Francisco Alvarez, Photo by Rick Nelson
The Triple-A level is often viewed as a revolving door, a mismatched cast of characters ranging from top prospects on the cusp of stardom to players that would serve the major league club well in a pinch. There are also plenty of players who have just never panned out in the majors, toiling away in the minor leagues hoping for one more shot to prove their worth.
The best Triple-A teams are made of mostly players from those first two groups, a collection of young talent deprived of major league action only by restrictions to roster sizes. The 2022 Syracuse Mets were not one of those teams.
The Syracuse Mets started the year with very few top prospects on the roster, and a whole lot of players who had their shot at major league playing time in seasons past but couldn’t make the cut. Their play on the field demonstrated that: a 64-85 record that was second worst in their division and third worst in the International League.
The advanced metrics are not much kinder. The Mets finished with a -98 run differential, the third worst in the league. The pitching staff combined to allow 828 runs, the second-worst mark in the league. The offense posted a league-worst .239 batting average. They were not a good team.
This is not to say that the roster was entirely devoid of promise. The offense in particular received contributions from some of the organization’s brightest young talents in Francisco Álvarez, Brett Baty, and Mark Vientos. Meanwhile, the pitching staff graduated several players who went on to have successful turns in the major-league bullpen as injury fill-ins.
However, things never clicked all at once for first-year manager Kevin Boles’ team. The result was a rocky season with plenty of rough patches. With another tough year seemingly on the horizon given the likelihood of Syracuse’s best players making the major league roster to start the 2023 season, the Mets at least have a benchmark by which to improve.
Coaching Staff
Manager – Kevin Boles
Bench Coach – Jay Pecci
Hitting Coach – Joel Chimelis
Pitching Coach – Steve Schrenk
Development Coach – Chris Jacobs
Athletic Trainers – Hiroto Kawamura and Anthony Olivieri
Brett Baty, Photo by Richard Nelson
MMN Top 30 Prospects
1 – Francisco Álvarez, C
2 – Brett Baty, 3B
7 – Mark Vientos, 1B
12 – José Butto, RHP
18 – Khalil Lee, OF
20 – Bryce Montes de Oca, RHP
25 – Eric Orze, RHP
Team Batting Leaders
G: Daniel Palka 109 (T-33rd)
AB: Daniel Palka 395 (38th)
R: Daniel Palka 68 (T-17th)
H: Mark Vientos 106 (T-26th)
2B: Khalil Lee 25 (T-23rd)
3B: Quinn Brodey 3 (T-34th)
HR: Daniel Palka 26 (5th)
RBI: Daniel Palka 79 (9th)
SB: Travis Jankowski 15 (T-45th)
TB: Daniel Palka 200 (11th)
BB: Daniel Palka 48 (T-25th)
BA: Mark Vientos .280 (14th)
OBP: Mark Vientos .358 (20th)
SLG: Mark Vientos .519 (6th)
OPS: Mark Vientos .877 (5th)
Team Pitching Leaders
W: Trey Cobb 6 (T-29th)
ERA: Steven Nogosek 2.30 (N/A)
SV: Bryce Montes de Oca 8 (T-15th)
HLD: Yoan López 6 (T-43rd)
G: R.J. Alvarez 40 (T-59th)
GS: Connor Grey 24 (T-9th)
IP: Connor Grey 104.1 (27th)
K: Connor Grey 88 (T-41st)
WHIP: José Butto 0.95 (N/A)
Mark Vientos, Photo by Richard Nelson
Entering the 2022 season, Mark Vientos was primed to be the focal point of the Syracuse Mets’ offense. He started off slowly, as he has tended to do throughout his career, but he more than lived up to those expectations, finishing with a .280/.358/.519 slash line in 101 games. His .877 OPS was good for fifth in all of the International League, and he launched 24 home runs just one year after hitting 25 long balls at the Double-A and Triple-A levels.
Vientos finally got a call-up to the majors in mid-September after months of speculation, and he managed to hit his first career major league homer in his brief stint with the team. If he is not traded this offseason (as some have speculated), he might start the year at the major-league level as a platoon DH and a bench bat.
Top prospect Francisco Álvarez made the jump to Triple-A in early July after crushing Double-A pitching. Despite the early returns not being fantastic, he eventually settled down and managed to turn in a .234/.382/.443 slash line with nine homers in 45 games.
Álvarez still needs to improve his defensive capabilities, but he showed enough to earn a call-up to the majors for the last week of the regular season. With how horrendous the hitting production was from the catcher position for the Mets in 2022, Álvarez could be the team’s solution to that problem in 2023 while also serving as an occasional designated hitter.
Brett Baty also started the 2022 season at Double-A and made the jump to Triple-A one month after Álvarez. However, his stay was a lot shorter, as he was called up to the majors after just six games for Syracuse, where he went 8-for-22 with three runs scored.
Baty hit a home run in his first career major league at-bat, but his time with the team was cut short after 11 games due to a thumb injury. He could start the 2023 season in the majors, serving as a complement to Eduardo Escobar at third base and as a left-handed hitting DH option.
The last notable prospect to highlight is center fielder Jake Mangum. The talented defender started the year in Double-A and was promoted to Syracuse in May. Despite dealing with a bad injury that had him miss time in the middle of the season, the 26-year-old Mangum hit .333/.365/.471 with seven steals in 33 games for Syracuse.
Outside of the three high-flying prospects, the Syracuse offense was helmed by Daniel Palka. Palka hasn’t made much of a push for major-league playing time after hitting 27 home runs for the White Sox in 2018, but he managed to lead Syracuse in just about every statistical category in 2022. He hit 26 homers and drove in 79 runs, both of which had him among the league leaders in the International League.
Photo by Rick Nelson
The other big name to play meaningful games for Syracuse was Dominic Smith, who found himself back in the minors for the first time since 2018 after a disappointing start to the year. He hit for a respectable .284/.367/.473 slash line in 54 games for Syracuse, yet he failed to get the call back to the major league roster. His time with the Mets organization is almost assuredly over, and he will have the opportunity to reinvent his game on a new team in 2023.
Travis Blankenhorn (15 home runs) and catcher Nick Dini (10 home runs) also played important roles in the Syracuse offense. Veteran Terrance Gore played in 31 games in Triple-A before getting promoted to the big leagues to be a late-season pinch runner.
Over on the pitching side, the Syracuse Mets did not have a single qualifying pitcher. However, Connor Grey came the closest, making 24 starts pitching a team-leading 104 1/3 innings. He did not fare particularly well, finishing with a 5-6 record and a 6.64 ERA, but he gave the team plenty of innings which is always appreciated.
The most electrifying arm for Syracuse was Bryce Montes de Oca, the flamethrowing reliever who managed to secure eight saves while touching 102 mph with his fastball. Montes de Oca’s biggest issue has been and will always be his command, as he issued 24 walks in his 34 innings of work. He was called up to the bigs in September before heading to the injured list with hamstring tightness.
José Butto started the year at Double-A but worked his way up to Syracuse via an early August call-up. He pitched very well for Syracuse, posting a 2.45 ERA in eight appearances (seven starts), and even earned himself a start at the major league level in late August.
Stephen Nogosek locked it down out of the bullpen, pitching to the tune of a 2.30 ERA in 31 appearances for Syracuse. Grant Hartwig made only two appearances for Syracuse, both scoreless outings, but he made an improbable rise from Low-A St. Lucie where he started the year, and pitched exceedingly well at every stop along the way. Both Nogosek and Hartwig will be options for the major-league bullpen at some point in the 2023 season.
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