213 Miles From Shea

The Mets in the David Stearns era love loading up on hard throwing pitchers on minor league deals, and that’s why the Mets brought in Yacksel Ríos in January 2024. Ríos leans on his mid-to-upper 90’s fastball, let’s take a deeper dive on how he got here.

Ríos was drafted by the Phillies in 2011 out of high school. He made his major league debut in 2017 at 24-years old. After a few years with the Phillies he was placed on waivers in August 2019. He then bounced around with the Pirates, Rays, Mariners, Red Sox, White Sox, Braves and most recently the Athletics.

Over six years in the majors Ríos has a 6.32 ERA, 5.61 FIP, 1.566 WHIP and a 70 ERA+ over 98 1/3 innings. The last time he saw considerable time in the majors was 2021 where he had a 4.28 ERA, 110 ERA+ over 27 1/3 innings spread over 23 games. Ríos fared mostly well in Syracuse last season with a 3.90 ERA, over 27 games (30.0 innings) and a 1.567 WHIP.

Let’s go back to that 2021 year for a moment. That season he tossed his sinker about a third of the time, averaging 97.3 mph. He then mixed in his four seamer 29.6% of the time, which averaged 96.9 mph. He used his mid 80’s slider 86.5% of the time and mixed in his mid-80’s splitter to round out his arsenal.

Ríos has now been with the Mets for a full calendar year, they know what he has. Here’s what we are looking for this spring:

• His bread and butter is his velocity – does he still have it?
• The last time he tossed his sinker in the majors was in 2021. It was one of his better pitchers by true results (.194 BA) but it was his worst pitch by xBA (.254). Is he getting swings and misses?
• Do the Mets have him try something different?

The Mets needed a lot of bullpen help in 2024 and didn’t call on Ríos. In order to move up the depth chart he’s going to need to have an impressive spring and strong start to the season in Syracuse. With the stuff he’s shown in the past – if he can figure out how to get things to click, the Mets will be calling.

The Mets signed Oliver Ortega to a minor league deal at the start of December after he was outrighted by the Astros (and then chose free agency).

Ortega signed with the Angels in 2014 and made his debut with them in 2021. Before the 2023 season the Twins selected him off waivers and before the 2024 season the Astros did the same. He was kept off the mound for all of 2024 due to two elbow surgeries. In Spring Training he had a procedure to remove loose bodies from his elbow. It wasn’t fully successful and he had to have another surgery in June.

Ortega pitched in 27 games in 2022, his career high in the majors. Over 34 innings he had a 3.71, 4.76 FIP, 1.471 WHIP and a 109 ERA+. He had limited major league usage in 2023 with a 4.30 ERA, 4.76 FIP, 1.227 WHIP and a 104 ERA+ over 14 2/3 innings. Ortega showed a lot of promise with the AAA club, posting a 1.82 ERA, 0.981 WHIP over 34 2/3 innings. He had a 11.4 K/9 in the minors and a 8.6 K/9 in the majors, which was close to his 8.7 K/9 in 2022.

Pitch tracking in 2023 picked up five different pitches for Ortega. He tossed a mid-80’s slider 35.4% of the time, a low-80’s curveball (24.2%), a mid-90’s fastball (22.1%), mid-90’s sinker (17.1%) and mixed in exactly three mid-80’s sweepers. In 2022 he used his mid-90’s fastball 58.4% of the time. He did go from the Angels to the Twins during that time. Was this a different organization approach? Is it due to a small-sample size and game script?

Oliver Ortega is pretty much exactly what you expect as a veteran NRI in camp. He has some zip on the fastball and has shown ability to get some high whiff% (2023 slider and 2022 curveball each had a 45% whiff%). If the Mets can help him figure it out, he will be an interesting pitcher to watch in 2025. Here’s what we are looking for this spring:

• Health. Is is he healthy? Can he throw all five of his pitches without pain?
• Are hitters swinging and missing at his fastball? It only happened 12% of time in 2022, the year he relied on it, but happened 22% of the time in 2023.
• The slider was a new pitch for Ortega in 2023 and he relied on it heavily, it had an xBA of .094, by far the best of his pitches. Do the Mets see it as his best pitch? Do they want him to throw his sweeper more which had his best xBA in 2022?

If you have watched the Mets over the last two seasons, you already know today’s NRI player! Grant Hartwig made his major league debut with the Mets in 2023. He pitched in 28 games totaling 35 1/3 innings with a 4.84 ERA, 4.44 FIP, 1.387 WHIP and an 87 ERA+. The Mets kept him on the 40-man roster going into 2024.

