Mets trade for ex-World Series champion pitcher
A former World Series champion is joining Grimace’s party in New York.
The New York Mets announced on Tuesday that they have acquired veteran reliever Phil Maton in a trade with the Tampa Bay Rays. In return, the Mets will be sending either a player to be named later or cash considerations back to Tampa Bay. New York is also designating fellow pitcher Joey Lucchesi for assignment in a corresponding move.
The righty Maton, 31, is an eight-year veteran who had the best run of his career with the Houston Astros from 2021-23. In 2022, the year that the Astros won the World Series, Maton posted a 3.84 ERA with 73 strikeouts over 67 regular season appearances. While Maton missed the entire 2022 postseason thanks to an off-field injury, he still got a ring from the Astros when they went on to win it all.
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This season for Tampa Bay, Maton mainly worked out of a setup role, submitting an ERA of 4.58 with 30 strikeouts in 40 appearances. Though those numbers don’t quite pop off the page, the Mets will take a chance on him (a little over a month after they had to banish another righty reliever).
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Staying home: Smith goes from Astros fan to Astro
HOUSTON – The call came to the family home in Bellaire, a bedroom community in Houston known for having one of the best high school baseball programs in state history, and Parker Smith immediately clammed up. He had just been informed the hometown Astros had taken him in the fourth round of the MLB Draft, but he wanted his parents to see the news along with everyone else as it was announced on TV.
“It was a great kind of cliffhanger, so to say,” he said.
Astros nab ‘best catcher in this Draft class’ in Janek
Smith, who played at Bellaire and then spent three years at Rice University in Houston, hopes the story only gets better from here now that he has a chance to play for his hometown Astros. Going with the 131st pick overall, he was one of six college right-handed pitchers the Astros took in the second day of the MLB Draft.
“It was awesome,” Smith said. “It was a dream come true. I worked my butt off for the last 18 years of my life to get to this moment. It was definitely surreal. I kept who drafted me in the dark from my parents and my family. It was kind of a great surprise because I’m staying home.”
Smith led Rice in wins, innings pitched (89 1/3) and strikeouts (78) in 15 starts this year for the Owls, including one complete game. Among American Athletic Conference pitchers, he ranked fifth in innings, sixth in strikeouts looking (24), eighth in strikeouts and 10th in ERA (4.23). As a junior in 2023, he threw 88 innings in 15 starts and had a 3.58 ERA. Smith allowed 12 homers in 220 1/3 innings in his college career.
He said he models his game after Zac Gallen of the D-backs and Aaron Nola of the Phillies, among others.
“He’s obviously a guy who’s posted in terms of volume,” Astros scouting director Cam Pendino said. “He’s a sinker-slider guy and we think the changeup has some nice qualities to it, and we think the slider is something that can be polished up under our pitching tutelage. We think there’s underlying usage stuff we can clean up with Parker. We’re always excited to take local kids. For where we took him, we felt pretty good about that value.”
