Photo by Ed Delany, MMN
One thing which is becoming readily apparent about the New York Mets farm system is they have relievers who can just bring it. Perhaps, no Mets relief prospect can bring it like Michel Otañez, who routinely lights up the radar gun.
The 24 year old from the Dominican Republic has long shown the Mets he has the ability to bring heat like few others can. In fact, it was one of the reasons why MMN rated him as the Mets 20th best prospect entering the 2021 season. In his latest Spring Training performance, we again saw why Otanez was so well regarded:
#Mets relief prospect Michel Otañez (pitching as a minor league call-up today) casually hitting 100 mph with 18 inches of vertical break.
Otañez had a 30% strikeout rate in Brooklyn last year. pic.twitter.com/pWALT5Q8qy
— Jacob Resnick (@Jacob_Resnick) March 31, 2022
After Taijuan Walker‘s impressive outing, Otañez was handed the ball and asked to finish out the inning. He would first walk Andrew Stevenson before getting Maikel Franco to meekly fly out to end the inning. It would be the only two batters he faced in what was a scoreless appearance. It was his only appearance in a Major League game this Spring, and when you check the radar gun, Otañez made sure it was a memorable one.
Here’s the six pitches by Mets reliever prospect Michel Otanez tonight:
99.5 mph
99.5 mph
99.4 mph
99.3 mph
98.7 mph
97.8 mph— Michael Mayer (@mikemayer22) March 31, 2022
Otañez threw six straight fastballs, and they were all up in upper 90s. The first two registered as 100 MPH fastballs (thanks to rounding). there were four straight 99+ MPH fastballs. Not only were they in the upper 90s, but Otañez throws a fastball with spin and movement. It makes the fastball lethal and very difficult to square up as a batter.
That much is evident in Otañez racking up a 12.9 K/9 and 30.2 K% with High-A Brooklyn in 2021. Those numbers are a little more impressive when you consider Otañez was one of many pitchers to miss all of 2020 due to the pandemic.
Unfortunately, not only is that fastball difficult to hit, but it is also difficult to harness. With the big strikeout numbers came a lot of free passes. In fact, Otañez would walk 21.4% of the batters he faced last season. No matter how good your fastball is, a pitcher cannot have any amount of sustained success walking that many batters.
It should be noted, Otañez has always had control issues, but even this was an outlier for him. There are many reasons to explain why this happened, including the pandemic and his being moved from the rotation to being a full time reliever, but it happened. What remains is a very live arm with a ton of promise.
Otañez has the potential to rack up huge strikeout numbers. He could potentially have the best fastball in the Mets entire farm system. That makes all of this a big year for him and the Mets player development. If they can harness that fastball, he may become near unhittable.
