The Mets announced Monday morning that they’ve signed infielder Rylan Bannon to a minor league contract. The Beverly Hills Sports Council client will be invited to big league camp in spring training.
Bannon, 27, has appeared in parts of two big league seasons and appeared with three clubs despite only tallying a total of 21 plate appearances. He’s collected just two hits in that time, both coming with the Orioles. He’s also had very brief stints with the Braves and Astros.
A former eighth-round pick by the Dodgers, Bannon was once a fairly well-regarded prospect who went from Los Angeles to Baltimore as one of five prospects in the 2018 Manny Machado swap. He spent all of last season with the Astros organization, batting .241/.360/.449 with a dozen homers and steals apiece in 408 trips to the plate. In parts of four Triple-A seasons, Bannon carries a .232/.344/.426 batting line with a huge 13.8% walk rate against a 22% strikeout rate.
Bannon has primarily played third base in his professional career, logging more than 3100 innings at the hot corner between the minors and the big leagues. He also carries more than 1300 innings at second base, however, and is viewed as a viable option at either position. He’s more of an emergency option at shortstop, where he’s played 86 career innings.
Newly hired president of baseball operations David Stearns has primarily completed on depth signings in his first several weeks on the job, though the Mets are reported to be in pursuit of several more notable free agent and trade targets. Bannon joins Cole Sulser, Jose Iglesias, Taylor Kohlwey and Andre Scrubb as former big leaguers to sign minor league deals with the Mets in recent weeks. New York has also claimed Cooper Hummel, Tyler Heineman and Zack Short off waivers and signed Jorge Lopez, Joey Wendle, Austin Adams and Michael Tonkin to low-cost deals that put them on the 40-man roster.
Another fine Stearns depth signing that will surely trigger the LI loudmouths. When NYM inevitably sign significant FA needs, remind the loudmouths of their knee jerk rants below…
I, for one, commend the Mets for staying within their small market constraints
Interesting that the Mets are signing all these ex-Orioles players.
I was thinking the same thing. Even without Buck’s “I like our guys” approach. maybe Ryan Flaherty will make it to Queens after learning what he can from Counsel in Chicago.
Much prefer him to the fat, light hitting mascot most Mets fans are obsessed with in Guillorme. Besides some funny spring training moments that guy brought absolutely nothing. Can’t hit, slowest MIF in the league at a time when SBs are coming back, only supposed value is fielding but he was dogshit at that too last year. And you don’t need a glove first backup shortstop when Lindor plays every game.
Bannon at least could possibly do something valuable offensively or be used as a pinch runner to steal a base or score from 2nd. Guillorme was just a smiley blob on the bench. For all the hate Vogelbach got for his weight I always wondered why Guillorme was immune for that considering he was the fattest slowest shortstop I’ve ever seen.
Aside from last year, I thought Guillorme was a great depth guy. He had good plate discipline and contact skills along with his dependable glove. For a time in 2022, our best infield was Alonso, McNeil, Lindor and Guillorme. JD Davis was garbage with the glove and Escobar wasn’t hitting. Shouldn’t be an everyday player but was good to have around when somebody went down for a couple weeks. Hope he lands nicely somewhere.
Did this guy’s wife have an affair with Guillorme?
Except the numbers don’t reflect that. Except for the 2020 season where his BABIP was through the roof he never OPS+ over 100. He has no power. He can’t run. His plate discipline isn’t amazing, it’s what you’d expect from a guy with no power stroke. He’s a really bad baseball player with terrible fitness that gets a free pass cause the fanbase adopted him as some weird mascot.
If he gets anything other than a minor league deal in this baseball economy, I’d be absolutely shocked. He is not good, at all.
He caught Hechavarria’s bat without flinching and had a 22 pitch AB against Jordan Hicks. Yeah, they were both in spring training, but those are 2 things you’ve never seen before or since. Long live Guillorme!
@D2323,
Your overall take on Guillorme isn’t accurate. Yes he lacks foot speed and needs to improve fitness/lose 10-15 pounds, but is otherwise solid as utility infielder who puts the ball in play and has knack for making some exceptional defensive plays with quick hands, quick release, and body control.