Hartwig got two cups of coffee with the Mets in 2024. In April he allowed two runs over 3 innings. He then got recalled during the Mets terrible month of May and allowed four runs, three earned over 3 2/3 innings. Things got worse for Hartwig a month or so later when he needed surgery for a meniscus tear.

Hartwig returned to the mound at the end of July and pitched 17 innings over 17 games allowing 16 runs from 20 hits and 20 walks while striking out 17 batters. Results got a lot better for Hartwig from September 6th on where he allowed two runs over 5 1/3 innings (both runs in the same outing) over five games. The Mets did not tender him a contract at the end of 2024 and then signed him to a minor league contract at the start of December.

In 2023 Hartwig tossed a singer, sweeper, cutter and changeup in the majors. His sinker (and four seamer that was picked up on pitch tracking in 2024) sits int he mid-90’s. His sweeper, which he tosses about the third of the time, sits in the low-80’s, his cutter sits in the mid-to-low-90’s and sprinkles in a mid-80’s changeup.

Grant Hartwig will pitch for the Mets at some point this season. There will be injuries at some point that allow him to get on the 40-man. Right now he looks like a classic bullpen inning filler, just like how he was used in 2024. His 2023 major league results were better than his AAA results (5.02 ERA). The Mets are still hoping he can put together his 2022 season where had a 1.75 ERA over 56 2/3 innings.

Here’s what we are looking for from Hartwig this spring:

• How does he perform in his early spring training innings? Can he continue his momentum from September?
• How long do the Mets keep him around in camp? If he can make it past the second round of cuts, then the Mets may be seriously considering him as an early season 40-man roster replacement player.

For the second straight season the Mets are inviting Dom Hamel to major league camp. Hamel was part of a trio of exciting Mets pitchers to get invited to Spring Training in 2024 (Mike Vasil and Christian Scott being the other two).

Hamel had a rough 2024. It was so rough that at Metsmerized he isn’t even considered a Top 30 prospect for the 2025 season. Dom made 27 starts for Syracuse in 2024, totaling 124 2/3 innings with a 6.79 ERA and 1.749 WHIP. The previous season in Binghamton he had a 4.06 ERA and 1.266 WHIP in almost the same amount of innings (124). For the first time in his career his K/9 slipped below 11 (9.0 in 2024) while his BB/9 ballooned to 5.6 (4.4 career, 3.6 in 2023) and his H/9 also skyrocketed (10.2 in 2024, 7.8 in 2023, 8.1 career).

Dom Hamel, who will turn 26 on March 2nd enters a critical year. The Mets left him unprotected in the Rule V draft in December and no one selected him. Due to his performance last season, he’s even farther down the depth chart to start for the Mets this season. In addition to everyone on the 40-man roster, and veterans on NRI deals, he’s directly competing with top prospects Blade Tidwell and Brandon Sproat this year.

The Mets are absolutely going to give Hamel a look in camp this year. We’re looking for a step towards his 2023 self:

• Generating swings and misses
• Better control, less walks
• Opponents getting less hits

If Hamel can perform at level somewhere between 2023 and 2024, he’ll make his major league debut at some point this season. At the end of the 2023 season, MLB Pipeline had him listed as the #9 prospect in the Mets system. They wrote about his slider and it’s 2,800-3000 rpm. All really exciting stuff, but things have fallen apart fast. The Mets have seen prospects have down years and come back better. Mark Vientos had a -1.1 WAR and .620 OPS (69 OPS+) over 233 PA’s in 2023. David Peterson had two seasons with and ERA above 5 before last season’s breakout. Can Dom Hamel follow in their footsteps?

Rico Garcia was an early addition to the Mets minor league roster this year, signing with the Mets in early November. Garcia was drafted by the Rockies in 2016 and made his major league debut with the Rockies in 2019, allowing seven runs over six innings spread over two games.

Since making his major league debut, Garcia has bounced around organizations going to the Giants, Orioles, Athletics and most recently the Nationals. He really has not seen a lot of time in the majors. His career high in games and innings came in 2023 where he pitched in 10 games (11 2/3 innings) between the Athletics and the Nationals allowing 12 runs from 19 hits and five walks. He also struck out 10 batters.

The Mets are hoping Garcia can build off of his 2024. The Nationals never called Garcia up last season and he ended up pitching 61 2/3 innings in Rochester with a 3.94 ERA, 1.294 WHIP and a 13 K/9. If you want to put stock in AAA saves, Garcia recorded 20 of them last season!

