The Mets announced that they have signed two pitchers to minor league deals: right-hander Denyi Reyes and left-hander Zach Muckenhirn. Each will be invited to major league Spring Training.
Reyes, 26, is the only one of the two with major league experience. He cracked the big leagues with the Orioles last year, tossing 7 2/3 innings with a 2.35 ERA. Over his 54 Triple-A innings last year, however, he posted a 7.17 ERA but surely deserved better. His 22% strikeout rate was close to average and his 3.3% walk rate was excellent. A .361 BABIP and 57.8% strand rate helped to make his results worse than perhaps they should have been. He was outrighted in September and elected free agency at the end of the season.
Muckenhirn, 28 in February, has yet to reach the big leagues. Drafted by the Orioles in the 11th round in 2016, he stuck with that organization until he was released in April of 2021 and signed a minors deal with the White Sox. He spent all of 2022 at Triple-A, throwing 55 innings with a 3.11 ERA, 23.8% strikeout rate, 9.8% walk rate and 41.7% ground ball rate.
The Mets have a lot of work to do this winter in re-building their pitching staff. Jacob deGrom, Chris Bassitt and Taijuan Walker have departed the rotation for free agency while Adam Ottavino, Seth Lugo, Trevor May, Trevor Williams, Joely Rodriguez and Mychal Givens have left the bullpen. Those players are all still free agents except for Rodriguez, who signed with the Red Sox earlier today. The club has already made a couple of moves to compensate, re-signing Edwin Díaz, claiming William Woods and Stephen Ridings off waivers, and trading for Elieser Hernández and Jeff Brigham. Today’s signings of Reyes and Muckenhirn add to the club’s bullpen depth.
Rly solid pickups. With the mets just losing Joely, Muckenhirn can maybe be that replacement bc the numbers look good at AAA this year. Reyes is prolly just a flash in the pan bc he showed success but nth that is consistent as of yet.
Wrong Reyes. Sign Alex. Filthier stuff than that trumpet fool
Not only does Alex Reyes not have ‘filthier stuff’ than Diaz* (who I assume is ‘that trumpet fool’), he’s not even a free agent. So don’t expect the Mets–or anyone else–to sign him.
*far lower K rate, far higher BB rate, for starters
The only thing you were correct about is the trumpet fool’s name.
His stuff is filthier and he is a free agent.
Ok, he was non-tendered because he spent the entire year on the 60-day IL following surgery. He’s from the NYC area (Elizabeth, NJ) so he may welcome a chance to play in the area but he’s not in the class with Sugar right now. It’s hard to justify spending much more than $5M AAV for any set-up man now when they’ll likely sign another starter in Max Scherzer’s price range (i.e., deGrom or Verlander). They probably won’t want to give up a lot of prospect capital, but I know they’d be interested in bringing over Sugar’s younger brother from the Reds if the right deal can be made.
I just saw this: “The 28-year-old right-hander is a free agent after being non-tendered by the Cardinals on Friday. He was due to make approximately $2.85 million via arbitration, Matt Swartz of MLB Trade Rumors projects. Evidently, his value to the Cards and other teams around the league is lower than that.” The Mets could definitely afford that but he may want to go where he’d have a chance to close like Miami.
This report from 2014 could be what you’re basing your comment on, but Sugar definitely doesn’t have a “poor slider” anymore. https://fantasy.fangraphs.com/alex-reyes-the-best-pitching-prospect-youve-never-heard-of/
So, non-tendered but filthier than one of the filthier relievers in baseball. Oh, brother.
Patently false.
Cue the Long Island choir of amateur comedian NYM fans to bash pure depth moves that every team makes
Could be a sneaky pickup for the Mets.
I remhim with the doyers.
More dumpster diving? Who else are they talking to with a decent record?
Denyi Reyes is AAA roster fill for an emergency call up. He initially made the 40-man with the Red Sox while in A and AA, because of his low walk rate, but never progressed. Even 2 weeks in the MLB (MLB minimum about $3900 per day) would around $55,000 which is near the household annual income for most of the states in the USA.
People (and puffing baseball writers) routinely misunderstand or inflate these signings.
Wrt Reyes, go to Baseball-reference’s Mets page and scroll down to the section on pitching where you’ll see guys like Jake Reed and Bryce de Montes Oca pitching 6-1/3 and 3-1/3 innings, respectively, with vertiginous ERAs. That’s who Reyes is. He hasn’t been effective above high-A as of age 25, He fills out a AA roster nicely, but that’s about it.
Muckenhirn’s the one with a little promise. The O’s gave up on him as a starter after an abysmal 2017, and with the reduced workload he developed as a K-pitcher. As a reliever in 2018 he zipped through A-ball and got whacked around in AA. He solved AA in 2019 but then got whacked around in AAA. The Covid year stalled him and he went to the White Sox org, where the K’s dipped and he never figured out how to keep a reliever’s increased velocity while walking much fewer than 4 per 9
He’ll be 28 and it’s probably too late, but with a skinny Mets bullpen he might get 20 innings on the big club and a shot at 4 weeks of the big money. Close to the definition of a AAAA pitcher but his worst future is probably as the pitching coach for a decent college program.
He’ll always have his 2018-2020 K rates to put on his mantelpiece.