His 2023 was a disappointment, dealing with injury, and some unexpected time to AAA, his uneven use, But I don’t think is indicative of who he is going forward. He’s a proven solid on base type (.344) 15.9% K rate and 11.1% BB rate. Lifetime .261 hitter. He also has a knack for making a pitcher work, raising pitch counts, fouling off strikes. He put on a clinic of how it’s done in a memorable P.A. a few years ago in spring training, in a 22 pitch P.A. against the beast, Jordan Hicks, working out a walk.
Guillorme can actually catch up to a ball and hit it, unlike this guy. Not a fan favorite in my book, but a pretty consistent hitter, and has much more MLB exposure than Bannon, which hasn’t done crap in the minors nor MLB
The Machado for Dean Kremer trade never goes away!
I’m certainly happy with netting a rotation mainstay in Dean Kremer. Unheralded as he was at the time, the kid has learned how to pitch in the AL East and has gotten better with more innings.
I remember watching this guy play in A-Ball in San Bernardino, thinking he had what it takes to reach the bigs.
*insert Speed Racer joke here
I don’t think many posters in here get it, but I also thought the same thing you did.
I imagine Rylan Bannon would be one of the top U.S. racers competing for a national championship, and then hoping to represent this country in a global race. But he is not as good as Speed Racer. And when they race, his untainted reputation suffers when he hires some goons to make sure Speed doesn’t finish the race.
What’s the count for the Mets signings? Seems everyday they grab one or two. Hope this is a warm up for Yomo and Montgomery.
Stearns is limbering up his signing arm!
28 yrs old this spring and still chasing the dream! Go gettum there, young fella!
Dodgers get Ohtani, Mets get Rylan Bannon. Something seems off here…. Worst GM in the game
You do know that Yamamoto and other Free Agents are taking meetings from all teams? Mets are not the only team.
LFGMets — worst commenter on the site
Taking you literally to make a point, the Mets needed to add at least 115 starts this offseason. For Ohtani’s AAV they could sign Yamamoto, Montgomery, and a superb reliever if not two, surely a better approach ON the field.
It is beginning to smell… off, that the Mets haven’t nailed down even one of the many competent players they’ll need in 2024, particularly since they can afford to overpay in order to avoid missing out on someone they value highly, so go with the data:
The longer this approach goes on, the more likely it is that the Mets really are punting 2024. It’s hard to see why they would do so, given a Mets team that has a 40% chance of winning 85 games in 2024 isn’t much more costly to assemble than just plausibly fleshing out a NY roster and incidentally winning 78 in the context of Cohen’s fortune, but Stearns’ presence notwithstanding Cohen is still running the ship.
There may well have been diktats issued to Stearns to which we’re not privy, such as “sign Yamamoto first, and you can build a contender without hurting the club’s chances in 2025 and after—otherwise, we’re punting 2024,” diktats which distort more conventional offseason processes.
Extremely rich men do and think strange things. Cohen may have been profoundly embarrassed by his foolish attempts to play GM from November 2020 through the end of the 2023 season, and punting 2024 might appear to him to better justify having punted 2023. We just don’t know at this point. None of this to date indicts Stearns’ competence, and his remarks on the Mets 3B situation a week or so back, minimal though they were, didn’t betray a misunderstanding of the talent on hand or where the Mets were wrt contending.
A respectable signing for your backup’s backup’s backup, and given the softness of the depth chart at 3B, Rylan (Stop Calling Me Steve!) Bannon may get ten days worth of appearances near the Deadline.
As actually good players go off the board, Mets fans tighten around their collective abdomen as the whispers grow louder…
“What’s Stearns plan? Are the Mets aiming for 70 wins, or 86?”
Serious question—how many times has a fanbase approached Christmas having no idea if their team is aiming to contend the following season?
As 2024 season ticket sales shrivel and uniform and merch sales falter, the Mets offseason feels to date like the Ohtani negotiations writ large.
@JackStrawb
You’re correct – We Mets fans don’t know. Stearns feels like Sandy Alderson Part III.
He’s also doing inadequate job communicating with the fan base what’s the team’s intent this offseason. There are words, and there are deeds. His problem to this point is multi-fold. Contradictory words, Inadequate words. And deeds that fail to address intent. Better communication is especially important because he comes from years of working for small market team.
I’m trying to be optimistic, but just seems like a lot of dumpster diving. Doesn’t look like any improvement over what we’ve had in the past. Too many ifs or maybe’s so far, hopefully things will change soon.
Mets just announced that Bannon requested that his minor league contract be deferred through 2035, so the team can afford to sign more players to play in Syracuse.