The Mets announced they’ve selected outfielder Ender Inciarte onto the major league roster before this evening’s matchup with the Astros. Fellow outfielder Nick Plummer has been optioned to Triple-A Syracuse to clear an active roster spot, while the club designated left-hander Locke St. John for assignment to free space on the 40-man roster.
Inciarte earns his way to the majors for the first time this season. The 31-year-old signed a minor league deal with the Yankees during Spring Training, but he was released a couple weeks back. He latched on via non-roster deal with the crosstown Mets fairly quickly, and he gets an MLB nod after just four games with Syracuse. Inciarte hasn’t hit over that limited showing, but he had a capable .252/.336/.408 line in 34 contests with the Yankees’ top affiliate earlier in the season.
Those aren’t eye-popping offensive numbers, but roughly league average hitting like that would be more than serviceable given Inciarte’s defensive acumen. He’s claimed a trio of Gold Glove awards during his time in the majors, receiving the nod each season from 2016-18 while playing for the Braves. His public defensive metrics haven’t been as great over the past couple years, but he’s still capable of playing all three spots on the outfield. New York’s starting group of Mark Canha, Brandon Nimmo and Starling Marte is one of the league’s best, but Inciarte adds a glove-first option to the bench for manager Buck Showalter.
St. John loses his roster spot six weeks after being claimed off waivers from the Cubs. He hasn’t appeared in a big league game in Queens, spending the entirety of his Mets’ tenure on optional assignment to Syracuse. Over 10 Triple-A appearances, the 29-year-old has worked 15 2/3 innings of nine-run ball, striking out 18 while walking seven. He’d allowed four runs in seven innings with Chicago’s top affiliate earlier in the season.
A former Tigers’ draftee, St. John has eight MLB appearances under his belt. The first seven came with the Rangers three years ago, and he got into a game with the Cubs this April. The South Alabama product owns a 4.25 ERA in parts of three Triple-A seasons. He’s likely to hit the waiver wire over the coming days and would have the right to refuse an outright assignment in favor of free agency if he goes unclaimed.
Andy Martino of SNY reported St. John’s designation shortly before the team announcement.
This could be the payback tour for him when he faces the Braves and Yankees…
Could be. Or he could be completely gone once Jankowski is ready to return.
He is inning ender inciarte
Ha
Inciarte, been here & gone, just like the pet rock.
Dude this sounds like an amazing deal
Good ol’ Ender. I always liked him.
Rep the Ham yessirrrr
What happened to the Mets regular CF’s? Nimmo and Marte seems pretty damn good.
They are. This is bench depth.
@seamaholic 2 The real problem is durability. You know you’re REALLY pushing it if you’re sending Nimmo and Marte out there every day. Even Canha is likely to miss 25 games a season at his age, never mind the possibility of prolonged ineffectiveness.
If McNeil has to man 2B the Mets are really missing a good quality 4th OFer. They had to skimp in spots last offseason, given all the holes in the roster, and 4th-5th OFer were two of those spots. They know they’ve gotten extremely lucky thus far with their position players, in terms of both performance and durability, so it’s smart not to push it.
I really hope Alderson is not allowed any longer to treat Nimmo in particular the way he did for much of Nimmo’s career, playing him while hurt until he’d hit the IL for a month instead of a week. Alderson was also always happy to play older players into the ground b/c that suited the Wilpons. It was disgusting. Let’s hope those days are over.
YES, LETS GO THE METS SAW MY USER AND LISTENED
His significant D will impress New York fans.
So much for the legend of Nick Plummer
But Inciarte’s legend begins anew.
Question for Met’s fans. Is Plummer’s defense and baserunning not very good? They signed the guy to a guaranteed MLB contract I figured he’d be passable in the corners since his bat would probably be slow to come around.
I assume Plummer’s defense or baserunning
is not be up to par since inciarte has a noodle arm and it would be a long shot to hope for average production from him.
@beansforjesus; I hear ya! The only thing I can think of is that he was signed by the Mets prior to Buck being hired as manager. Based on in season evaluations, maybe Buck and staff feel he needs some steady action/playing time down a level for now. And a guy like Inciarte does not; so he better fits the teams need for spot start/back up duties?
C Yards: you’re making this too complicated. It’s simple: Nick Plummer isn’t good. There was never any reason to think otherwise. He is roster filler and that’s why he’s being treated as such.
@ C yards. I forgot Plummer was signed pre-showalter.
Isn’t Buck famous for sticking with vets? Maybe he wanted a vet instead of worrying about the additional aspect of development.
