Today, we continue our Coach’s Corner series with its second installment. Back in July, we got insight from Brandon Sproat’s pitching coach at Florida. Today, the theme stays on the mound as New York Mets fans get to know more about their 10^th Round selection in last July’s MLB Draft, RHP Brett Banks out of UNC-Wilmington.

Banks began his college career with the Seahawks as a starter, but ended up making the transition to the bullpen in his redshirt junior season. Last year, he ended up being the team’s closer. In 30 games, he recorded eight saves and had 44 strikeouts to 21 walks over the course of 38 1/3 innings pitched.

At the time of the draft, Dani Wexelman tweeted that one of the reasons Banks had success out of the bullpen was his pitching coach, Kelly Secrest.

I covered Brett Banks during regionals. He told me he was a starter his whole life but struggled a ton in 2022. He transformed into a reliever at UNCW last fall and he "owes a lot" to UNCW Pitching Coach Kelly Secrest. He has a killer mentality & now loves coming out of the pen

— Dani Wexelman (@DaniWex) July 11, 2023

Secrest was a 10^th Round pick of the Mets just like Banks in 2014 and he was able to make his way all the up to Triple-A in the organization until his last professional game in 2018.

I had the opportunity to speak with Secrest about Banks on how the transition went from starter to bullpen went for him, and how Secrest still has high praise to give about the Mets organization.

Ricky: How would you describe Brett as a pitcher and as a person?

Kelly: I would say Brett, pitcher wise, he’s going to want the ball as much as you allow him. When the game is on the line, he’s going to want the ball. That’s how he was last year with us.

Anytime it was a closer situation or we were in the game in the 7th-8th inning, Brett wanted the ball. He’s just a complete competitor and he wants the ball when the game is on the line.

It took a full two years at UNCW to finally build his confidence up to where he actually believed himself that he could go on to the professional level. At the beginning of the year, we had our ups and downs, but you can see with each outing, he had more and more confidence.

About halfway through the year, he was our guy at the back end of the game. It took a long time to mature mentally, just the day in and day out of the baseball grind took him a little longer than others, but he finally got there.

Person wise, he became a long ways in maturity. Being a complete guy, buying into the team atmosphere, and ended up being a leader.

Ricky: When Brett made the change from being a starter to a reliever,what did you try to focus on with him?

Kelly: He struggled a lot when he first got to UNCW as a starter. Then, as a starter, you got a bullpen in between then you wait till the next start. If you had a rough outing, you had to wait a whole week to get back into the game and try to erase the last outing. He really struggled with that.

Talking to him and just being like look, buy into being a reliever because if you have a bad outing, you need to get back on the mound as fast as possible to erase that. We started doing that last fall and he bought into that.

He even said I like closing. No matter how many innings we are playing in that scrimmage, he said I want to pitch on the back end because I want to visualize me closing a game. We started putting him at the back end of a scrimmage and he fell in love with it. He saw his velocity start to tick up more and more each outing.

Ricky: What is the one game you would say that best exemplifies Brett as a pitcher?

Kelly: I’m going to say the conference championship game; we were up by four runs, we are in the 9th inning, and he struggled a little bit, couldn’t get the first out. Then, he gave up a three-run home run. We are up by one and he just got punched in the face. Two more outs to go. I took a mound visit after that home run and said Brett, you’re our guy.

This is pretty much been your whole career where you’ve been punched in the mouth, but you never gave up. He ended up giving up another hit, but finished the game and we won the tournament. That kind of summed up his career and it was good to finally see him come out on the winning end.

Ricky: How would you describe his pitch arsenal?

Kelly: He’s going to throw hard anywhere from 96, touching 98. I do think there’s still more left in the tank. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s throwing 100 here soon.

We started out on a slider earlier in the year and he was amped up coming in the 9th, so it ended up being a hard cutter and it wasn’t as sharp. Then, he started playing around with more of a 12-6 breaking ball, which is still a hard slider. Mentality wise, he thought 12-6, but it ended up being a good, hard slider.

He actually has a very good changeup, he just never used it at the back of the game. To me, he can easily project as a starter and not just a back end guy. Mechanics are clean. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Mets next spring try to put him in a starter role because he legit has three pitches.

Ricky: Did you give him any advice about being in the Mets organization?

Kelly: I got to live back in my glory days with the Mets. I talked to him when he was at the spring training facility, and I was re-living where everything was. Living room, cafeteria, all that stuff.

I said if I went back today and tried to pick a team to play with, I said I wouldn’t trade the Mets for anything. The way they treated me from spring training to giving me the opportunity to move up to Triple-A. I said, Brett, they gave me every chance that I deserved to get to the big leagues. I hope they are still that way.

When I was there, they did things the right way. There’s not a bad thing I could say about the Mets. I actually still cheer for the Mets. I follow them very closely every night. They left a good mark on me.

Ricky: How much of the advanced numbers did you go over with Brett and what was his favorite statistic to look at?

Kelly: He loves his velo. We look at induced vertical break, and it’s in the low 20’s, so it’s good. The slider, the horizontal wasn’t as good, so then he started throwing the hard 12-6, and he started to get the 8-10 horizontal break on the slider.

He came up to my office 2-3 times a week and wanted to see his numbers, so we tracked his numbers very closely.

Ricky: What do you need to see the most improvement on?

Kelly: He’s got all the talent in the world stuff-wise. To me, it’s just keeping his head straight week in and week out. Keep him on the path of this is what you need to do. It’s more mentally with him.

He has all the talent in the world. Just keeping his mind right and in a healthy spot, that’s really the main thing. I told him I want someone to keep your head right and keep grinding. You are going to question yourself a lot. Just keep pounding, just keep going.

After he was drafted and signed by the Mets, the right-hander was assigned to the Florida Complex League. So far this season, he has made three appearances registering a save pitching 2 2/3 hitless innings. He’s allowed one run on two walks while striking out one.