The Edge of Seventeen: Kevin McGowan

[Edgy MD]

As my name begins with an M, and I've pitched fewer than two innings above AA, and my name appears on no lists of the Mets' top 30 prospects (top 50? maybe?), I really feared I'd be farmed out before youse all examined where I stood. On the edge. Of seventeen.

I'm a 2013 draft pick out of that baseball hotbed of Nashua, New Hampshire, and I'm 6'5" or 6'6", depending on your source. Maybe 240. Up there, we work out in dank, poorly lit cinderblock outbuildings. That may not jump out and scream SPORTS SCIENCE at you, but I woke up at the start of last season and pitched 33 ridiculously good innings for St. Lucie. Thirty-three innings to the tune of an Eckerslean 0.82 ERA. I struck out 33 in 33 innings, which is a nice tidy ratio of effectiveness, and I walked four.

Wait a minute. Holy crap, that's not a typo. I walked FOUR!

That gets a boy elevated to Bingo mid-season, I tell you what. I don't care what round you're drafted in or how short the summer is in New Hampshire. I continued to be successful, if not untouchable for Bingo, posting a 3.26 ERA while losing that ridiculous walk rate and got a brief promotion to Las Vegas. Three levels—what a good year looks like I started mostly until this season, but only started four times this year, so maybe I've trapped myself into relieving. I dunno. But I've pitched myself into a big league camp and I'm still there, where I've, um ... pitched four innings and given up seven runs, six earned. I'm having a little problem with the longball. BUT I'LL ADJUST! IT'S MY DESTINY!

But what's my destiny for 2017! You make the call.

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[seawolf17]

Pretty sure you just made him up. Doesn't appear in a game at any level in 2017.

[MFS62]

His destiny for 2017 will be learning to keep the ball in the ballpark as a member of the Binghamton bullpen.

Later

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

Yeah, AA this season and if goes well, Trump dies in prison.

I mean, if all goes well, promotion to AAA later in the year. Will be back in camp in 2018.

[Edgy MD]

The Mets just didn't sign as many big league veterans to minor league contracts this offseason, and I've got to think they made a conscious choice to unclog some of the pipeline for guys just like this. McLovin is going to open in AAA. It'll take a crisis for him to jump to the big team over Sewald, RoseBOOM!, and Rowen and Smokey, but he'll have a solid AAA season and will eventually serve as Vegas closer when Sewald gets his promotion.

[Guest d'Kong76]

If he truly exists, nothing Metly in 2017.