Plummer was a AAAA signing that only fans made a big deal out of. He’s a decent glove, bad bat. Inciarte is great glove, terrible bat. Pick your poison. Plummer was, as expected, not good, so on to the next AAAA guy until the slightly better Jankowski returns, which by the way sounds like a good title for a movie.
Cosmos2: O’s fan here with an interest in following the Mets/Buck S. this year. Definitely GM amatuer hr stuff on my part. Thanks for the insight!
Heh, nothing amateur at all. Even GMs don’t know until they know. Really, though, you may find a lot of fans who disagree with me and overvalue the guy.
@cosmo2. I find it hard to believe they didn’t see anything in Plummer. He has potential which is why they probably beat the market by offering a majors contract.
He’s young with solid tools. I’m just guessing he is passive at the plate based on his minors numbers (high K high bb). That why I figured he excelled beyond the batter box.
I’m sure they saw SOMETHING. As in its a one in a thousand shot that every other team passed on him and he’s been pretty meh his whole career. He’s not young. Whatever they may think, he’s AAAA fodder and the back of his baseball card will bare that out when all is done.
They signed Plummer as a depth move in case of injuries. The major league deal is having a wealthy owner. The real question is why Vientos is getting a shot.
I suppose you meant “isn’t”? He probably needs to cook a bit more in the minors. His stats there aren’t THAT good.
@BeansforJesus The Mets signed Plummer to an MLB deal (a split contract) thanks to the combination of their desperately needing a decent 4th OFer and Plummer having authentic promise despite his lack of MLB experience.
They probably overpaid a little, all things considered, but with something like a 700k guarantee, it’s the kind of premium rich teams can afford to pay. It made sense, and may still make sense. After all, at the point they signed him their ‘depth’ after Canha (whom with Marte they knew they were on the verge of signing) was something like Dom, Jankowski, the always unreliable Khalil Lee and, god forbid, JDD roaming LF. With iffy 4th OFers often going for $3m-5m, it was a solid move.
Everyday Chasen Shreve is still on the team is an opportunity to get better.
Nothing to see here. Bench depth.
They used Plummer all wrong, they benched him for 3 games straight when he was hot, I think he needs consistent playing time to do well. Plummer will get those at bats in triple A. Ender is probably a slower jankowski but a better fielder
But pathetic trash Carrasco is still here so sadly doesn’t matter
Carlos is 8-3 4.42, pretty good. He’s a keeper. Now, how do we get rid of you?
His era isn’t 4.42 any more.
4.76 ….still a cromulent starter these days. I’m reacting the idiocy of calling him “pathetic trash”
@Cosmo2 its over 5 now, admit your wrong for once, dudes been finished since last year
You and your “admit you’re wrong” nonsense (from someone who’s NEVER been right). I will and do admit WHEN I’m wrong. Carrasco is not pathetic. What is pathetic is the way you think you can judge a player one game at a time. Remind us your convoluted logic about how Drew Smith sucks. But as usual, no actual stats, no real logic. Just state a bunch of totally incorrect stuff and then demand that everyone else “admit they are wrong”. Your nonsense got old a month ago.
I think it would have been a good time to give Vientos a look.
Your probably right but this team likes to take forever before it promotes players. Unless it’s Ruben Tejada. (After checking Escobar’s stats I’m all for a Vientos promotion too)
Cosmos correct me if i am wrong but Vientos defense was a major issue if i remember right. I could be completely wrong and thinking of another prospect that was close but that was the reason they didnt bring him up.
Definitely an issue with his D but I don’t really know the details. Seems you may know more than me.
Vientos is a horrifying fielder, and at this point he rates to hit .215 in MLB while K’ing 4-5x for every walk. He doesn’t have anything like the skill set of a 22 yo who comes up and succeeds in the majors. I wouldn’t even want to bet he’d outhit JDD in the majors this year.
Outside of Rookie ball Vientos was a stud for all of a couple of months in the minors during one season. The Mets need to figure out how to develop players like Mark, otherwise they’re just spoiling promising but deeply flawed minor leaguers by throwing them into the breach in hopes they can snare an extra couple of hits. It’s no way to run a baseball team.
Little known trade that might be the worst I in major league, Incarcion and Dansby Swanson for Shelby Miller who’s somewhere in the minors, former DBACKS players Max Sherzer, JD Martinez, Paul Goldschmidt if you ever wonder why they suck every year
Little known?
Always pitch Ender away and not inside.