The Mets are showing off quality pitching depth in camp
Plus, an update on Luis Robert Jr.'s path to big league playing time as the Mets try to keep him healthy
What’s Up with the Mets? 🌴
The Mets dropped a nail-biter to the Nationals, 3-2 (box)
Both Brett Baty and Craig Kimbrel made their spring debuts
Tobias Myers had a solid start, allowing one run on two hits with four strikeouts in his three innings of work
Mark Vientos finally logged his first hit of spring training with an RBI double in the seventh for the Mets’ first run of the day
Nick Morabito brought the Mets within a run with his RBI double in the bottom of the eighth
Carlos Mendoza shared that Luis Robert, Jr. will start playing in minor league games on March 4th
What I’m Reading 📰
Brett Baty is getting comfortable at new positions (MLB.com)
Q&A with hitting director Jeff Albert (The Athletic)
Jackson Cluff is on a new, different mission (NY Post)
What I’m Watching 📺
A lengthy and informative press conference followed Saturday’s performance, as Brett Baty, Tobias Myers, Craig Kimbrel, Francisco Álvarez, and Carlos Mendoza all took the mic.
Just Mets Podcast 🎙️
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Today’s Game 🏝️
Match-up: Mets (4-3) vs. Astros (1-5)
Where: Clover Park - Port St. Lucie, FL
Starters: RHP Clay Holmes (0-0, 4.91 ERA) vs. RHP Jason Alexander (0-0, 54.00 ERA)
When: 1:10 PM EDT
Where to Watch: SNY
The Mets’ pitching depth is looking really deep ✍️
Despite what an unbalanced performance on Saturday afternoon may suggest, the Mets have shown off a plethora of pitching talent early in spring action.
From newly acquired Mets like Freddy Peralta and Tobias Myers to ‘rookies’ and returning rotation members like Nolan McLean and Clay Holmes, Mets pitchers have given fans plenty to root for. Through these first eight games, the staff has delivered a collective 3.25 ERA (4th in MLB) with a 1.26 team WHIP (3rd). Mets arms are throwing the third-fewest pitches per inning in the league, while holding opposing hitters to a .205 BA (2nd) across their 72.0 spring innings. Not half bad.
Still, there’s clear room for improvement in both the strikeout and walk department. So far, the staff is fairly mediocre in each direction, ranking 10th in K/9 but 15th in BB/9, which heavily drags down their overall team mark to a perfectly pedestrian 2:1 K/BB ratio.
Yesterday, two pitchers stood out most to me from the rest: the aforementioned Myers and brand-new Met Joey Gerber. Myers struck out four over three innings in his first Grapefruit League start, and Gerber threw the Mets’ final frame, striking out two of the three batters he faced. Of Mets pitchers’ eight total strikeouts yesterday, these two arms were responsible for six of them, with each eliciting a 43% whiff rate on their primary pitches (albeit in very limited sample sizes, especially in the case of Gerber.)
That all sounds good…but let’s dig a little deeper.
Tobias Myers
In his first start of spring, Myers flashed some of the potential that made Mets brass so quick to verbally commit rotation time to him. After a 1-2-3 inning to open the game, Myers threw a scoreless second frame before surrendering two back-to-back one-out hits in the third that resulted in his lone earned run of the day. In the process, he struck out four Nationals hitters.
What excites me most about yesterday’s showcase from Myers is the improvement in swing-and-miss efficiency he’s demonstrating early on. Over the past two seasons, Myers’ slider has generated whiffs at a less-than-desirable rate, and ticked down from ~25% in 2024 to 17% in 2025 in a drastically decreased sample. He hardly used it in his first outing this spring, and to little effect, but it made up 26% of his pitch mix yesterday — that was a wise choice.
This chart shows all of Myers’s called strikes and whiffs yesterday from his fastball and slider. Though the bulk of his arsenal generated swings and misses, he also showed off some of his ability to navigate the zone by placing his fastball all over the top and bottom edges. Myers has always shown an ability to locate his pitches (career 102 Location+), but the shape of his pitches (92 Stuff+) and his sequencing/decision-making (95 Pitching+) have always graded out a bit lower. That all tracks with his 27% career chase rate, so hitters swinging out of the zone at a near 40% clip across four different pitch types yesterday is a highly encouraging trend.
Yes, all of this enthusiasm should be conditioned with the reminder that we’re talking about double-digit pitch samples. Still, it’s progress that’s worth keeping track of, especially as more overarching career trends (like his overall 23% whiff rate yesterday) have already proved themselves stable thus far.
If Myers can maintain even half of this early boost, the Mets could have a lethal back-of-rotation option on their hands.
Joey Gerber
Unlike with Myers, Mets fans may appreciate a brief intro to Gerber. I’m happy to oblige.
Gerber comes to Queens from Tampa Bay, where he pitched to an underwhelming 6.09 ERA in the Minors last season. However, in a little over 33 innings with the Yankees in 2024, he delivered a 2.43 ERA across AA-AAA…so maybe his 2.08 ERA in four innings last year isn’t that misleading!