Since Garcia didn’t pitch in the majors last year, the publicly available pitch tracking data for him comes from 2023. In a small smattering of innings, he tossed his fastball 55.4% of the time (mid-90’s, good for the 71st percentile in 2023) and mixed in a mid-80’s changeup and a low-80’s curveball.

Similar to other pitchers we have looked at so far in the NRI preview series, Garcia is quite far down the depth chart and has a lot of competition to just get onto the 40-man roster, let alone the active roster. I can’t stop thinking about his K/9 in 2024 though. On it’s own it is enough to give Garcia a chance this spring. Here’s what we are watching for:

• How often will Garcia pitch this spring? Will he continue to get a look in mid-march when starters are going deep and bullpen locks start getting their work ramped up?
• Do we see the 2024 Garcia who kept H/9 at 6.9 in the minors? Or do we see the 2023 Garcia who had a 14.7 H/9 in the majors?
• Is he still striking out players at an impressive clip? How is he striking out players?

Quick question – who was the first off-season signing for the Mets in the 2024-2025 off-season? If you said Chris Devenski you either follow the Mets extremely closely or are good at following context clues!

The Mets signed Devenski on a minor league deal way back on October 28th. Devenski is a longtime major league veteran who was drafted by the Chicago White Sox in 2011. The following year he was traded as the player to be named later to the Houston Astros.

Houston is where Devenski made a name for himself. In his first four seasons (2016-2019) he pitched 305 1/3 innings spread over 221 games with a 3.21 ERA, 3.49 FIP, 1.048 WHIP and a 130 ERA+. Baseball Reference credits him with a 2.8 and 1.9 WAR across his first two seasons. In 2017 he won the World Series with the Astros and was an All-Star.

Then in 2020 Devenski had elbow surgery and has not been the same. Starting in 2020 Devenski has been with the Astros, Diamondbacks, Phillies, Angels and most recently the Rays. He has pitched only 94 2/3 innings since the start of 2020 with a 6.46 ERA, 5.30 FIP, 1.415 WHIP and a 67 ERA+. Baseball Reference has him with a -1.7 WAR during this stretch. In 2024 he pitched in 19 games over 26 2/3 innings for the Rays with a 6.75 ERA, 7.33 FIP, 1.575 WHIP and a 60 ERA+.

In 2017 Devenski had an xBA in the 96th percentile and whiff% in the 98th. According to statcast, the fastball velocity hasn’t changed much since 2017. It went from 94 mph to 93 mph, but over the last decade that was enough to go from the 66th percentile in the league to the 33rd. His whiff% dropped from 36.8% to 27.1%. He was using his changeup to generate absurd swings and misses. He still leans on his 83ish mph changeup, throwing it 51.3% of the time in 2023 and 47.5% of the time in 2024.

The Mets are hoping they can help Chris Devenski rediscover what he once had. Similar to other players in camp on minor league deals, the hope is that Jeremey Hefner and the pitching lab sees something or can help Devenski see something that can help him miss bats again.

For 2025, Devenski is fairly far down the Mets depth chart. Baseball teams burn through pitchers though so if he stays in the Mets system after camp, given his experience there is a high chance he’ll be called on at some point to fill a gap in Queens. Here’s what we are looking for this spring in Devenski:

• He has four pitches, but throughout his career has primarily used his changeup and fastball. Once his fully warmed up this spring, does he keep a similar usage split?
• Can he start getting swings and misses again on his changeup? Is he changing anything about where he is locating it? For this latter point, I’m not sure if we’ll know unless he, or someone else around him says something.
• In 2017 he had a 26.1 Hard-Hit%. Last year it was 44%! This spring – who is making solid contact against him? At what clip are players making that hard contact?

Génesis Cabrera is a lefty.

On the Mets 40-man roster right now, their only lefties are Sean Manaea, A.J. Minter, David Peterson and Danny Young. The Mets just don’t have a ton of south paw options.

Cabrera signed in 2013 was the Rays and traded to the Cardinals in a package that include Tommy Pham. He would make his major league debut with the Cardinals and stayed with them until he was traded to the Blue Jays in 2023.

Cabrera pitched in 69 games over 62 2/3 innings in 2024 with a 3.59 ERA, 5.13 FIP, 1.468 WHIP and a 113 ERA+. Since 2021, he’s had an ERA+ above 100 and has pitched between 39 and 71 games per season. What’s been holding Cabrera back is his control. His WHIP has been above 1.300 since 2022. He had a 10.7 BB% last season which puts him in the 17th percentile. Mixed with a 18.5 K% (14th percentile), you get a not-so-great combination.

