitches. He seems to recognize spin and stays balanced in his approach.
The key for Mauricio this season, as he continues to progress up the minors, will be learning how to be more selective — so he’s not chasing pitches out of the zone or making poor contact on a pitch he can afford to take — while improving his bat path, so he can turn more ground balls into line drive hits. Because when he attacks with the proper approach, his swing is beautiful to watch.
Overall, it was a promising spring for the young prospect, who also made a nice play to help nab a runner at home plate in the field. While all of the attention is on a superstar shortstop who began contract extension talks this week, it’s also exciting to think about the future of Ronny Mauricio.
⚾️ Yankees LHP Zack Britton will undergo arthroscopic surgery to remove a bone chip from his left elbow, which could sideline him roughly 3-4 months, per Andy Martino.
⚾️ Rangers RHP Jonathan Hernandez will be shut down from pitching at least 4 weeks with a UCL sprain, per Evan Grant.
⚾️ MLB has “deadened” the baseball to reduce home runs, as discussed in yesterday’s edition, and pitcher Blake Snell took notice:
🔗 How Mets great Cleon Jones is helping restore Africatown neighborhood where he grew up, by Justin Toscano, USA Today: “The Mobile area has raised many baseball Hall of Famers, including Hank Aaron and Satchel Paige. After Jones, who is Black, retired from baseball in 1976, he could’ve lived anywhere, like New York (where he played 12 seasons for the Mets and was a member of the 1969 World Series championship team) or California (where he had a possible job opportunity at one point). He instead chose Africatown, even though its population, once over 10,000, has dropped to around 2,000.”
🔗 Will Mets' defense make an impact? by Anthony DiComo, MLB.com: “It’s not as if the Mets are ignoring it. J.D. Davis shed about 15 pounds over the offseason and has spent this spring trying to perfect his footwork at third base. Brandon Nimmo, on a tip from the Mets’ analytics department, has backed his starting position in center field closer to the fence. Dominic Smith is spending more time in left field than ever before.”
🔗 Al Leiter calls Taijuan Walker the “X factor” in the Mets rotation, via Mike Puma, NY Post: “You talk about pure stuff and a guy that figured it out and has got plenty of years in front of him,” Leiter told the NY Post. “I really like that pickup because of arm strength, because of a real good changeup/slider combination. Guys that have setbacks and reflect on what happened previously and how do I get better? I think Taijuan [Walker], he can be the under-the-radar X factor in this rotation.”
And we leave you with Francisco Lindor showing off his camera skills…
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Thanks for the newsletter. A lot of good stuff here. I heard about you on Shea Anything. From Queens, but have been living in Los Angeles for 30+years. We have a Mets meetup group that gets together (pre-Covid) on Sundays to watch the Mets. Come on down to West 4th/Janes if you are ever on the left coast.