On November 19th, The Mets announced that they signed 1B Brandon Allen to a minor league contract and invited him to attend big league training camp.
Allen started his pro baseball career when he signed with the Chicago White Sox in the 5th round of the 2004 amateur draft. In 2009, the White Sox traded him to the Arizona Diamondbacks with whom he made his Major League Debut.
In four seasons, with the Diamondbacks, Oakland A’s and the Tampa Rays, he batted .203/.290/.375 with 12 HR, 41 RBI, in 344 AB.
In August of 2011, while playing with the A’s, he hit a monster home run off his current Mets teammate, pitcher Bartolo Colon at the new Yankee Stadium that landed in the 3rd deck.
In 2012, he was limited to only 10 games between the A’s and Rays and was never given an opportunity to stick with a club.
He spent all of 2013 at the Triple-A affiliate of the San Diego Padres and batted .267/.347/.478 with 24 Doubles, 17 HR, and 76 RBI.
After the 2013 season, he was granted free agency and then chose to sign with the Mets. With the team shopping Ike Davis all over baseball in the Fall, Allen was brought in as a possible replacement for Davis.
Since then, no movement has been made to trade Davis and it looks like he will remain with the Mets throughout the 2014 season, which may not be a bad thing for the team especially if Davis regains his home run hitting form. I spoke with Allen during spring training and he shared with me his reasons for actually signing a contract with the Mets, even though he was aware of the teams first base situation, “I heard great things about the organization. I played against a couple of guys that I knew in Triple-A and they said they were happy in the organization. I just wanna have fun and play baseball, ” says the power hitting first baseman.
In case Davis falters again and doesn’t play well enough to remain in the lineup, the Mets have options with Allen, and not only can he play first base, he can crush baseballs. So Allen will get his chance to play either on the big club or in Triple A where he will wait for his chance to come up and make an impact to the lineup. With the way he can hit a baseball, it would be great to see him crushing them in Citi Field in 2014, and add another potent bat to the lineup.