The raw stuff is there though. Last year his fastball average at 96 mph, which was good for the 80th percentile. He throws five different pitches, leaning mostly on a high-80’s cutter (39.3%) and a 96 mph sinker (22.5%) of the time. In addition to his four seamer he also tosses a curveball and a changeup.

Despite the problems with walks and strikeouts (and a literal average groundball rate in 2024 that ranked in the 56th percentile), Génesis Cabrera has found a way to keep his ERA low. He has a career 3.89 ERA and has kept his ERA below 4.00 in three of his six major league seasons. Here’s what we are looking for from Cabrera in spring training:

• Cabrera’s strength is his velocity. How is his sinker and cutter?
• Can he keep the walks down? Any improvement in walks and control will go a long way for Cabrera.
• The players around him. A.J. Minter was a major free agent signing for the Mets, but is also recovering from hip surgery. Danny Young had an 87 ERA+ in 2024. What role do the Mets see for David Peterson?

Cabrera doesn’t have the easiest journey to a roster spot, but if he stays with the Mets after spring training, we’ll probably see him in Queens at some point – the Mets are just not that deep with left-handed pitching.

Adbert Alzolay is not a signing for this year. The former Chicago Cubs closer had Tommy John surgery in August of 2024 and almost certainly will miss all of 2025. In early January the Mets signed him to a two-year minor league deal. Alzolay gets to rehab with the Mets and the Mets get an interesting bullpen arm for the 2026 season.

Alzolay was signed by the Cubs as an amateur free agent in 2012 and made his major league debut in 2019. The Cubs were still trying to use him as a starter as recently as 2021 where he pitched in 29 games, 21 starts tossing 125 1/3 innings with a 4.58 ERA, 4.65 FIP, 1.162 WHIP and a 92 ERA+. He then missed most of 2022 with a shoulder and lat injury.

Alzolay had a breakout 2023. Over 64 innings, spread over 58 games, he had a 2.67 ERA, 3.02 FIP, 1.016 WHIP and a 160 ERA+. The Cubs moved him to the back of the bullpen and he seized the opportunity saving 22 games. Alzolay’s Baseball Savant page was filled with red. His fastball, averaging at 95.3 mph, was in the 73rd percentile, xERA at 3.61 was in the 74th percentile. His 5.1 BB% was in the 92nd percentile. Hitters were barreling him only 6% of the time (81st percentile). Just a phenomenal season. Pitch tracking credited him for throwing six different pitches in 2023:

• Slider (avg 87.5 mph) 45.1%
• Four Seamer (avg 95.3 mph) 20.7%
• Sinker (avg 95.3 mph) 19.3%
• Cutter (avg 91.1 mph) 10%
• Sweeper (avg 82.6 mph) 4.4%
• Changeup (avg 87.8 mph) 0.5%

Things were not going well for Alzolay in 2024 before his injury. Over 17 1/3 innings, eh had allowed 13 runs, nine earned, from 19 hits and six walks. It’s a small sample size, but he had a 1.442 WHIP, ballooned from his career mark of 1.157. His FIP was also sky high at 7.38 (career 4.30).

Rehab schedules from Tommy John surgery have become highly regimented over the last few years. Plenty of players have bounced back from the surgery well. That being said, it’s always a mystery as to what a player looks like after the surgery. Maybe we will see him in some rehab games in late 2025. Next year we’ll look to see what the Mets do with his arsenal. We have seen the Mets take pitchers with large arsenals over the last year and highlight their most successful pitches to remake their profile on the field. We wish Alzolay a speedy recovery and we’re looking forward to his 2026 season!

Ty Adcock should sound familiar because the Mets actually acquired him during the 2024 season. Adcock was claimed off waivers from the Tigers in May and then released by the Mets at the trade deadline. The Mets then resigned him a few weeks later. Adcock was drafted by the Mariners in 2019, missed the 2020 season due to the pandemic. He then had Tommy John in April 2021. Not the most consistent start to his professional baseball career.

Adcock got a cup of coffee with the major league team in 2024 allowing seven runs over 4 1/3 innings spread over three games. He had a slightly longer stint in 2023 pitching 15 2/3 innings over 12 games with a 3.45 ERA, 5.17 FIP, 0.702 WHIP and a 117 ERA+. Adcock was more successful last season with the Syracuse squad, posting a 3.93 ERA over 18 1/3 innings spread over 17 games.

