When the conversation is the Mets future, the first area rightfully discussed is pitching. With pitchers such as Matt Harvey, Zack Wheeler, Noah Syndergaard and Rafael Montero all on the south side of 25 years old, why not?
But baseball has that silly rule that makes scoring important. So plenty of attention is going to position players, general manager Sandy Alderson-era drafted guys such as center fielder Brandon Nimmo (13th, 2011) and catcher Kevin Plawecki (35th, 2012), both this week headed to their first major league training camp.
“I told my dad, ‘If it feels this good to get called to big league spring training, I can’t wait to get the call up to the big leagues,’ ” said Nimmo, 21 next month. “I’m going there to learn. I’ll keep my ears open, my mouth shut.”
Nimmo’s tale has been told, re-told: Legion ball in Wyoming because there was no high school baseball in the state; batting practice in a barn worn out by shots from his lefty swing; not the safest draft pick but the one with upside.
Plawecki, 23 in two weeks, is the Indiana-born catcher from Purdue with the soft hands, great batting eye and major no one ever heard of: “Organizational Leadership and Supervision, a broad business degree. I don’t even really know what it is to be honest,” Plawecki said.
Plawecki’s career path is a bit more advanced than Nimmo’s, after hitting .314 at Class-A Savannah and .294 at high Class-A St. Lucie last year. He’ll likely start the season at Double-A Binghamton while Nimmo advances to St. Lucie after impressing at Savannah.
“We were thrilled with the year [Plawecki] had,” said Paul DePodesta, the Mets vice president of player development and scouting. “He played in two pretty difficult environments but certainly more than held his own, especially playing such a premium defensive position.”
DePodesta rated Plawecki as “very, very steady” offensively, a guy who hits for average and power with “very good command of the strike zone.” Defensively he has good hands, has improved his throwing while working on blocking with his body more and picking balls less, qualities he wants to sharpen in preseason.
“Hopefully I can learn from all the guys at the big league camp, soak in and absorb all the information I can, pick as many brains as I can,” Plawecki said. “In baseball, it’s who can be the most consistent the whole season and who can ride the highs and not get down on themselves during the lows.”
Nimmo can relate. After hardly overwhelming in rookie ball, there was improvement at Class-A Brooklyn where he and Plawecki were roommates.
“Brooklyn was different from Wyoming,” Nimmo said, understatedly.
Last season at Savannah, a notoriously bad hitting ballpark for lefties, Nimmo, drafted one slot ahead of Miami phenom Jose Fernandez, broke from the gate. He was hitting well north of .300 before a hand injury brought temporary derailment.
“It was just a matter of becoming comfortable with the level of competition,” DePodesta said of the fast start.
So Nimmo, whose defense improved, too, with better reads off the bat, returned and finished hitting to finish at .273. The year included playing in the Futures Game at Citi Field.
“We’re excited to see what this year brings,” DePodesta said. “He’ll be a 20-year-old while he’s in major league camp. He continues to get better, stronger, filling out as he becomes a man physically.”
Nimmo has honed that body stuff. He worked out at the IMG Florida complex this winter with the likes of Pittsburgh’s Andrew McCutchen and Pedro Alvarez, concentrating on nutrition and strength, as well as swings. It’s all part of what he wanted practicing in that barn. Yes, he wants it all. But he wants it the right way, not necessarily right away.
“The Mets have been very good communicating with me,” Nimmo said. “And what has been communicated since Day One is, ‘When you get to the big leagues we want you to stay. We don’t want you flopping back and forth.’ The minor leagues are to learn, to get the bugs fixed, so when you get to the big leagues, the final product is ready to go and you never look back.”