In a fun Sunday morning read, Kevin Kernan of the New York Post shed a light on some of the additional measures the New York Mets have been taking to reinforce their commitment to fundamentally sound play on both sides of the chalk this spring.
New hitting coach Chili Davis‘ situational, contact-focused approach to the offensive aspect of the game has been a hit with the players, who admittedly acknowledged a need to re-shift their priorities at the plate as evidenced by their sub-par performances in certain situations last season.
As a quick example of the 2018 Mets’ futility with runners on base, over 69 plate appearances with the bases loaded and less than two outs last season, their 42 runs batted in ranked 28th in Major League Baseball. With runners in scoring position and less than two outs, the Mets’ 249 RBI was ranked 27th.
Under a new regime in general manager Brodie Van Wagenen and his revamped front office, the organization appears to be fully aware of last year’s shortcomings and have embraced this new approach with both arms, going as far as to add two bunting stations behind the batting cage, something that will continue throughout the season, as per Kernan.
As we saw with Juan Lagares‘ not-so-strong throw front centerfield early in Saturday’s Grapefruit League opener, the Mets’ outfielders have been instructed to hit all of their cutoff men this spring, regardless of the situation.
According to Kernan, the Mets are fine-tuning their approach on the basepaths as well, informing their players “on balls in the dirt, base runners, no matter their speed, must get the proper read and take the base” this spring.
Another new drill, this one brought to the forefront by assistant GM Allard Baird, involves a pitching machine wheeled 50 feet away from home plate and firing 90 MPH fastballs at the hitter.
“We’re going to be very aggressive in Spring Training. Everybody knows they have a certain governor on how far they can go, we want to push it and take it to the next level,” Baird told the Post. “They are learning about themselves because we are trying to push them to another level of aggressiveness.”
New Mets second baseman, Robinson Cano seemed to be taken aback, as well as intriguingly impressed by the addition, telling Kernan, “I’ve never seen that before, it was great”.
Jeff McNeil, who hit two homers off of the close-range pitching machine in a scrimmage on Friday, appeared to be even more blown away by the newly-adopted training concepts.
“It gets you in that game setting and we haven’t done anything like this in the past. Running the bases is huge, too. Then when you are not hitting, you can just work on your bunting,” McNeil told Kernan. “I liked everything about it […] The pace was awesome, super quick and you had to move runners along, all the stuff you have to do in a game.”
The Mets are addressing an area of concern and doing so in an outside-the-box way. It’s a new way to improve the basic foundational skills of this ball club and, best yet, the players seem to be on board with it. Sounds great. Let’s just hope this hard work pays off.