When the Mets lost Edwin Díaz in 2023, they lost a lot of the flamethrowing capability in the bullpen. One common feature of may pitchers the Mets are bringing in on NRI deals – their ability to sling it. Ty Adcock has a mid-to-high fastball (96.6 average in 2024 and 2023) with a mid-to-high 80’s slider and low-90’s cutter. While the fastball has some zip on it, teams are jumping all over it. He gave up three homers off of 33 fastballs in 2024 and gave up four homers off 116 fastballs in 2023. Overall he has given up eight homers over 20 major league innings.

According to The Athletic, Ty Adcock has started to add a split-change to his arsenal. It’s clear that that Adcock needs something to generate misses at the plate. Across all levels last year Adcock had a 11.6 H/9 over 28 2/3 innings. In 2023 he had a career best 3.9 H/9.

Here’s what to watch for for Ty Adcock:

• How does the split-change look? How often is he using it? In 2024 he tossed the fastball 38.4%, slider 33.7% and cutter 27.9%. In 2023 he only tossed a slider and a four seamer.
• Can Adcock keep the ball in the park? This was absolutely his kryptonite at the major league level in 2024 that wasn’t see in the minors last year.

The Mets finally won the hypothetical R.A. Dickey deal this off-season when they signed Anthony Gose to a minor league contract with a non-roster invitation to spring training.

Back in 2012 the Mets trade R.A. Dickey to the Blue Jays for a package built around Noah Syndergaard and Travis d’Arnaud. There was a time when Anthony Gose, then an outfield prospect, was rumored to be in the package. Gose has gone through a lot since those days.

It’s important to remember how highly touted Gose was as an outfield prospect over a decade ago. The Phillies first traded him to the Astros (with J.A. Happ and Jonathan Villar) for Roy Oswalt in the 2010 trade deadline. The Astros then immediately traded him to the Blue Jays for Brett Wallace.

Gose would make his Major League debut in 2012, playing 56 games for the Blue Jays hitting .223/.303/.319 with a 71 OPS+. He would then play portions of five seasons from 2012 to 2016 with the Jays and the Tigers. His best offensive year was 2015 where he played in 140 games hitting .254/.321/.367 (90 OPS+). After his 2016 season he made the switch from outfield to pitcher.

In 2021 Gose made his major debut as a pitcher, at age 30, with the Guardians for 6 2/3 innings over six games. The following year he got into 22 games over 21 innings with the Guardians with a 4.71 ERA, 5.06 FIP, 1.381 WHIP and an 81 ERA+. Later in 2022 he would have Tommy John surgery, which knocked him out for all of 2023. Gose saw three innings in the majors last year allowing five runs over 4 1/3 innings. He had a solid season in AAA ball, posting a 3.22 ERA, 1.366 WHIP over 44 2/3 innings.

According to Baseball Savant, Gose only tossed two different pitches in his three major league innings in 2024. He had a mid-90’s four seamer and an upper 80’s slider. In 2022 he tossed exactly one changeup (88 mph).

The Mets are hoping to get a version of the 2022 Anthony Gose. His skills may not have translated on the mound, but there were some interesting under-the-hood things happening. His fastball then was at 97 mph, good for the 92nd percentile. He didn’t pitch enough to fully get into the 2022 Baseball Savant percentile rankings, but his Whiff% (33.5) and strikeout rate (30.4) would have been around 90th percentile. On the other hand, his xERA (5.04) would have been near the bottom the league and he was getting rocked with a 92.9 average exit velocity.

Last year the Mets showed that they would switch things up in the bullpen when things weren’t working and cycled frequently through pitchers. Anthony Gose represents a low-risk, high-reward signing. Unless he absolutely dominates in Spring, or something goes horribly wrong with the Mets, he’s starting the year in the minors. If he accepts a minor league assignment, we will see him at some point this year with the Major League club. Can Anthony Gose seize opportunity when it’s his time? Can the Mets pitching lab unlock the potential from his raw skills and turn it into on-field results?

Here’s what to look for this spring with Gose:

• Velocity – is he touching the upper 90’s again?
• Missing bats – is he producing whiff’s?
• Effectiveness – when players make contact, can fielders actually field it? Are the balls so hard hit that bases are getting too busy?
• Frequency of outings – Is Gose still getting outings with the main team by mid-March? Do his results demand a roster spot battle?