NY Mets News: Opening Day lineup preview, Matt Allan’s return, Edwin Diaz

A few more Spring Training test runs, roster manipulations, and evaluative looks at young prospects await before the New York Mets head over to Houston for an Opening Day date with the Astros. While the Amazins have sustained some bumps and bruises in prepping for the much-anticipated season, an early test of resilience and preparedness could be what the current troupe of players needs ahead of the new season.

An early taste of Opening Day

In Spring Training, first impressions hold some weight, even if it doesn’t make the official scorecard. On Wednesday night down in West Palm Beach, Florida, the Mets and Astros provided a precursor to next Thursday’s Opening Day matchup, pitting their battalion of batters and heralded hurlers as a flex of their final form. With much of their A-team in against the Astros, the Mets pieced together patient and opportune hitting and smooth pitching in an 8-2 victory.

Through the 3rd to 5th innings, the Mets relied on a small-ball, peppering approach; working counts and advancing runners using what the entire field had to offer. Brett Baty continued his dazzling and eye-opening preseason, using his mechanically adjusted swing to knock a double and triple while driving in and scoring a run. Pete Alonso supplied the power, hitting a three-run home run for his first blast of Spring Training.

On the pitching side, David Peterson’s dominant revelation continued through five innings, allowing only two hits and notching 4 K’s. Edwin Diaz, Ryne Stanek, A.J. Minter, and Reed Garrett took the game the rest of the way, holding the powerful Astros lineup at bay.  

While every Spring Training game is taken with a fine grain of salt, if Wednesday night’s matchup provided an inkling of what the current Mets squad can do, there is certainly a lot to look forward to in the coming months. Mets manager Carlos Mendoza essentially pulled out all the stops, running his top players out there as a mini-test run for a marathon of a 162-game season.   

Intriguing pitching prospect returns

Spring Training has brought a slew of revelations regarding the young talent pool accrued at Mets camp. Fans have seen the likes of Brandon Sproat, Ryan Clifford, and many others show strong glimpses of what they can contribute to the Major League roster within the next year or two. But one former top pitching prospect opened eyes on the backfields of Mets camp, sparking renewed optimism of becoming a major piece to the Mets roster.

A third-round pick in the 2019 MLB Draft, Matt Allan took the mound on Tuesday, showcasing his coveted arm talent that made the Mets shell out a larger-than-average portion of their draft pool for his services. Concerns over his arm health plagued his development, undergoing two Tommy John surgeries and ulnar nerve transposition over the past few years.

Now healthy for the first time since 2021, Allan is ready to show why scouts regarded him as a top-level talent. It’s unclear where Allan will be starting his 2025 season, and what the road to promotion will entail. But the level of attrition Allan has gone through will certainly bode well in his maturity to possibly become a major league impact.

Questions over Diaz’s dip in velocity

Following Wednesday night’s game against the Astros, MLB.com Mets beat writer Anthony DiComo published a piece regarding a downturn in Edwin Diaz’s peak velocity. In his outing against the Astros, Diaz’s fastball middled between 93-95 mph, a significant contrast to the triple-digits we are accustomed to seeing from the All-Star closer in the final innings of recent seasons.

So far, we have seen glimpses of brilliance and struggle this spring when Diaz takes the mound. Now the velocity drop off could be attributed to a variety of factors including Diaz’s ramp-up process in the spring to possibly sacrificing a little zip on his fastball for more control of his pitches. Per DiComo, Diaz’s walk and home run allowed rates have jumped quite a bit since his dominant 2022 season.  

Conversely, Diaz’s best seasons and games are not always the ones defined by his hardest-throwing feats. We’ve seen multiple instances where Diaz only throws his devastating sliders, forcing batters to fish and striking out the side in the process. For Diaz, it’s possible that at this point in his career, pulling back a little bit on his fastball may open up other possibilities with his two-pitch sequencing mix and arsenal.

The one thing that remains constant: as with any Spring Training storyline, the velocity saga surrounding Diaz should be taken with a fine grain of salt. We can come back to this topic in the middle months of the regular season and reevaluate.