Jul 03 2013 07:26 AM
Satin Overcomes Quirks at the Plate and Walks a Long Path to the Majors
Josh Satin, center, was picked by the Mets in the sixth round (No. 194th) of the 2008 draft.
By ZACH SCHONBRUN
Published: July 2, 2013
| At every minor league stop — and there have been quite a few of them for Josh Satin — a coach or instructor needled him about changing his unorthodox batting mechanics, quieting his aggressive leg lift or circular hand motion. It became a ritual of spring. “Every year,” said infielder Zach Lutz, who has played with Satin since 2008, “we’d have coaches say something to him.” One of them was Manager Terry Collins, who as the Mets’ field coordinator in 2010 also approached Satin about toning down his wavy swing, the cartoonish way he timed every pitch, as if he were hitting in a slow-pitch softball home run derby. At the time, Collins watched Satin with a skeptic’s eye, nodding along with the growing chorus of doubting talent evaluators who failed to envision Satin as anything but too old, too slow, too unconventional to be part of the Mets’ future. “Not many people thought Josh Satin was going to do much at the major league level,” Collins said. “All he did was continue to hit at every level.” Indeed, Satin is hitting .390 since his call-up from Class AAA Las Vegas on June 11, while reaching base in 13 consecutive games, with a .400 average with runners in scoring position. He doubled in the go-ahead run in the seventh inning Tuesday — before a 101-minute rain delay — in the Mets’ eventual 9-1 win over Arizona. “Seven was pretty good,” Collins said of the seven runs the Mets scored in the seventh, a season-high for an inning. “It just took an hour and a half to get them.” In a short time, Satin has effectively cushioned the blow from losing Lucas Duda (to a rib injury) and Ike Davis, who swapped places with Satin in Las Vegas, where Davis remains. The June switch — Satin up, Davis down — was a quirky twist in Satin’s long path to the big leagues, starting when he was picked by the Mets in the sixth round (194th over all) of the 2008 draft, 176 selections after the Mets chose Davis. Both were four-year college players from the Pacific-12 Conference (Davis from Arizona State; Satin from California), both played multiple positions and both were among the game’s small contingent of Jewish ballplayers. But in the minors, their trails diverged. Davis ascended through the Mets’ system as the first baseman of the future, reaching the Mets’ lineup in mid-April 2010, while Satin was still at Class A Port St. Lucie. Satin hit .311 with a .399 on-base percentage and 74 runs batted in that season, in Class A and Class AA, but he remained deep in the Mets’ system. He hit .323 with a .411 on-base percentage in 2011 in Class AA and Class AAA, but a late-September call-up with the Mets was all he had to prove himself. In 2012, it was back to Class AAA. “There were a lot of times you see guys in other organizations get called up,” Satin said, “and you’re like, I played against this guy a lot, I personally think I’m better than this guy.” At 26, with a degree in political science from Cal, Satin acknowledged that dropping his pursuit crossed his mind. He looked at David Wright, Daniel Murphy and Davis and wondered if there would be a spot for him. Satin was drafted as a shortstop, played second base extensively in the minors and liked to fashion himself as a Mark DeRosa or Ben Zobrist type, versatile and valuable at multiple positions. He needed to prove, however, that he could consistently hit. The Mets had their doubts. “You see his stance in A-ball,” Collins said, “and you think to yourself: all that hand movement is not going to work in the big leagues. It’s too much movement.” Satin’s mechanical idiosyncrasy was similar to the hitch that Davis is trying to iron out in the minors. Like Satin, Davis would drop his hands low and lift his leg high, but his rhythm and timing went awry early this season, and his performance plummeted. Satin had been using his batting motion since high school, and he was stubborn about altering it. Why change? He scoffed. He was hitting about .320 in the minors. But in September 2011, during his big-league cameo, Satin said he finally recognized why Collins and others had been warning him: his timing needed to be faster. “He was right,” Satin said of Collins. Satin’s second awakening came after his second Mets call-up, in June 2012, in which he played one game, got one at-bat and struck out. After the game, he was designated for assignment. After clearing waivers and returning to Class AAA, Satin spent the remainder of the season and the off-season working on a calmer, more compact path to the ball, which Collins noticed in spring training and appreciated. “I think he just got back in the batter’s box with that confidence that he has,” Collins said. One problem still remained: there was no spot for him on the Mets’ roster. But when Davis struggled, Satin’s .305 average and .420 on-base percentage were difficult to ignore. When the Mets called him to New York, Las Vegas Manager Wally Backman jokingly said, “I hope I never see you again.” After so many years in the minors, Satin hopes he has finally shown the Mets what they needed to see. |
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