PORT ST. LUCIE — The tweet was a message to the Mets and an announcement concerning the team’s direction. To try to identify the types of hitters the Mets may target, just check out their owner’s social media accounts.
“It’s hard to understand how professional hitters can be this unproductive,” Steve Cohen wrote Aug. 18 as his Mets floundered. “The best teams have a more disciplined approach. The slugging and OPS numbers don’t lie.”
It is hard to find a more disciplined approach than the one Mark Canha has adopted.
In his own way, the under-the-radar free-agent acquisition — on a two-year, $26.5 million pact that was dwarfed by Max Scherzer’s and Starling Marte’s contracts — epitomizes the type of slugger the Mets want populating their lineup.
Last season, the Mets scored the fourth-least runs in the majors and, perhaps not totally coincidentally, were the fourth-worst team at working opposing pitchers. A Mets batter averaged 3.83 pitches per plate appearance, and the quick outs added up in an 85-loss season.
So as the Mets were building this year’s edition, they targeted a hitter whose 4.23 pitches-per-plate-appearance mark last season was the fifth best among qualified hitters in baseball. As they courted Canha, they told him they wanted his approach to influence the rest of the clubhouse.
The front office “mentioned the at-bats thing and how they would hope that that would kind of rub off on the other guys,” Canha said Wednesday before the Mets hosted the Astros. “They kind of want that to be the culture of our hitters and putting together great at-bats.”
In a recent spring training game, Buck Showalter said, the Mets forced the opposing pitcher to throw 24 pitches in a frame.
They did not score a run, but, “We made note in the dugout,” the manager said. “We won the inning.”
Working pitchers and waiting for the right pitch to swing at has become a greater focus of the Mets. Brandon Nimmo, who is among the team’s best at the art — he averaged an even four pitches per plate appearance last season — said the team’s philosophy has been “to hit the ball hard or walk.”
He characterized the ideal characteristic as “controlled aggression” — being ready for the best pitch to hit and fighting off or laying off others.
“Buck has come up to me a few times,” Nimmo said, “and been like, ‘Hey, I like how you work the count, I like how you don’t give up, I like how you fight, I like how you battle up there with two strikes.’ ”
There are few better at the practice than Canha. The longtime Oakland A sees the pitch buildup in a count as not necessarily the aim — if a good offering comes early, he wants to pounce on it — but a by-product of a solid approach that ignores pitches he can’t slug.
Hitters such as Jeff McNeil and Starling Marte are less picky, and the hope may be that Canha’s approach gets noticed around the dugout.
“It really can wear on an opposing pitching staff not only in one game, but throughout the course of the series against them,” said Canha, who posted a .746 OPS with 17 home runs in 625 plate appearances last season. “You get to that bullpen early and you really see a bunch of pitches, it really helps.”