Thomas Szapucki, Photo By Ernest Dove
In 2016, Thomas Szapucki would make nine starts between Kingsport and Brooklyn, and he would show just how much better he was than the competition. Overall, he was 4-3 with a 1.38 ERA, 0.885 WHIP, 3.5 BB/9, and a 14.9 K/9. That’s not a typo. He struck out 86 batters in his 52.0 innings pitched.
After that season, he would rise up the Mets prospect ranking, and he would crack the Top 100 rankings as well. Baseball Prospectus would rank him as the 69th best prospect in baseball. As nice a ranking as that was, Keith Law of ESPN would rank him 60 because he was dominating and “did so working a 92-96 mph fastball with a wipeout curveball and good command of his pitches, as well as a nascent changeup.”
He made his debut in full season ball in 2017, and the expectations were justifiably high. Unfortunately, that season would get cut short as Szapucki would have to undergo season ending Tommy John surgery on July 20, 2017. The surgery cost him the rest of the 2017 and all of the 2018 season. In 2019, it has not been a smooth transition back.
After throwing just three innings for Columbia over two appearances, he would be reassigned to Brooklyn. This would mark the first of two times Szapucki would be reassigned to Brooklyn prior to Brooklyn beginning their New York-Penn League slate.
Despite him being well past the 18 month mark of his post surgery return, Szapucki was not going deep into games. In his last start for Columbia on June 28, he would have a season high 4.0 innings pitched and 50 pitches thrown. While not the speedy progress you would have liked to have seen, he has begun ramping things up in July.
In each of his last three starts, Szapucki has thrown more pitches, and he has gone deeper into games. That culminated in his start last night against the Palm Beach Cardinals. Last night’s start may be the first sign Szapucki is really back from his surgery, and he is ready to resume his role as one of the top pitching prospects in the Mets farm system.
Against a Palm Beach team which had the fewest strikeouts in the Florida State League, Szapucki would strike out nine batters over five innings. To put into perspective how infrequently that team strikes out, even with the nine strikeouts, they have 13 strikeouts fewer than the second best team in the league. Despite this not being a team who strikes out, Szapucki mowed them down.
Only four hitters would be able to get base hits and no Palm Beach player would reach third base when Szapucki was on the mound. During one stretch from the third to the fifth, Szapucki would strike out four out of five batters. In a nutshell, this is the pitcher we saw in 2016 and in 2017 before he had to cut his season short to have Tommy John surgery.
In total, Szapucki would have a season high five innings pitched and 77 pitches thrown. Between the strikeouts and his continuing to throw more pitches and more innings, we are seeing promising progress. It is important too because the Mets have an important decision to make on Szapucki with him being Rule 5 eligible after this season. With more starts and progress like this, he’s going to make the decision to protect him and make him a part of the Mets future an easy decision.
