David Stearns has remade the Mets roster since joining at the start of the off-season, especially the bullpen. The Mets bullpen was a disaster last season and had a lot of players who had similar arms. Stearns remade the pen by signing a diversity of throwing styles and a high number of players on a combination of major league and minor league deals. Cam Robinson falls into the latter category.
Cam Robinson was signed by the Mets in mid-December after spending his career with the Brewers organization – clearly, he’s one of the pitchers that David Stearns believes in. MLB Trade Rumors wrote a good, quick profile of Robinson after he signed. He has a low-mid 90’s fastball, a curveball with spin and a slider. Over his career he has posted a strong K/9 rate at 10.7 over six seasons but control has been a problem (5.7 BB/9).
Robinson struggled in Rookie ball between 2017-2019 posting a 7.81 ERA over 83 innings. He was walking 6.4 batters per nine innings and had his worst K/9 rate at 9.9. After the pandemic though he was a different pitcher. In 2021 he had a 3.08 ERA over 49 2/3 innings mostly between different A leagues. Then in 2022 He had a 2.49 ERA going advanced A all the way AAA baseball, pitching a total of 65 innings. The big change for Robinson in 2021 and 2022 was he kept the ball in the park. He gave up exactly one homer each season leading to a 0.2 HR/9 and 0.1 HR/9 respectively.
That stopped last year. Hitters had six homers off Robinson and he also saw his walks sky rocket from 4.2 BB/9 in 2022 to 6.9, a career high, in 2023. His strikeouts fell from 11.6 to 10.3 K/9. He is still getting batters to miss his pitches, but batters are getting more patient, getting on base more (H/9 also jumped from 6.2 to 10.3) and driving more power against Robinson.
Cam Robinson was drafted by the Brewers out of high school. The other pitchers we covered from the Mets system so far have pitched three seasons in the minor leagues and are the same age or older than Cam Robinson who turned 24 back in September. If he can return to his 2021/2022 self, the Mets will be elated. Also because of his age, he’s on the short list to fill in for the bullpen during those stretches of the year when the bullpen gets worn down.
This spring we are looking for Robinson to return to his 2021/2022 season. This means his strikeouts are up, his hits and walks are down. If hitters are swinging and missing, he’s going to rise up the the depth chart.
