This is the second year where we are walking through the previous season’s Baseball America’s Top Prospect handbook, looking at the all the Mets to see how they are developing against Baseball America’s Projections.
Today we look at Daniel Zamora who was one of the rare players on this list that was destined to be on the 2019 Mets. Heading into the 2019 season, sans- Jerry Blevins, the Mets essentially had Zamora as their lefty/lefty match up pitcher. Closer to the start of the season the Mets picked up Justin Wilson and Luis Avilan who together put Zamora’s status of breaking camp with the major league team in doubt but we knew he was eventually going to see some time in Queens.
Before the start of 2019, BA gave him a 40 grade and risk rating of medium, calling him a one pitcher pitcher who “threw his 76-80 mph slider nearly 80% of the time in a big league debut spanning 16 appearances and 9 innings.”
2018 Stats: 16 G, 9.0 IP, 3.00 ERA, 2.38 FIP, 1.000 WHIP
2019 Stats: 17 G, 8.2 IP, 5.19 ERA, 4.94 FIP, 1.731 WHIP
2019 Winter Stats: 10 G, 4.2 IP, 1.93 ERA, 2.143 WHIP, 13.5 K/9
So BA predicted that Zamora would essentially replace Blevins and I guess that’s what happened? His usage was odd last year (true for most players in the bullpen) and he struggled at the major league level. He did have a 1.100 WHIP last year in AAA over 30.0 innings so there’s that. He did get to spend the off-season with Phil Reagan with Toros.
Zamora is not a critical piece of the puzzle for next season. If he becomes a critical piece then one of two things happened:
- He really takes a step forward. Not crazy likely, not unheard of for his type of role anyway
- Something really goes wrong with the Mets bullpen. This is a believable situation which is why I’m glad he got to spend some more time with Phil this off-season
