Latest Mets free agent signing has a slight coincidence too hard to ignore

What, if anything, is there interesting to say about Donovan Walton? The New York Mets signed the 30-year-olds to a minor league contract on Sunday with a lifetime .174 batting average in 190 big league at-bats. A very generic utility man, the only spark of excitement comes from the .300+ batting average he had last season in Triple-A.

Walton has hit well throughout his career in Triple-A, but has never translated it into much big league success. This story should end here until a realization set in.

With these minor league signings of guys we’re unfamiliar with, finding something interesting about them can be difficult. Go figure. My inner detective beam went off when I noticed Walton pitched 10 games in Triple-A last season and another in the majors. Furthermore, he’s an Oklahoma State University alumni. It’s the same college as Carson Benge and Nolan McLean, the latter of whom attempted to be a two-way player at the start of last season. The former did pitch in college as well but the plan seems to have him focus on hitting.

The Mets free agent signing of Donovan Walton seems too coincidental to ignore

This is based on nothing other than connecting some dots and maybe some lack of sleep. Walton doesn’t have incredible speed or power. Defensive versatility, sure, we’ll take it. For this to be such a quick and sudden move by the Mets is a bit of a surprise. His usage last year as a pitcher raises eyebrows, too.

Walton appeared in 10 innings for Sacramento and while he struck out two batters and walked six, half of the bases on balls were intentional. He pitched well enough to earn two victories and post a 2.25 ERA. In his one major league appearance in relief, he worked around a pair of hits to deliver a scoreless inning.

The romanticism of another two-way player to do anything remotely close to Shohei Ohtani is outlandish. On a lesser scale, someone should be capable. Will it be Walton in a stunning turn of events? Unlikely.

Thanks to Baseball Savant, we find Walton wasn’t much more than a position player pitching. His 13 pitches were all fastballs and averaged 66.8 mph. His fasted pitch maxed out at 73.1 mph.

In this case, perhaps there are meaningless coincidences. If McLean was going to continue to pitch and hit, some sort of guidance or mentorship would be one conclusion to draw. Alas, this isn’t like two different artists debuting a character named Dennis the Menace on the same day in 1951 with no knowledge of the other. This is a reach to find something interesting about a Mets minor league free agent signing. Goal, somewhat achieved?