Mike Vasil, Photo by Ed Delany
Mike Vasil made his first Grapefruit League start, and he would face the Atlanta Braves projected opening day lineup. It was a tough assignment for the Mets 2021 eighth round pick who pitched no higher than High-A Brooklyn.
You wouldn’t get the sense he never pitched higher than that. He would start he game getting Ronald Acuña Jr. to fly out before striking out Matt Olson on three pitches.
Vasil would put Olson away with a change-up. When Vasil was rated as MMN‘s ninth best Mets prospect, we noted how his change-up has late action. Keith Law of The Athetic had questioned if he could generate enough deception with the pitch, but as we saw with Olson, Vasil now has a different change which seems far more effective.
Mike Vasil struck out one of the hottest hitters on the planet on 3 pitches.
The Mets right-hander finished the 2022 season in High-A Brooklyn.
Last pitch is a split-change he's been working on.
— Michael Mayer (@mikemayer22) March 23, 2023
Vasil was obviously thrilled about the strikeout. After that game he would say, “It’s awesome. You’re going up against an amazing left-handed hitter. To be able to have the result of swing-and-miss possibility is huge for me.”
After two scoreless innings, Vasil would get into trouble in the third. Olson would get him back for that strikeout with a two run homer. Things looked dire as as Austin Riley and Marcell Ozuna followed with singles. However, Vasil would make the pitch he needed to make getting Michael Harris II to hit into an inning ending double play.
On that note, Vasil has generated a good number of ground balls. Last season with Brooklyn, opposing batters had a 1.76 GB/FB ratio against him. Also, while Olson got him, Vasil does not allow many homers with a 0.5 HR/9 over his professional career.
Vasil’s final line was three innings, six hits, two runs, two earned, no walks, and three strikeouts. In this start, he showed flashes of why he’s such a highly rated prospect in the Mets farm system.
He sat in the 95-96 MPH range. He was able to use his change-up as a weapon. He struck out three batters and induced a ground ball to generate a key inning ending double play when he was in trouble.
Overall, Vasil showed how good of a pitcher he could be. This is reason to get excited to see what he could do in 2023, and as long as the split-change is working the way we saw it did, we could see him in the majors earlier than anticipated.
