Photo by Richard Nelson
The Mets games on September 3rd, 6th, and 10th of 2022 were exciting for Mets fans as they witnessed the beginning of a new era. Gone are the days of Thor gracing the mound in New York, the Noah Syndergaard days are done, but have no fear, the Winter Solder is here. Standing at 6’7″ and 265 lbs, Bryce Montes de Oca is a super solider. His fastball reaches 102 and averages around 100 mph and he usually sports long flowing brown hair and is maybe more of a spitting image of Marvel Studio’s metal-armed Bucky Barnes than Syndergaard ever was of Thor. For more information on Bryce’s back story and journey to the show, look here.
His 2023 spring training debut came on March 2 and he wasted no time ramping up, touching 102 mph in his inning of work. He struck two helpless Braves hitters and induced a weak ground ball but also issued two free passes. His fastball profile has drastically improved of late, averaging 2″ of vertical break (VB) and 18″ of horizontal break (HB) on Thursday. In 2022, he didn’t throw a single fastball with less than 4.5″ of VB. Yes, that means that his current fastball is significantly better than these pitches from last year.
Bryce Montes de Oca just hit 102 and averaged 100.3 mph during his scoreless inning.
Cutter averaged 95.9.
— Michael Mayer (@mikemayer22) March 2, 2023
If the average MLB two-seam fastball has around 9″ of VB (a pitch’s ability to resist gravity due to the backspin), his fastball will end up 7″ below where a hitter normally expects the ball, leading to many swing and misses and weak ground balls. The movement alone is enough to make his fastball elite by MLB standards, but the average velocity of 100 mph is also 6.6 mph above average per 2022 MLB fastballs. Conservatively, his fastball is one of the top 5 in all of baseball.
Current pitching ideology follows that a key to throwing highly graded off-speed pitches is to have a good fastball. Unsurprisingly, Bryce also has elite off-speed pitches. While he was playing around with a demonic splitter in the early days of spring training to better attack left-handed hitters, the improvement of his fastball has led to a lack of a need for that fourth pitch at this time.
His off-speed pitches include a cutter, which was his most used pitch in 2022, and a slider, which is an extremely unique pitch shape with both rise and sweep. Less than 1% of MLB sliders have his slider’s pitch shape and is termed a ‘hand of God’ slider by Driveline. The cutter averaged 96 mph in his first outing and will likely be a swing-and-miss pitch up and in to lefties, a ground ball pitch, and a good command offering with its limited movement. The slider was wanting for command on Thursday but execution on two of three pitches in game one ain’t bad.
Of course, Montes de Oca has had command issues which is the only likely way teams will be able to rally against him, but his two walks were on close misses. Monitoring his in-zone percentage on his pitches will be the key for Buck Showalter as he determines whether Bryce will start the season with the big club. He seems to be on a good track to crack the Opening Day roster (already on 40-man roster) and will be an exciting presence each time he takes the field for the Mets this season. It’s always comforting to have an Avenger on the field.
