Analyzing Mets' spring training invites, including top prospects and veterans with MLB experience

While players on the Mets' 40-man roster had to scramble to make it to Port St. Lucie in time for the start of spring training, most of the organization’s minor leaguers had been working out at the team complex since early February.

With big league camp officially open as of Sunday, a select few of those non-roster players made the short trip over to the major league clubhouse as spring training invitees.

It’s a smaller group than usual, with just 15 players joining the team for games and workouts in hopes of cracking Buck Showalter's Opening Day roster. The Mets had 30 additional players in camp last year.

Prospects: C Francisco Álvarez, 3B Brett Baty, LF Carlos Cortes, CF Jake Mangum, C Nick Meyer, C Hayden Senger

If you’ve consumed our minor league content on the site over the last year, you’re quite familiar with the names above.

Neither Álvarez or Baty are likely to be in consideration for a major league promotion before the late summer, and even then it’s a near-zero chance that the Mets’ prized catching prospect sees the bigs at all, despite his stated goal to get there. The most important step both of them can take right now is to continue working in lockstep with the big league veterans for the rest of camp.

Cortes and Mangum found success in the Double-A Binghamton outfield last year and should both be in contention for the Triple-A Syracuse lineup card this spring. The cancelation of the Rule 5 Draft is good news for the Mets, who left Cortes off the 40-man roster last winter.

Senger and Meyer continue to fill out the catching depth chart in the upper levels, alongside Dini, Álvarez, and Patrick Mazeika.

Veterans with notable MLB experience: LHP Alex Claudio, RHP Félix Peña, 1B/RF Daniel Palka, 2B/SS Matt Reynolds

Claudio has already been mentioned by general manager Billy Eppler as a candidate to make the opening day roster. The 30-year-old is by far the most established left-handed pitcher in camp, 40-man or not, having made over 350 appearances since debuting for the Texas Rangers in 2014.

For the first seven years of his career, Claudio was one of the best left-on-left relief arms, ranking inside the top 10 in OPS allowed for that split. The  Los Angeles Angels didn’t receive anywhere near the same production from him in 2021, leading to his release in July.

Claudio is in a similar position to Luis Avilan in 2019 as a non-roster left-handed reliever. If Claudio makes the majors and replicates Avilan’s .102/.185/.184 line against left-handed hitters that season, they’ll more than sign up for it.

Palka burst onto the scene as a 26-year-old rookie with the Chicago White Sox in 2018, finishing fifth in AL Rookie of the Year voting after hitting 27 home runs. He played 30 games the next year, hit .107, and hasn’t seen the majors since.

Palka made appearances in Korea and the Washington Nationals’ farm system over the last two seasons and now finds himself as corner depth with the Mets. He still hits the ball insanely hard — Palka ranked fourth behind the Bronx trio of Giancarlo Stanton, Gary Sanchez, and Aaron Judge in max exit velocity in 2018 — but doesn’t make close to a respectable amount of contact.

Peña is intimately familiar with Eppler, after the then-Angels GM acquired him in a minor trade with the Chicago Cubs after the 2017 season. Peña made 66 appearances (23 starts) for Eppler’s Angels over the next three seasons, performing at roughly a league-average level in a variety of roles.

After being removed from the Angels’ 40-man roster last May, Peña spent the rest of the season with Triple-A Salt Lake. He’s now the most experienced arm ticketed for the 2022 Syracuse rotation. 

Though his fastball has historically been a poor offering, his slider posted some of the best results in baseball from 2018-2020 — its .213 wOBA was the fifth-lowest in that period (min. 1,250 thrown), trailing only names like Justin Verlander, Patrick Corbin, Max Scherzer, and Marcus Stroman, and in front of Chris Sale, Mike Clevinger, and Jacob deGrom.

Reynolds is a familiar name to Mets fans. Now 31, he was once a stalwart of organization top prospect lists in the early days of Sandy Alderson's first stint in New York, ultimately playing in 115 games with the Mets from 2016-17. Reynolds has bounced around with the Nationals, Kansas City Royals, and White Sox since then. Conceivably, he’ll keep the shortstop position warm until Ronny Mauricio is ready to join Syracuse at some point over the summer.

Veterans with brief MLB experience: C Nick Dini, RHP Stephen Nogosek, RHP Jose Rodriguez, RHP Antonio Santos, LHP Rob Zastryzny

Dini is local to the area, playing his high school ball in Monroe Township, NJ, and attending college at Wagner on Staten Island. He’s spent his entire seven-year career in the Royals organization, earning a brief 20-game call-up to the majors in 2019.

Nogosek returned to the Mets on a minor league deal after they non-tendered him off the 40-man roster just before the lockout. He made one appearance in the majors last season and has made just eight total since he was part of the prospect package acquired from the Boston Red Sox for Addison Reed in 2017.

Rodriguez was a brief member of Eppler’s Angels in 2019, making one start and eight appearances out of the bullpen. Rodriguez had only pitched in the Los Angeles organization since signing out of Venezuela in 2013 before latching on with the Atlanta Braves in 2021, where he split time between their Triple-A and Double-A affiliates.

Santos was still a member of the 40-man roster when the lockout ended, having been claimed off waivers from the Colorado Rockies in November, but the Mets quickly passed him through waivers, so he remains in the organization. Santos was strictly a starter up until the 17.1 mostly relief innings he threw for Colorado over the last two seasons. His fastball tops out at 97 mph but it doesn’t move nearly enough to miss bats consistently.

Zastryzny represents another non-roster lefty option, albeit one with much less MLB experience than Claudio. A former second round draft pick by the Cubs, Zastryzny made 18 appearances for Chicago across three seasons from 2016-18. He underwent surgery to repair an elbow fracture during the canceled 2020 minor league season and bounced back to make 24 appearances at Triple-A with the Marlins last summer.