New York Mets outfielder Michael Conforto, healthy once again, is primed for a big season. After finishing out last year on an absolute tear, the 25-year-old comes into Spring Training set to re-embark on his journey to the upper crust of the major leagues.

Mets skipper Mickey Callaway spoke with David Lennon of Newsday earlier in the week regarding Conforto’s astronomic ceiling and unique skill-set and, clearly, the second-year manager has high hopes for his young cornerstone outfielder.

“I think he can be one of the best left-handed hitters in the league, myself. Just the way he approaches his at-bats, the swing, the pitches that he covers — it’s special,” Callaway told Newsday. “A lot of guys can’t just take a ball and go to the opposite-field and drive it the way he does, and that’s not his only place of power. He’s able to stay on the breaking ball that misses down and drive it out to the pull side as well.”

And cover the plate, Scooter does — with authority. This is Conforto’s slugging percentage heat chart since making his MLB debut in 2015, courtesy of Brooks Baseball.

As you can see, there’s really nowhere for pitchers to hide. Conforto’s ability to make solid contact on nearly any pitch in any spot is uncanny.

And as evidenced by his career-spanning spray chart below, he really does have power to all fields.

Many of his outs tend to be made on the right side of the infield, but, wow, would you look at that distribution? As for hitting whatever’s thrown his way, wouldn’t you know, the good folks at Brooks Baseball have a chart for that too.

As Callaway noted, Conforto certainly does have a knack for sending off-speed stuff into right field, and he can certainly impose his will on the fastball offerings, but what really caught my eye is his ability to send a slider to any part of the field. Everyone throws a slider these days. Looks like someone was prepared for this spin-rate revolution.

After a rough first half last season (.216/.344/.366, 11 homers, 35 RBI, .313 wOBA, 101 wRC+ in 346 plate appearances), Conforto kicked into gear and finished the season looking like the budding star we saw in 2017 before his season was cut short by torn anterior capsule in his shoulder suffered in September.

Over 292 plate appearances in the second half, Conforto slashed .273/.356/.539 with 17 home runs, 15 doubles, 52 RBI, .377 wOBA, and a 143 wRC+ rating. In September, the Oregon State alum struck out in 19 percent of his at-bats (compared to 24.9 percent over the course of the season), hit nine dingers, eight doubles, and registered elite analytical marks with his .409 wOBA and 165 wRC+.

Ed Delany/MMO

Michael Conforto was back.

He admitted to Newsday that “I think I was back early, and when you start to play every day and the hits don’t come, you start overthinking things”. Apparently, Conforto got his head screwed on correctly right as the season progressed and it was smooth sailing from there on out.

Heading into this season, the hype surrounding the Mets is palpable. General manager Brodie Van Wagenen’s slew of additions in Wilson Ramos, Robinson Cano, Jed Lowrie, among others, added to the talented core of Conforto, Brandon Nimmo, Amed Rosario, and the rest of the gang, has fans and organization alike quite excited for 2019.

But what’s more pressing is the fact that this talented core, one by one, will begin to play out their arbitration-eligible years, succumb to the overwhelming pressures of testing the open market, and potentially move on.

The team across town has set themselves up pretty well for the future over the last week or so, inking starter Luis Severino and outfielder Aaron Hicks to long-term, team-friendly deals, and have publicly stated that they plan to approach shut-down setup man Dellin Betances about an extension, as well.

It’s time for the Mets to do the same with their talented youngsters and try to keep this core intact for years to come, and Michael Conforto should be the first name on that list. This is not the guy let get away, folks. And, apparently, he’s keen on us too.

“My conversations with [Scott Boras, his agent] have been ‘I’m open to anything’. Obviously, it’s pretty well known [Boras is] a big proponent of getting to free agency,” Conforto told Matt Ehalt of The Record. “Nothing has really been talked about or anything like that […] I love it here. I’d be all ears.”

Take a page from Brian Cashman’s book, Brodie. Make a franchise cornerstone in Michael Conforto a Met for the foreseeable future. And yes, pay that man his money.