The wait was a blessing in disguise.
After being selected by the Mets with the 10th overall pick in June’s MLB draft, left fielder Michael Conforto didn’t immediately start his professional career, as the Mets and his agent, Scott Boras, wrestled with contract negotiations.
While he was unsigned, he used the “downtime” to prepare for life as a professional.
“I got a chance to come out here and meet the team, meet the guys, take some batting practice with them, not jump right into the games yet,” Conforto said this past week. “I had some time to develop, get that switch over from [a] metal [bat] to [a] wood [bat], and I was doing that while I was home.”
In early July, an agreement was reached, and Conforto signed a contract with a $2.97 million signing bonus.
He was assigned to Single-A Brooklyn and hit the ground running.
In his first 12 games, Conforto hit .409 with a 1.013 OPS, while displaying impressive bat control, with six walks against just seven strikeouts. That plate discipline was an extension of his final season at Oregon State, where he set a single-season school record with 55 walks.
“There are quite a few guys who are very good in this league, but sometimes, there’s going to be a mistake pitch in there somewhere in an at-bat,” Conforto said, describing his approach at the plate. “I think it’s all about getting that mistake pitch, being ready for it, and those pitches are easy to get the bat on the ball. If you don’t miss too many of those, it’s easy to cut down those strikeout numbers.”
Mets vice president of player development and amateur scouting Paul DePodesta was thrilled the team drafted Conforto.
“He’s a very advanced offensive player,” DePodesta said in a phone interview. “He has a tremendously mature approach at the plate, where it really fits with our organizational philosophy. He looks to do damage and has the discipline to wait for those pitches. It’s rare to find in an amateur player, somebody who not only does it, but has a real understanding of it.”
DePodesta was impressed with Conforto’s ability to adjust to a new competition level so quickly.
“It took a little time to get the contract finalized — it was a pretty lengthy layoff,” DePodesta said. “To ask him to step right in and not miss a beat, we knew it was asking a lot, and yet he did exactly that. He walked right in from the first week and was hitting right in the middle of the order.”
A scout who has seen Conforto play offered a positive review.
“He’s going to be able to swing the bat with some power,” the scout said. “He’s a good-sized kid [6-foot-1, 211 pounds]. He’s put together pretty well and he’s got a compact swing that can get long at times, but he hit one of the longest home runs that was [ever] hit at [Cyclones’ MCU Park]. … He was playing left field and he did a good job out there. [He has a] solid, average arm. It looks like he can do a lot of things. His running speed was a little below average. … Running isn’t really his game.”
Conforto went 1-for-3 with a walk and two runs scored on Friday and is hitting .320 with the Cyclones.
Though the transition has been relatively smooth, there’s still a lot Conforto is learning about life in the minors.
“The pitching is a little bit different,” the 21-year-old said. “There [are] some guys with some really good arms here, some really good breaking pitches, changeups. A lot of guys are on pitch counts, so you’re seeing multiple pitchers throughout a game. In college you tend to see a guy three times before you’d see another pitcher. You’re seeing a lot of different arms.”
Conforto has also made strides toward becoming a multi-dimensional hitter.
“Towards the end of the college season, I was getting a shift [placed] on me — I was mostly a pull hitter,” he said. “I went home and worked on some things, came out here and worked on some things, [and it] kind of opened up the rest of the field for me. A lot of my hits have been the other way.”
Entering Friday, Conforto was hitting an even .320 with a .407 on-base percentage and an .850 OPS with the Cyclones. DePodesta said such a successful season from a just-drafted player is rare.
“We don’t put a whole lot of stock in short-season performance right after we draft guys,” DePodesta said. “Guys like Ike Davis, [Triple-A catcher] Kevin Plawecki, [Double-A outfielder] Brandon Nimmo, they didn’t have great short seasons when they first came out and were very different players after that.”
For DePodesta, Conforto’s immediate success is particularly impressive because of how far the outfielder has come, and how long the Mets have watched from afar.
“We’ve been very happy with what he’s done,” he said. “Quite frankly, our opinions changed over the last few years. As a freshman in college, we saw him [a lot] and he had some struggles in the outfield. After sophomore year, we thought he improved a little bit. Going into this past season, we thought he was capable. We watched him an awful lot. We felt like he was significantly improved from what we saw as a sophomore.”