Forgotten former NY Mets player just did his best Chris Sale, Tarik Skubal impression

You know you’re starved for baseball when you’re paying attention to what’s happening in foreign winter leagues. After checking in on Joey Meneses and discovering how Stephen Nogosek has become an elite closer in Mexico this winter, an even more obscure former New York Mets player caught my attention.

How could he not? The league leader in wins, ERA, and strikeouts in the league, Robert Stock has rebuilt his—don’t say it—stock as a potential option for any team looking to take a chance on a player whose career in another country has taken off. Stock is no stranger to Major League Baseball with 55 total games. Parts of nine seasons spent in the minors and 385.1 total innings of work, he’s a 35-year-old Triple Crown winner who seems to have the foreign market all figured out.

A forgotten member of the Mets back in 2021, Robert Stock just wrapped up an incredible regular season in Mexico

Stock made 14 starts for Naranjeros de Hermosillo of the Mexican Pacific Winter League. A 10-2 record, 1.60 ERA, and 78 strikeouts helped him replicate what big leaguers Chris Sale and Tarik Skubal did earlier in the year. Sale and Skubal led their respective leagues in wins, ERA, and strikeouts as well. The pitcher’s Triple Crown isn’t quite as rare as the one for hitters, but it’s still a huge achievement nonetheless.

This has been a tremendous year for Stock who made 19 starts earlier for Tecolotes de los Dos Laredos. A 9-4 record and 3.38 ERA was how things finished. Prior to that he finished the 2023 season with the Long Island Ducks not quite blowing away hitters at such an amazing rate. Whilst there, he was 9-4 with a 4.40 ERA.

Stock’s foreign success first started in 2022 when he was 9-10 with a 3.60 ERA in the KBO. The Milwaukee Brewers gave him a chance but after going 0-3 with an 8.22 ERA, he hasn’t been able to find his way back into affiliated ball in the United States.

His last MLB games came in 2021 when he made a pair of starts for the Mets. The first was a 5-0 loss against the Milwaukee Brewers on July 7 as part of a doubleheader. He lasted 4 innings and surrendered 2 earned runs. He’d start again on July 20, lasting just one inning with a solo home run allowed. The Mets would drop the game 4-3 to the Cincinnati Reds. Other than those two starts, he made one other prior to joining the Mets. It was against them as a member of the Chicago Cubs. He took the loss by allowing 5 earned runs in 4 innings while walking 6 batters. This was a game most remembered for Jacob deGrom leaving after 3 dominant no-hit innings with shoulder issues. He struck out 8 of the 9 batters he faced.

Because there is such a thing as coincidence, deGrom’s last start of 2021 would take place in the first half of the Mets doubleheader on July 7 when Stock would make his first start for the Mets in the second half. More than three years later, he’s doing deGrom-like things down in Mexico.