Brandon Sproat (Photo by Jay Biggerstaff/Getty Images)
NEW YORK – Brandon Sproat is at the heart of the New York Mets' core philosophy of player development.
President of baseball operations David Stearns abided by it when he was a Milwaukee Brewers executive: Fail in the minors.
"You have time to see how he bounces back," Mets legend Dwight Gooden told RG exclusively. "So it's a good test to see what you have in your heart, because playing in New York is totally different than playing anywhere else."
Gooden met with Sproat while visiting spring training at Clover Park in Port St. Lucie, Florida, on Feb. 27. The 24-year-old right-hander, in his first big-league camp and regarded as the top pitching prospect in the organization, made his spring debut the next day: one strikeout in two innings of a 7-0 win against the Washington Nationals, topping out at 99 mph.
"Nice kid," Gooden said. "He's hungry, I think he's going to be good. He trusts his stuff a lot better. If he stays healthy, the sky's the limit for him."
Sproat was determined to stay in attack mode, which he got away from while going 1-2 with a 7.53 ERA in 28 2/3 innings for Triple-A Syracuse of the International League after promotions from the Mets' High-A affiliate in Brooklyn and Binghamton of the Double-A Eastern League.
He shrugged off the high velocity. The biggest takeaway was attacking and having fun.
"I'm not trying to light the radar up," Sproat said. "I thought the ball was coming out good. It might have been 99. That's cool. It's not something I worry about."
The Mets aren't worried either. Sproat will likely start the season in Syracuse even with the pitching depth at the major-league level hit by injuries to Sean Manaea (right oblique strain) and Frankie Montas (right lat strain). David Peterson returns from a breakout 2024 season (10-3 with a 2.90 ERA and 101 strikeouts in 121 innings pitched). They're hoping Tylor Megill can step up with Manaea expected out until late April and Montas shut down for a projected eight weeks as of Feb. 17.
Even if Sproat's ERA stays above four or even five at Triple-A, his trajectory to the majors won't get bumped off course.
"That's one of the greatest things, is to go through all the trials and tribulations in the minor leagues," baseball analyst Nelson Figueroa, who pitched two seasons for the Mets (2008, '09), told RG. "You dominate a league, and you jump up to the next one and you're struggling a little bit? That's a good thing. You want to see how they bounce back from the struggle. You want to see if they work as hard or work twice as hard. Those little things you want to see when no one's watching, what is he doing to prepare for his next outing?"
Sproat intends to keep it simple: Go out, attack and whatever happens, happens.
Sproat allowed three runs in six starts for Brooklyn and went 4-1 with a 2.45 ERA in 11 starts with Binghamton that preceded the learning curve in Triple-A. During SNY's telecast of his spring debut, Ron Darling quipped that he failed miserably in the minors, "so they must have had the same plan then."
Darling turned out all right. It's likely Sproat will too.
"You might be saying, 'Don't you care about winning at the minor league level?' No, it doesn't really matter," Figueroa said.
