Max Kranick Continues Spring Domination

Max Kranick continues to open some eyes this spring.

He turned in another strong outing on Friday, throwing 1 2/3 scoreless innings to bring his total to seven shutouts on the spring. He struck out two in his outing, and now has eight strikeouts compared to zero walks in seven innings overall. He’s allowed four hits.

Kranick was acquired on waivers from the Pirates last January. He went on to post a 3.82 ERA across three levels of the Mets’ organization in 2024 — most of which came in Triple-A Syracuse. Sixty-three of his 70 2/3 innings were for Syracuse, with whom he put up a 3.57 ERA in a hitter-friendly league. After starting for most of his career, he transitioned to a relief role and thrived.

“He’s attacking the zone and he’s aggressive. The fastball has a ton of life,” manager Carlos Mendoza said after Kranick threw two scoreless innings on Feb. 27. “Once he made that transition to the bullpen last year, the velo kicked up, and that’s what we’re seeing from him right now. He’s sitting consistently in the mid-90s and is throwing strikes.”

Kranick, 27, hasn’t pitched in the big leagues since 2022. But he’s making a strong case for a roster spot this spring — or, at the very least, keeping his name in the Mets’ minds for later on.

Kranick relieved Paul Blackburn after the righty gave up two home runs in a three-batter span on Friday. He punched out Paul DeJong on three straight swinging strikes in the zone, then got Luis García Jr. looking to end the frame. He clapped his hands emphatically before casually strolling off the mound.

Kranick came back out for the fourth inning. He surrendered a double right away to Alex Call, on a pitch left over the heart of the plate. But he induced weak contact from all three of Andrés Chaparro, Andrew Knizner and CJ Abrams, none of whom left the infield.

“That’s what you want to see from these guys, especially in that role where he’s a multiple-inning type of guy, but he can bring that velo in and can throw strikes,” Mendoza said in a late-February press conference.

Baseball Savant’s data from 2021 and 2022 had Kranick’s four-seam fastball averaging around 95 mph. He also featured a slider, a curveball and a changeup.

In Pitch Profiler‘s most recent report on Kranick from when he pitched on March 3, Kranick’s fastball averaged about 96 mph. His slider is around where it was before, between 87 and 88 mph. But most intriguing is that he’s added a sweeper, a modern term for a breaking ball with wider movement. It’s slower than his slider by about 5 mph, but it has nearly 10 additional inches of horizontal break and a similar amount of vertical break.

All three pitches grade out well, too, which should come with little surprise. The sweeper actually graded the best of the three with a 144 proStuff+. The four-seam was at 135, and the slider came in at 126. With these metrics, 100 is considered league average, just like wRC+ or OPS+. In a nutshell, Kranick is displaying a dangerous and versatile arsenal.

In his Feb. 27 outing, Kranick had a whopping seven pitches registered. In addition to the three aforementioned pitches, he threw a curveball, changeup, sinker and cutter — the last two of which he didn’t throw in his first big league stint, when he posted a 5.56 ERA in 43 2/3 innings. He did throw exactly one sinker in 2021, according to Baseball Savant, but that was it.

This year, his sinker had a respectable 95 proStuff+ in that Feb. 27 outing where he threw two hitless innings. He had four pitches above average and three only slightly below average.

Kranick doesn’t need all of these pitches to be elite to find success. Spring is the time for trying these things out and playing with new pitches in game action. But the sweeper alone, plus the slight uptick in fastball velocity and his encouraging performance in Triple-A, should be reasons for optimism in Kranick going forward.

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