I’m being mostly facetious, but not entirely. I’d never suggest that a four-inning sample is predictive of what a season will hold, but I do think there’s much more to Gerber than initially meets the eye. Several key metrics agree.
Despite his lackluster ERA last year, Gerber still delivered his best K-BB% (20.3%) since he was on Seattle’s farm, and across his highest innings total since 2019. His 7.5% walk rate in Triple-A last season was a vast improvement from the 12% he posted for the Yankees in 2024. His 4.94 FIP also suggests that there was some bad luck at play, but that’s a convenient argument that’s hard to back up with incomplete data.
Instead, I’d argue that Gerber’s struggles to date are more indicative of a guy who’s been unable to establish a consistent routine because of his injury history. If the Mets can keep him healthy, there’s at least some reason to believe this team has found another diamond in the rough.
Speaking to his stuff, Gerber’s 12 pitches on Saturday were lively ones. Like with Myers, Gerber’s primary weapon – his fastball – was working as intended, yielding three big whiffs and serving as the putaway pitch on both of his strikeouts. Looking at the movement data above, courtesy of Pitch Profiler, Gerber’s fastball had just shy of 18 inches of vertical movement with nearly 10 inches of horizontal break. Those numbers line up almost exactly with the movement of Shane Bieber’s fastball over the last few seasons, just with two extra ticks of velocity. Alongside a slider that operates in the opposite quadrant of the strike zone, it’s an excellent tool that Gerber can use either in on righty hands or as a zone spreader to lefties.
Though we’re only talking about a handful of pitches, those Stuff+ numbers are also encouraging. ProStuff+ (Pitch Profiler’s custom model) works slightly differently from the standard Stuff+ model, but all that really matters is that Gerber’s 114 overall score yesterday lines up with his 110 career MLB average, also based on a very limited sample. That suggests that Gerber’s arsenal is nastier than surface numbers make it look.
Of course I’m not suggesting that Gerber is Bieber in disguise…but I am absolutely suggesting that if he learns how to locate his mix consistently, there’s potential for a big bullpen breakout here.
Again — we’re literally a week into spring training. Eight games’ worth of solid spring pitching isn’t meant to be suggestive of a season’s worth of success. Yes, there have been some bullpen hiccups, and we’ve yet to see some key starters make their spring debuts, so there remains much more ‘unknown’ than ‘known’ at this stage.
But so far, the results produced by Mets arms have been mostly positive, and all signs are pointing towards a staff of new and old faces that’s starting to coalesce under a new development system. Smiles abound (thanks, Freddy); sentiments of trust in the staff and their per-player gameplans echo across Clover Park.
Sure seems like stock worth buying.
Around the League 🚩
Starling Marte and the Royals have reportedly agreed to a one-year deal, pending a physical (MLB.com)
Dodgers ace Blake Snell is not expected to be ready for Opening Day (MLB.com)
Rays 1B prospect Xavier Isaac saw his first game action in eight months after undergoing brain surgery last summer (MLB.com)
Former MLB pitcher Dan Serafini was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for the murder of his wife’s parents (ESPN)
Let's take a moment to wish Sterling Marte well. He was a big contributor to the 2022 team and if he hadn't broken his finger things would've turned out differently.
There’s something oddly stubborn about the modern Mets’ allergy to small ball. Watching these spring games, you’d think bunting was outlawed in the last collective bargaining agreement.
I’m not even talking about turning Citi Field into 1985 overnight. I’m talking about situational craft. The occasional bunt to beat the shift (well, when there was one), the push bunt against a third baseman playing back, the half-swing “dunk” hit that just clears the infield and dies in no man’s land. The little nuisance plays that make pitchers mutter into their gloves.
The last Met who really weaponized that approach consistently was Jeff McNeil during his 2022 batting title season. He’d spoil a tough pitch, flick one the other way, or just stick the bat out and float something over the infield grass. It wasn’t glamorous. It was irritating. And it worked.
You still see those “accidental” bloopers pop up across the league — especially on pitches outside the zone. A guy reaches, makes imperfect contact, and the ball drops between short and left like it was placed there with GPS. The irony? That kind of imperfect contact is sometimes more dangerous than the perfect uppercut.
In an era of elite velocity and wipeout breaking stuff, hitters are told to optimize launch angle and damage. Fair enough. But when everyone is swinging from the heels, a controlled half-swing becomes a tactical surprise. When the bullpen is stacked with 98-mph arms and unhittable sliders, why not occasionally shorten up and play chess instead of checkers?
Small ball isn’t nostalgia. It’s leverage. It forces defenders to move. It pressures pitchers to field their position. It manufactures runs on nights when three-run homers are in short supply.
No one’s asking for a lineup full of slap hitters. But a contender should have more than one gear. Right now, too often, it feels like the Mets are waiting for the three-run blast in March as if October pitching won’t expose that habit.
The dunk hit isn’t pretty. The bunt doesn’t sell jerseys. But in a tight game in September? I’ll take the ugly single that scores a run over the majestic fly ball that dies on the warning track every time.