As you know by now, the New York Mets demoted struggling outfielder Michael Conforto to Triple-A Las Vegas on Saturday, and promoted outfielder Brandon Nimmo to the big league team.
After rocketing through the system last year and breaking out with 12 doubles, nine home runs and a 132 OPS+ in 56 games, things deteriorated quickly for Conforto after a solid April this season.
The 10th overall pick in the 2014 draft, Conforto was batting .130 since May 1 and he clearly needed to spend time in the minors where he could regain his confidence and more importantly that sweet swing that scouts raved about in 2015.
Sandy Alderson told reporters that his one regret was not acting sooner when it became apparent that Conforto was pressing too hard and started displaying some new bad habits with his approach at the plate. I’ve been discussing that ad nauseam on MMO the last few weeks.
“I think in talking with the coaching staff and the manager, we just felt that, look, this is counterproductive and what we need to do is get him to Las Vegas, get his swing back, and then hopefully get him back here within a relatively short period of time.”
Manager Terry Collins realized it was time for a demotion during the series opener in Atlanta on Thursday
“I think it was after his second at-bat. He came off the field and I was just looking at him, and I could just see that he had reached the state of mental confusion,” Collins said. “Just looking in his eyes, you could almost see him shaking his head, saying, ‘What the heck is going on here?’
“I don’t want him to have to be scrambling his mind to figure out what he’s got to change,” Collins continued. “I don’t want him to change anything. I just want him to go get some confidence and get back here.”
Ironically, Conforto began his downward spiral shortly after hitting coach Kevin Long made a small change to Michael’s batting stance last month. He instructed him to get a couple of inches closer to the plate so that he would see an increase in power. However, the change caused Conforto to bring his arms in and he developed a more acute uppercut that was never there before.
Regardless, I have to commend this young man for how he conducted himself after learning of his demotion. Conforto asked for permission to delay his flight to Las Vegas because he wanted to speak to both his teammates and to face the music and take questions from the media. That takes guts.
He told teammates that he was not upset and that he believed the best thing for him was to clear his head and get back to basics and that this would allow him to do exactly that.
“It will be good to get away from the craziness of everything going on right now, just to try to simplify things and just work on getting back to who I am. Who I know I am at the plate. It’s been tough. It’s been very tough. It’s upsetting not having the success that I know I can have.”
“I’ve just got to stay positive, work hard and I know I’ll be back,” Conforto added. “That’s the one thing I do know: I’ll be back and I’ll be doing what I did in April, what I did last year. I’m very confident in that.”
You have to respect how cerebral, professional, and committed Conforto is. It gives me hope that he knows what he has to do and will be back in the major leagues in no time. Until then, I’ll be rooting hard for Michael Conforto – our left fielder of the future.
