Jaylen Palmer/Photo by Ed Delany, MMN
After a season where the Kingsport Mets finished with a winning record and making it to the playoffs since 2015, the team would see a complete overhaul. Given this is a Rookie League, that is expected with the players. With a new General Manager and Farm Director, we would also see that with a coaching staff now led by Rich Donnelly, who was the 2018 Brooklyn Cyclones bench coach.
In terms of record, this was a step back for Kingsport as they would finish the year 34-34 a full game out of the playoffs. Lost in that was how Kingsport would force and lose a one game playoff. In that push, they showed grit and determination. More than that, Kingsport would show there was real talent in the lower levels of the Mets farm system which would have a good year from a player development standpoint.
In many ways, Jaylen Palmer is good evidence of how successful the season was for Kingsport. The Flushing, New York native was a raw yet very skilled high schooler selected in the 22nd round of the 2018 draft. He’d take a significant step forward for Kingsport improving his walk rate and being an above-average league hitter with a 111 wRC+. This breakout of sorts, which included his finshing top five in the league in games, plate appearances, at-bats, hits, and total bases.
Another Kingsport player who was among the league leaders was Scott Ota. The Mets 10th round draft pick from this year’s draft led the league in triples and was top five in SLG and OPS. During the season, Ota showed how the power he seemed to develop his senior year at the University of Illinois – Chicago could translate to the professional level.
On the topic of power, Andres Regnault followed his breakout season in the DSL last year by hitting eight homers and slugging .483. He would also finish third in the league in RBI with the ninth best batting average in the league. By any measure, he would be looked upon as the catcher of the future except he is battling with Francisco Alvarez.
With Alvarez and Brett Baty, the Mets had two of their best young prospects playing in Kingsport well ahead of schedule. What made that all the more impressive was they played well at this level. For Alvarez, the 17 year old catcher had a .820 OPS despite being 3.4 years younger than league average. In terms of Baty, this was a stop en route to his helping Brooklyn win their first outright New York-Penn League championship.
While the offense seemed to thrive, the Kingsport pitching would struggle for most of the year with the team finishing at or near the bottom in staff ERA, strikeouts, and WHIP. Even with those struggles, there were some strong performances, particularly in the bullpen.
Left-handed Jefferson Escorcha led the league in wins and was 7-1 with a 2.38 ERA and 1.15 WHIP striking out 38 batters over 41.2 innings. What was interesting for him was his reverse splits with his limiting right-handed batters to a .212/.239/.310 batting line.
Reyson Santos established himself as a dominant closer in 2019. In 22.0 innings,he struck out 28 batters. That’s an astounding 30.8 percent of the batters he faced. Even with him getting up to Brooklyn to help them in the playoffs, he would still lead the Appalachian League in saves.
While the seasons from Escorcha and Santos were impressive, Junior Santos‘s season bears further analysis due to his being the highest rated pitching prospect on this team. While Santos would struggle, it should be noted he is just 17 years old, and he was very young for this level being 3.7 years younger than league average. As a positive, he was throwing strikes 59 percent of the time. It should also be noted he had some bad luck during the season with a 67.2 LOB% and a .333 BABIP. Between the experience and the stats stablizing, he will likely be better going forward.
Overall, the 2019 Kingsport Mets were a team that featured many future Mets prospects and current top prospects at the very beginning of their careers. Even with the team just falling short of the playoffs, it is crucial to understand many of these guys are at the ripe age of 17-20. Every nine innings they spend on a diamond accumulates experience, and the more experience a ball-player has, the better they perform on the diamond. To that end, Kingsport did not fall short at all.
MMN Top 30 Prospects
3 – Brett Baty, 3B
5 – Francisco Alvarez, C
18 – Junior Santos, SP
22 – Jaylen Palmer, SS
30 – Michel Otanez, SP
Kingsport Mets Coaching Staff
Manager: Rich Donnelly
Pitching Coach: Jerome Williams
Hitting Coach: Rafael Fernandez
Development Coach: Stephen Gaylor
Athletic Trainer: Anthony Olivieri
Performance Coach: Stephen Gregorich
Team Batting Leaders
G: Jaylen Palmer 62 (League 1st)
PA: Jaylen Palmer 276 (1st)
AB: Jaylen Palmer 242 (1st)
R: Jaylen Palmer 41 (Tied 6th)
H: Jaylen Palmer 63 (Tied 5th)
2B: Scott Ota 14 (Tied 10th)
3B: Scott Ota 15 (Tied 1st)
HR: Andres Regnault 8
RBI: Andres Regnault 48 (Tied 3rd)
SB: Jhoander Saez 6
TB: Jaylen Palmer 100 (Tied 5th)
BB: Jaylen Palmer 31 (Tied 4th)
BA: Andres Regnault .292 (Tied 9th)
OBP: Scott Ota .355
SLG: Scott Ota .519 (5th)
OPS: Scott Ota .875 (5th)
Team Pitching Leaders
W: Jefferson Escorcha 7 (1st)
ERA: Jordany Ventura 1.13
SV: Reyson Santos 8 (Tied 1st)
HLD: Connor Wollersheim 3 (Tied 3rd)
G: Hector Rodriguez, Reyson Santos 22 (1st)
GS: Junior Santos 14 (1st)
IP: Christofer Dominguez, Benito Garcia 44.2
K: Michel Otanez 44
WHIP: Michel Otanez 1.133
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