►Mets stars take shape,
During a whirlwind second half of 2015 that ultimately landed them in the World Series, the New York Mets relied on a couple of young players with a combined halfseason’s worth of experience above Class AA ball. Now, fresh off baseball’s biggest stage, Michael Conforto and Steven Matz will look to help the Mets return to the postseason while endeavoring their first full seasons as big-leaguers.
Conforto, the Mets’ top pick (10th overall) in the 2014 draft, needed barely more than a full season in the minors to bop his way to the big leagues, showing good contact skills and decent production in some pitcher-friendly parks at Class A, then busting out with a .899 on-base-plus-slugging percentage across 45 games at Class AA before his promotion.
With a smooth, left-handed, line-drive swing, Conforto, 22, maintained a sturdy .841 OPS with nine homers in his 56-game debut. He smacked three home runs in 12 postseason games, but his next challenge should involve more time facing left-handers. Conforto saw only 15 regular-season plate appearances against lefties in 2015, and he should play nearly every day this season. His defense, somewhat maligned during his short stint as a prospect, proved better than expected in the majors as Conforto made up for his lack of exceptional range and arm strength with good instincts and great accuracy on this throws.
Matz, 24, took a far slower route to the majors. Drafted in the second round in 2009, the left-hander needed Tommy John elbow surgery in 2010 and did not throw a pitch in a professional game until midway through the 2012 season. But once he finally started pitching, Matz dominated every level he saw. The Long Island product owns a 2.25 career minor league ERA in 3802⁄ innings while striking out more than a batter an inning and maintaining the minuscule walk rates that now seem a hallmark of the Mets’ young pitching staff.
Promoted to the majors in June 2015, Matz pitched great in his first two bigleague starts, then hit the disabled list with a torn back muscle and did not return in September. But Matz’s maturity, combined with his sinking mid-90s fastball and devastating curve, proved enough for the Mets to make him a part of their postseason rotation.
Now 24 and armed with a hard slider he developed under Mets pitching coach Dan Warthen, Matz appears ticketed to open 2016 back in the club’s rotation. All he has to prove now is that he can stay there, as he has yet to throw more than 156 innings in any one season.