The Mets signed first baseman/corner outfielder Daniel Palka to a minor league contract yesterday, according to an announcement from their Triple-A club in Syracuse. He’ll join their top affiliate there.
Palka, 31, is familiar with the New York organization. He spent the 2022 campaign in Syracuse on a minor league pact, hitting .263/.344/.506 with 26 longballs over 109 games. The Mets never gave him a big league look. He returned to minor league free agency last offseason and caught on with the Red Sox on a non-roster pact.
Through 314 plate appearances with the Sox’s top affiliate in Worcester, Palka hit .233/.309/.410 with 12 home runs. Boston released him towards the end of July. A month later, the left-handed hitter makes his return to Syracuse. He’ll have a little over a month to try to play his way onto the big league roster.
Palka’s only MLB experience to date came with the 2018-19 White Sox. He appeared in 154 games over those two seasons, roughly one full campaign’s worth of work. He blasted 29 home runs and slugged .433, but he struck out in nearly 35% of his trips. His .218 average and .277 on-base percentage reflected his trouble consistently putting the ball in play.
That hasn’t been as big a problem at the Triple-A level. Palka’s strikeout rates there have hovered between 21-24%, roughly league average rates, over the past three seasons. Yet he didn’t hit for his typical level of power in Worcester, as his .410 slugging mark there is the lowest he’s posted in any of his seven Triple-A campaigns.
Mets must be promoting one of their prospects for the remainder of the season or one will be out a while
Syracuse and Binghamton are both short-handed due to injuries. Even with Palka, Syracuse has just 12 position players, and Binghamton has 11. They’re not going to promote anyone useful from Brooklyn to Binghamton because Brooklyn is leading the playoff race right now.
Abraham Almonte most likely elected free agency after being designated for assignment necessitating the signing of Dan Palka. I haven’t seen Luke Voit surface anywhere but resigning him would have been ok too.
Palka should have been given a shot last year, but he is a good soldier and wish he could get a shot this year, but probably will not get it. Rosters only goes up 2 in September, not like old days when you could put the whole 40 man on the bench in September if they wanted to.
I am surprised “Big Boy” Vogelbach is still on the team, since he doesn’t profile as someone who’ll be back next year.
Is this an omen? Could it be the baseball gods will answer a lowly Mets fan’s prayer to FINALLY DFA Vogelslug? PLEASE?
He doesn’t seem to. But then again, he is still here. I’m thinking he’s kept his job because he has compromising pictures of either Cohen or Eppler.
I don’t know if anyone knows this, but when Lindor needs a day off, Vogelbach is his back-up. On those days, the stadium is filled to capacity.
@mlb fan the only reason why Vogelfat is on this team is because InEppler wants to look smug with a toothpick in his mouth everytime Vogelfat hits a homerun. He actually believes the Vogelbach trade was good. Holderman would be our second best reliever right now. If you look at Epplers trades, the Vogelbach one is his best one. Thats pretty sad. They gave up a 6 year controllable reliever for a 2 and a half years of AirSoftFatty. I guess this is a good trade if you compare it to our JD Davis for Darin Ruf trade. Worst GM in the game. It only took people on here 2 years to figure out he was no good. I knew since day one. I’ll say this though, shoutout to Canosucks, he really was mad about the Vogelbach trade. I personally thought Holderman was mediorce so I wasn’t that mad at the time even though I didnt like Vogelfat. It was kind of a our garbage for your garbage move except our garbage was much better than the Pirates garbage. We are likely to finish in last place. A competent GM would get rid of right now: Vogelbach, Arrauz, Mendick, Ortega, Drew Smith, Carrasco, and Almonte. Then the competent GM would replace those players with: Vientos, Baty, Mauricio, Luke Ritter, Nate Lavender, Mike Vasil, and McIlwain
So you’re saying he’s fat?
Yes, because he is. He is fat, alongside Alek manoah, bartolo colon, Pablo Sandoval, and many others. But hey, they are/were major leaguers and that’s more than most of us here can say.
Mendick goes nowhere! He’s our Ohtani.
Too bad @Cansucks isn’t around to enjoy he made the right call about that. He can enjoy it when the Mets start winning again, and he returns at that moment.
