A few things from this week's edition:
Until a couple of years ago, Christian Scott barely consumed caffeine. He was not a coffee guy. Occasionally he'd splurge on a Red Bull, but in general, Scott avoided the stuff.
His habit changed when Scott met Trey McLoughlin, a reliever in the Mets system who first became his teammate at High-A Brooklyn. McLoughlin turned Scott on to the Orange Dreamsicle flavor of Reign Total Body Fuel, a pre-workout energy drink that contains, according to its website, 300 milligrams of caffeine. That's the equivalent of about two to three cups of standard drip coffee, or a bottle and a half of the popular energy drink Celsius.
Scott is disciplined in his intake. He only drinks Reign on days he starts, about 90 minutes before first pitch. He can have trouble sleeping those nights, given all the caffeine still coursing through his bloodstream, but his circadian rhythm falls back into place within a day or two. And the benefit?
"It's kind of like a cheat code," Scott said, laughing as he described the extra jolt of energy.
I'm going to see if they have Reign at my local grocer. If they do, I'm going to become a major league pitcher. I'm only a couple of years older than Satchel Paige was when he pitched his last big-league game.
When J.D. Martinez broke Willson Contreras' left forearm with a swing on Tuesday, folks in the Mets' clubhouse took notice. Like most teams, the Mets have trained their catchers to creep closer to the plate to make framing easier. But Mendoza believes there is a "fine line" between doing that and putting oneself at risk. The Mets keep scouting data on which players' swing paths are most likely to strike a catcher. Martinez, in part because of the violence of his swings, ranks near the top of that list.
Earlier this season, Mendoza feared Francisco Alvarez had been seriously hurt on a Henry Davis swing that struck his glove. Alvarez wound up being fine, but the concern never dissipated from Mendoza's mind.
"It's been a topic throughout the offseason with every team, because we see it more and more nowadays," said Mendoza, who would like to see a rule change preventing catchers from crossing a certain line behind the plate. "It seems like every day, people are going down. You hate to see that."
I think we're getting a little rule-change crazy these last few years. (Okay, I
know we are.) The solution is simple: If you want to avoid your catcher breaking his arm, have him position himself further back. If being closer to the pitcher gives an advantage, but also makes it more likely to result in a battered catcher, teams can do their own cost-benefit analysis.
Finally, back to Scott. Although the former college reliever has never thrown more than 87 2/3 innings in a season, Mets officials don't intend to put a hard cap on his contributions this summer. The days of limiting a young arm to, say, a 30-inning increase year-over-year are long gone, according to pitching coach Jeremy Hefner. Instead, the Mets intend to measure Scott routinely on biomechanical markers such as range of motion, while also making sure his pitch metrics don't deteriorate in quality.
"The other way didn't work," Hefner said, referencing the history of pitcher injuries throughout the game. "So this is the information in front of us. You try to make the best decision possible with the information that you have."
I had no idea the 30-inning increase thing was "long gone". I'm sure I heard about it being in effect as recently as a year or two ago. But if it's gone, and replaced by something more scientific, then that's a good thing, assuming the science is reasonably valid. This is the first I've heard of this.
