The Mets will send scouts to watch Aníbal Sanchez and Julio Teherán throw bullpen session in Miami on Tuesday, according to Mike Puma.
Both Sanchez and Teheran struggled in 2020.
Sanchez, who will be 37 next season, got knocked around in 11 starts with the Nationals in 2020, producing a 5.46 FIP and 1.66 WHIP. Though he had a solid 2019 (including a near no-hitter in game one of the World Series), his velocity across all pitches declined last year, with his fastball/sinker both sitting below 90 mph, according to Statcast. His chase percentage dropped and hard hit percentage increased from his 2019 numbers (and previous years’ numbers), too.
Teheran, on the other hand, is eight years younger, but is facing similar problems as Sanchez.
With his fastball velocity in steady decline, Teherán ranked nearly dead-last in xBA (.319) and K% (13.4%), according to Statcast numbers. He’s just not missing many bats, and when players connected, they hit Teherán really hard last year. If he wasn’t playing for the Los Angeles Angels–a team desperate for any starting pitching–Teherán probably wouldn’t have made it the full year on a team. But, he did make nine starts, allowing 35 earned runs in 31.1 innings.
At this point in his career, Sanchez could serve as an innings eater for iffy teams or as an emergency starter/depth piece on a team with a solid rotation. He’s shown some level of success in the recent past at being effective throwing at a lower velocity.
Teherán, in my opinion, really needs to show something in his throwing session to even get an extended look in spring training from any team. Both could be candidates for a split contract–similar to what José Martínez got from the Mets over the weekend.
Neither really have the upside of a guy like Corey Kluber, who got $11 million in guarantees from the Yankees, but we saw what one throwing session did to him: got a lot of teams really interested.
