Mets spring training: What are the best/nastiest pitches in camp?

PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla. — One by one, the Mets’ hitters heard the question, stopped to think and looked around the vast spring training clubhouse. Some sighed. Others shook their heads.

The inquiry: What are the nastiest pitches in Mets camp?

The general sentiment: Oof, there are a lot of options. The quality of pitching is a great sign for the Mets as an organization but triggered some half-joking existential crises from the hitters (given what it meant about the state of pitching across the sport).

“There’s a lot of dudes,” first base prospect Ryan Clifford said, “with outlier pitches.”

Catcher Hayden Senger said: “I feel like everybody has a super nasty pitch. It’s so hard to choose.”

And outfielder Tyrone Taylor: “Everybody throws so hard nowadays. It’s (expletive) crazy.”

He sounded dejected.

“I am,” Taylor said. “It’s no joke.”

In an informal poll by Newsday, the Mets’ hitters nonetheless collectively came up with answers to the question of which pitch(es) are the nastiest — which in the baseball parlance is a good thing. Nasty, disgusting and gross are connotatively high praise, compliments assigned based on how fast a pitch is, how much and when it moves and other characteristics that make it hard to hit.

Here are the pitches that earned the most mentions.

1. Clay Holmes’ sinker

This was by far the most-mentioned offering, highlighted by 14 of 23 respondents.

Holmes’ sinker became his signature and by-far-most-used pitch shortly after the Yankees acquired him from the Pirates in 2021. It helped him ascend from minor trade pickup to All-Star closer (and now starting pitcher for the Mets). As Pete Alonso said, “It’s what he’s known for.”

“It feels like it moves twice,” Clifford said. “You see it out of the hand and you know it’s a sinker . . . it might start at your hip. Then it looks like it’s going to move to the middle. And then sure enough it’s off the plate. It has two gears to it.”

Francisco Alvarez, speaking as a hitter and a catcher, said: “I don’t know where it’s going. It’s nasty. It’s going to move.”

Holmes explained that part of the problem — for hitters — is he is so tall (6-5) and his delivery is right over the top, so the ball is coming from quite the angle. Oh, and it’s coming in hot, 97 mph on average.

That is a lot to contend with.

“I have one of the steepest angles with some of the better movement. So it’s more of those combined,” Holmes said. “It moves more than their eyes are used to seeing.”

2. Kodai Senga’s splitter and Edwin Diaz’s fastball

By now, these are the Mets’ old reliables.

Senga’s splitter — or forkball — that dives out of the zone at seemingly the last moment was a big reason he was an All-Star with a 2.98 ERA as a rookie in 2023.

Diaz’s fastball, with an average velocity of 97.5 and a max velocity into the 100s, is about half the reason the Mets are so comfortable sticking by him as closer even during tough times. (His wicked slider, which also had several mentions from teammates, is the other half of the reason.)

“That (expletive) fastball going up, it’s insane,” said outfielder Jose Azocar, referencing the perceived “ride” on Diaz’s heat.

Not-so-fun fact: The Mets have never really had Senga and Diaz available at the same time. Diaz missed all of ’23, when Senga debuted, and Senga was hurt virtually all of 2024, when Diaz returned.

3. Clay Holmes’ changeup

Yes, Holmes had two pitches in the top several. And yes, this one is brand new.

Holmes added a changeup over the offseason to aid his transition to the rotation. Early returns are strong.

With a changeup to pair with the sinker, Holmes reminds Brandon Nimmo of the Giants’ Logan Webb, a pitch-to-contact high-end starter who was the NL Cy Young Award runner-up in 2023.

“That’s part of why his changeup to me is elite, because it plays so well off that sinker,” Nimmo said of Holmes. “The sinker is already elite, but then you throw an 8-mph change of speed in there — and great movement — with similar arm action (and it becomes hard to hit) . . . I just gotta guess. It’s a 50-50 shot what I’m swinging at here. It’s going to be a really good pitch for him.”

Holmes cautioned that real games beginning late this month will offer the most meaningful feedback on the state of his newest option.

“It’s definitely going to be a good pitch,” he said. “It’s definitely going to play, it’s just figuring out what that looks like and how consistent it really is in games . . . The more experience I get with it, it’s definitely going to come along, where it’s very valuable to lefties. But it could (useful against righties as well). It’s a little yet-to-be-seen, work-in-progress. I wouldn’t say experimental, but I need some miles on it.”

4. Danny Young’s sweeper

Jeff McNeil likes Young plenty as a person, enough to let him live at his Long Island home part of last summer. But he is really glad he doesn’t need to try to hit against the lefthanded Young, whose sweeping slider 1) moves a lot to begin with and 2) comes from what is almost a sidearm angle, what Young called “a very, very low three-quarters” slot.

“I’ll swing at that thing, and it’ll be behind me,” Senger said.

Young considers himself fortunate. He said he picked up his sweeper grip from a friend during the 2020 shutdown and “the first time I threw it, it was really good.” It is a major reason he went from minor-league signee to major-league bullpen member in 2024. He is likely to open the season in the bullpen again this year.

“When I throw it right, it accelerates as it breaks. I don’t know why. I got lucky,” Young said. “It’s a gift and a curse, because when you lose it, it’s tough to find again.”

5. Brandon Sproat (generally)

Sproat, the organization’s top prospect, and Blade Tidwell, also in Triple-A, both made strong impressions during their time in big-league camp, each drawing a bunch of votes — for a variety of pitches.

Sproat’s sweeper and changeup each received three nods, his high-90s fastball one and his sinker — a spontaneous September experiment — one. Alonso and Jesse Winker both shouted out Sproat and couldn’t bring themselves to choose one pitch.

“The guy who has impressed me the most is Sproaty,” said Alonso, who afterward noted that he wasn’t just saying that because Sproat is a fellow University of Florida product. “Overall polish, repertoire and how he uses his stuff.”

Tidwell, who struck out three batters on nine pitches for an immaculate inning against the Rays on March 1, and Sproat could figure into the Mets’ rotation plans by midseason, as long as they prove effective with Triple-A Syracuse, which was not the case last year.

“This is a guy who stuff-wise is right there with anybody,” manager Carlos Mendoza said of Sproat. “He’s got big-league stuff.”

Nimmo was among the others who echoed that sentiment.

“Hopefully,” he said, “we can use that later on this season.”

Among others receiving votes: Holmes’ sweeper and slider, Tylor Megill’s fastball, Reed Garrett’s splitter, Huascar Brazoban’s changeup, Sean Manaea’s sweeper, David Peterson’s sinker, A.J. Minter’s fastball, Frankie Montas’ splitter and Yacksel Rios’ splitter.