NY Mets: Best “Bench Mob” moments of the 2021 season

Since Brandon Drury was called up from Triple-A Syracuse less than two weeks ago, he’s been on fire.

Drury 13-for-23 with 2 HR and 7 RBI since the All-Star Break. His OPS is a WHOPPING 1.643. It’s hard to say that anyone else is as hot as he is.

In the offseason, Drury was a minor pickup, definitely not as headlining as signing Francisco Lindor was. But Drury is a good bat to have in the lineup and had experience with a couple of teams, mainly Arizona and Toronto.

His career batting average is .250, and it’s just that: average. He’s never been that full-time guy and only has three career seasons with more than 100 plate appearances. For as hot as he’s been, Drury is pretty hard to avoid sitting.

His batting average this year is .313 in 67 at-bats. He has 13 RBI, has scored 7 runs, his OPS is .919. For a bench guy, that’s more than the Mets could ask for.

On several occasions, he’s come up big, including on this go-ahead home run against Atlanta last week. Over the weekend, Drury came up big and hit a walkoff single against Cincinnati.

He and Dom Smith came up big in that game, especially for a game where fans wanted to close their eyes and wish it was over. With two strikes and two outs in the ninth, Smith poked a slider from Sean Doolittle into center field and scored Luis Guillorme.

In the 10th, Drury poked one into right field and scored Pillar for the walkoff win. It’s just another example of the Mets winning through teamwork and resilience. The homer by Javier Báez also helps.

No Mets Bench Mob guy has been as memorable as Patrick Mazeika.

Mazeika was taken as an 8th round pick in the 2015 Amateur Draft and even went to the same university as Jacob deGrom, Stetson. He’s 27 years old and was a somewhat late-bloomer. He was gradually brought up through promotions to Double-A in 2017 and Triple-A this year after hitting a professional-high 16 home runs in 2019.

Players brought up due to injuries are often not yet ready for the fast pace of the Majors, but Mazeika did not care. Before he even got his first hit, he had two walkoff RBIs, once against Arizona and again against Baltimore.

In both of those walkoffs, Mazeika’s xBA (Expected Batting Average/Hit Probability) was .170 and .040. His launch angle was -65 degrees against Arizona and -14 against Baltimore. Both are pretty bad places to be, but he got the job done and it’s all that matters.

Thankfully, Mazeika was lucky enough to get his first Major League hit, which ended up being a home run against the Tampa Bay Rays.

In Triple-A Syracuse this year, Mazeika is batting .288 with 5 HR and 25 RBI. Altogether, he has 6 HR and 29 RBI between Triple-A and the big-leagues. If he keeps those minor-league numbers up, we might be seeing him more in the future.

In thought, Mets catcher Tomás Nido isn’t a big power hitter.

Nido has been the backup catcher for the Mets over the last five years and has an OPS of .582. Regardless, he lived up to Puerto Rican icon Ivan Rodriguez status one night in May against the Atlanta Braves.

After Marcell Ozuna tied the game at 3 in the bottom of the eighth, Tomás Nido immediately answered with a go-ahead home run against Braves closer Will Smith.

Nido had been in the lineup that day since he was hot, having 3 home runs and 12 RBI in just 91 at-bats before the All-Star Break. For a guy who was taken in the 8th round of the MLB Draft all the way back in 2012, him turning around would be a huge bonus to add some depth at his position.

Watch the game recap here.

James McCann and Tomás Nido have partnered to play a really good backstop. Both have played solid defense and really good strands of hot streaks over the course of the season.

As pointed out by MLB.com’s Mike Petreillo, Tomás Nido has actually been one of the team’s nice surprises. His projected wOBA (Weighted On-Base Average) entering the season was .264. Not only has he lived up to expectations, his actual wOBA is .277, a 105% over/under.

Nido even came through with a clutch hit that scored Javier Báez in a move where he was surprisingly able to avoid the tag.

Kevin Pillar is best known this season for taking a 94mph fastball to the face and breaking his nose, but has far more to offer.

Pillar’s defense is second-to-almost-none and he’s basically a human highlight reel, living up to his nickname “Superman,” but he’s had his share of offensive highlights as well. He’s provided more depth to this lineup than any other Mets player this year, playing nearly every day.

For a bench player, it’s really saying something that he’s played in 79% of the team’s games so far. He’s hardly on the “Bench Mob,” but has really produced, providing 9 HR and 26 RBI. His nine home runs actually even puts him at sixth on the team, only behind Jonathan Villar (10), Dom Smith (11), Francisco Lindor (11), Javier Báez (23), and Pete Alonso (23).

If we compare Nido’s projected wOBA with Pillar’s, he has a 93% over/under, which is less than “expected,” but how much can we expect from a player who has been largely a replacement-level player in prior years. Pillar has been one of the key figures holding the team together for as long as it was.

The struggles at the plate could be attached to big stars like Francisco Lindor severely underperforming until June or Michael Conforto’s slump, which hasn’t shown any signs of picking up all season.

So no, Kevin Pillar hasn’t had as many huge moments as the rest of the team, but he’s helped carry this team through their injuries, including taking a literal 5 ounce sphere to the face, breaking his nose, and still showing up to play 15 days later. That alone is worthy of praise.

Finally, the Mets have something special in Tylor Megill.

No, he isn’t your stereotypical “bench player” since he has cemented himself into this team’s rotation. Despite that, most Mets fans didn’t know who he was prior to this year. Megill wasn’t on the Mets’ Top 25 Prospects (according to MLB.com) before the season began. Now he’s #20.

What Megill is doing this year is similar to the impact that David Peterson had in 2020. Peterson helped out the pitching depth with Noah Syndergaard undergoing Tommy John, Marcus Stroman opting out, and several injuries and a struggle to find length.

Megill made a surge that no one expected. He was the team’s 8th round draft pick in 2018 out of the University of Arizona. He got a head start in Short Season A Brooklyn. In 28 innings, he led himself to a 3.21 ERA with 11.6 strikeouts per nine innings. Not bad.

In 2019 with Adv A St Lucie, Class-A Columbia, and Double-A Binghamton, his ERA was 3.52. This year, after starting out in Binghamton and receiving a promotion to Triple-A Syracuse. His strikeouts per nine innings went all the way up to 13.2. in 40.1 innings.

Since being called up to the Majors, Megill has also pitched 40.1 innings, but has a lesser ERA despite allowing more hits. His WHIP is 1.11 and his strikeout per nine stat is 9.6, both above average.

He’s nearly a Jacob deGrom archetype: tall (taller than Jacob deGrom) with a mid-to-high 90s fastball, a devastating slider, changeup, and curveball. deGrom was also a late pick, taken in the 9th round. They also came out of nowhere from the minors to the MLB.

For all those who recommended the Mets trade away Megill at the deadline, that would be a disaster. Megill will dominate the league for years to come. He’s a gem.

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At this point, it seems like the Mets’ bench players have come through in bigger moments than the team’s starters. It’s impossible to emphasize how depth has carried this team all season.