Poor guy. Life just doesn’t ever get perfect for him. When his non-baseball life is good to where he, as he puts it, “has a life”, the Mets seem to suck at those moments. So, when the Mets are winning, and he has time to be on the boards again, it can be construed that he doesn’t have a life. At least with this, he was right about Vogelbach while his life is good so he’s not around to enjoy being right. Too bad it just seems to keep happening that “he has a life” when the Mets are doing poorly.
A competent GM wouldn’t fill his 40 man roster with prospects who are not Rule 5 Draft eligible in the final weeks of a wasted season.
Questions about Vogelbach: Where is his neck? How did he reach his current proportions? Is he a former football player? Does his whole family look like that or did some terrible accident alter his genetic structure,a similar affliction that struck Dr David Banner, aka the Hulk? Inquiring minds want to know.
I’ve never seen a MLB player not move from the waist down when he swings! He reminds me of one of those old Sandlot Slugger toys from the 60s!
Hey, Palka would be better than: Gallo,
There it is!
‘The guy that automatically is better once he is acquired by the Mets’ post.
It must be because he’s been hiding his talents in the Minors because he didn’t want to play at the MLB level.
Roll out the barrel- it’s Palkamania
I remember this guy.
Palka was a revelation when he played for the Sox. He hit a bunch of HRs in a short period of time, then, nothing. Power hitters usually have low batting averages. Maybe it’s worth giving him another shot on a team that’s going nowhere, although according to previous posts, he was signed to fill in due to all the injuries in the minors.
So stupid, he is another Vogelbach or DJ Stewart. Good power, terrible average, can’t play any position worth a crap. Just what they need, another DH.
Eppler needs to go.
can take Showalter and his staff (especially hitting coach) with him.
Yep, Showalter, who was a genius last year, and a good manager in his previous career, all of the sudden has become an idiot.
Many of us who said these things were blasted day in and day out by mets fans. Oh we don’t know what the hell we are talking about, oh the mets won 101 games, oh Cohen is opening his wallet, here come the mets, fear us, blah blah blah. Well now that the mets have effectively had one of the worst seasons in MLB history when it comes to pre-season hype, all of the mets fans are coming out of the woodworks saying the same crap most fans of other teams were saying, but were blasted for. I’ve only seen a couple of mets fans own up to their bs when it pertains to this matter, most won’t acknowledge it and just play dumb.
Braves_sainta_celta: I’m not a Mets fan or a Mets hater. But they’ll always have a place in my heart for 1969, when they shoved Santos geel-kicks up his ass.
I’m not even a mets hater, I just don’t like the hypocrisy that I’ve received from mets fans. In all honesty I’d love for the mets to be good. I’m all for a good rivalry, and the mets brave rivalry is a fantastic one, but we beat their brakes in this year and it’s because they don’t have a good team. I love baseball, and as I’ve said on here before if the braves don’t go to the world series I’ll still watch it and enjoy myself while watching it, even if the Mets were to be in it, and if they were, and they ended up winning it all, id salute them to a fantastic season and world championship, but that just won’t happen for a while until the Mets stop opening their check books to dish out stupid contracts, and start rebuilding their farm with great young talent for the future. They’ve started already, but with this front office it won’t be long before those prospects are traded off and aging players are signed to outrageously large contracts. If they want to rebuild, do it right and do it by getting rid of the front office and management team that doesn’t have the same goals for a rebuild, but a retool and hope to compete next year, it’ll lead to another failure. It’s not worth it in my eyes.
@Braves_saints_celts
I’m with you about the hypocrisy from a lot of Mets “fans”. I’ve also been bashed over the years about my statements, and then the same thing…they don’t own up to it or they disappear from the boards…with only a few owning their statements. That’s why I’ve been calling Mets rool call lately because the biggest and most obnosxious Mets “fans” squawkers have all gone into hiding.
I”ve called a couple out by name, but I’m soooo tempted to call out the others. They absolutley make the other, true Mets fans who have owned up to stuff, look bad. Those others don’t deserve any respect when they return or make their one post per month after squawking so much when they thought the Mets were locks for a championship.
This rebuild is already tough to stomach , especially after spending many years in Oakland. I guess if gets any worse, I can become a free agent fan again.:)
I feel your pain. I’ve been a Mets fan all my life; lived in Cleveland from 72-88 and suffered with bad Indians teams, and moved to Seattle in late 88 and have seen my share of bad M’s teams. My beloved wife is in an insufferable Red Sox fan. Somehow I’ve earned the ire of the baseball gods.