Spring Training is 20 Days Away!
That is such good news, let's repeat it. Spring Training is 20 Days Away!
In order to get excited about Spring Training, and the probable 55+ names in camp, it might be a good idea to get familiar with the players going for the top 25 this season. In this 20 day journey, we will look at 9 non-roster invitees followed by 11 players on the 40-man, all trying to get on the roster. They are a mixture of recent acquisitions and prospects in the system, that are not quite household names yet.
The first player on our trip is 29 year old Boof Bonser. Boof made a very impressive debut in 2006 in Minnesota at the age of 24. After a successful season where he pitched over 100 innings with a 7-6 season with a 4.22 ERA, he was never able to completely regain himself on the major league level. Last season he made it to the major leagues twice with two different teams, the Red Sox and the Athletics. He was first acquired by the Red Sox for a player to be named later, was activated off of the DL on June 8th and then became a free agent on June 18th when he refused a minor league assignment. He was then signed by the Athletics, and then called up for the season on July 31st. Now he tries to return to the majors with the Mets. Here are some recent stat lines:
2010 (Majors) – 25 IP, 1-0, 6.12 ERA, 15 G, 17 K, 8 BB
2010 (Minors) – 56.1 IP, 2-3, 5.59 ERA, 14 G, 13 GS, 42 K, 25 BB
Last season Boof was coming off of a missed season (in 2009 he only pitched one minor league inning) and this was due to surgery. He has a career minor league ERA of 3.74 and a career major league ERA of 5.18. While he has had talent over his career, his stamina has been his main issue. He has also had a weight struggle in his career as well, which isn't uncommon for pitchers. He tried to lose weight for the 2008 season, and he did accomplish that, but it didn't turn into results for stamina or pitching. Coming into camp he is not a favorite to make it on the team, he is not even on the 40 man roster right now, so he will have to dazzle in order make it to Queens in April. His addition though is the type of low risk, high reward signing that adds good depth to our system, if we ever need to go down out of the 40 man and bring him up.
