Stanley Consuegra, Photo by Ed Delany of MMO

Last week I had the opportunity to head to Port St. Lucie to watch Mets baseball under the warmth of the Florida sun. I got the chance to cover a ton of the big league camp including Jacob deGrom and Max Scherzer pitching in the same game. The thing I look forward to the most when I go to camp though is watching the minor leaguers play on the back fields.

Between getting a sunburn on the first day and a rental car pickup taking forever, I didn’t get to see as much of the minor league stuff as I wanted, but wanted to share a portion of the videos and insight I got in the back fields.

Outfield Monster

Even before I got to camp, Mets’ outfield prospect Stanley Consuegra was the player that everyone was raving about, and he didn’t disappoint while I was there. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to get any good video of Consuegra to share with you. That said, Consuegra was almost unanimously the top hitter in camp according to the Mets folks that I talked to. At one point he led the Mets minor leaguers with five home runs.

Consuegra, 21, was No. 40 on my initial Mets prospects list for 2022, but he’s certainly jumped up that list already and will continue to do so if he can stay healthy. A knee injury and the pandemic cancelled season mean that Consuegra went the entire 2019 and 2020 seasons without an official at-bat. The 6’2” outfielder (he can play all three spots) hit .270/.325/.500 with a whopping 12 extra base hits in 20 games last season for the FCL rookie level Mets.

Consuegra will start the 2022 season with the Low-A likely as their right fielder because Mets top center field prospect Alex Ramirez will be there as well. Consuegra currently covers enough ground to play center, but his rocket of an arm is a good fit in right as well.

The Canadian Cannon

The Mets top draft pick that they signed from 2021 was right-hander Calvin Ziegler that they took in the second round out of the TXNL Academy in Florida. The 19-year-old was born in Kitchener, Canada in 2002.

I have Ziegler as my No. 9 prospect (MLB.com has him #11) in the Mets system before he throws an official pitch. The reason behind that is in part how good he’s looked since joining the Mets organization. The 6’0”, 205 pound right-hander was consistently in the mid-90s and hit 97 mph with his fastball during spring camp and when I was able to catch him throw live. You can see a little bit of armside run on his fastball as well.

By the time I got the chance to see him, word had spread throughout the game and there were a ton of scouts behind home play when he was throwing.

As excited as the Mets are about the fastball of Ziegler, they (and the scouts I talked to) raved about his “hammer” curveball. He was mostly 80-82 with the curve when I saw him and he was getting a fair about of whiffs with it.

Ziegler also throws a changeup, though it’s a distant third pitch at this juncture and I didn’t see him throw too many when I was there.

Wilmer and Reyes? 

Yes, the Mets have a prospect in their farm system named Wilmer Reyes that’s an infielder, and a pretty good one at that. Again, the talk before I got to camp was that Reyes was one of the best this spring, and he continued to back it up while I was there.

Reyes got more exposure later in big league camp when he made a couple of nice plays defensively at shortstop in Grapefruit League games. Reyes missed a large portion of the 2021 season with a knee injury, but finished the year healthy and had a .892 OPS in 16 games. Reyes has experience at every position but catcher and pitcher.

The 24-year-old will start the 2022 season as the starting shortstop for the High-A Brooklyn Cyclones. I have Reyes as my No. 26 prospect in the Mets farm system.

Pitchers From the 2021 Draft

As everyone knows by now, the Mets didn’t sign their first round pick Kumar Rocker because of health concerns, but they were still able to come away with a handful of talented arms. Their third round pick Dominic Hamel is ranked higher than Ziegler in most lists (including) mine, and they also went with pitchers in the fifth round (Christian Scott), sixth round (Carson Seymour), eighth round (Mike Vasil), ninth round (Levi David), and tenth round (Keyshawn Askew). They also drafted four more pitchers in the 11th through 20th rounds.

I talked to two different scouts that raved about this draft in terms of the arms they were able to get. One scout had recently seen Seymor and talked about the plus breaking ball he flashed at 91/92 mph. He also came away impressed with the fastball/breaking ball combo of David as well. The second scout got the chance to watch Vasil, calling him the best pitcher the Mets drafted in terms of an arm that could be fast tracked. He also noted that Askew was extremely tough for hitters to pick up.

Random Notes

Phil Regan was all over the place, folks. Hitting ground balls to pitchers, watching pitchers throw bullpens, and everything in-between you can think of that includes pitching. Certainly a young 85 for the former Brooklyn Dodgers pitcher.

Tim Teufel is another figure who was prominent in camp as he continues to work with the minor leaguers, specifically the infielders. He was in the dugout during the big league sim game during a Mets off-day talking to Dick Scott, Buck Showalter, and a bunch of the young infield prospects.

Right-hander Franklin Sanchez joined the 100 mph group in spring. He joins fellow right-handed relievers Michel Otanez and Bryce Montes De Oca to hit that number.

Other bats that I saw that looked good or was told impressed during spring: catcher Vincent Perozo, outfielder Quinn Brodey, outfielder Raul Beracierta, and outfielder Brandon McIlwain. Mets infield prospect Warren Saunders hit a home run off Tom Hackimer that I’m not sure has landed yet.

Infielder Kevin Kendall had a good camp, but was unfortunately hurt late and will start the season on the injured list.

Lastly, one thing the Mets are definitely trying to push this year is that on top of the importance of developing minor leaguers, they also want to breed a winning culture as well. Brooklyn Cyclones bench coach Chris Newell talked to us about that on a recent podcast.