PORT ST. LUCIE — Tylor Megill has a new toy that he’s anxious to display when he begins facing hitters in live batting practice for the Mets within the next few days.
“It’s pretty good,” Megill said Friday.
The toy is a splitter, a pitch he learned from Kodai Senga last year but didn’t deploy until his final appearance of the season, when he threw it six times.
Megill went to the offseason determined to improve the pitch, and Mets officials say he has succeeded.
So much so that pitching coach Jeremy Hefner sees the potential of Megill’s splitter rivaling Senga’s “ghost fork” that mystified MLB batters last season.
Megill throws the pitch, which drops just before reaching the strike zone, in the 85-86 mph range (a tad harder than Senga’s).
But the Japanese right-hander’s splitter is notable for the amount it breaks.
The data the Mets received over the winter on Megill’s splitter — which last year he dubbed the “American Spork” — indicates it could be in that realm as an elite pitch.
“Am I going to call it Kodai’s split?” Hefner said. “I don’t know, but it could be. We’ll see how the hitters respond to it.”
Megill, 28, has entered spring training as rotation depth but understands there will likely be opportunities for him.
He began last season in the same situation and still started 25 games for the Mets, filling in for injured veterans.
But Megill sputtered early in the season and didn’t show improvement until returning from Triple-A Syracuse in August after Max Scherzer and Justin Verlander had been traded.
Megill finished the season with a 4.70 ERA over 126 ¹/₃ innings for the Mets.
“I had a pretty rough patch for quite a few starts and then I got sent down to Triple-A and then basically had to rework everything, my body, my mechanics,” Megill said.
The key to whether his splitter will play is whether Megill can work ahead in the count. That Megill showed improvement with his fastball and breaking ball over the winter, according to Hefner, has led to optimism about his splitter.
“A split isn’t a natural strike pitch,” Hefner said. “So you have got to get in advantage counts and it’s not a pitch that you are going to throw 3-1. It’s not a high percentage, in-the-zone pitch.
“There was a lot of cleaning up his stuff in the offseason and adding the split. The thing I am most proud about with Tylor is he made all of his starts last year. We could argue some of them weren’t very good, but he was able to stay healthy the entire year, which is really hard to do. He comes into camp in a really good spot. I couldn’t be prouder of him and more excited for him for all the work he’s put in.”
Megill previously had worked out alone in the offseason, but this winter trained at Push Performance in the Phoenix area, where he joined a group that included MLB pitchers Logan Webb, Steven Okert and Kyle Harrison.
Hefner said that experience was beneficial for Megill because it created a level of competition.
Megill agrees with that assessment.
“It was nice to go there and have communication with other people and mess around,” Megill said. “I had a great offseason, very positive, I am excited.”
Senga, Luis Severino, Jose Quintana, Sean Manaea and Adrian Houser are the Mets’ starting five as camp opens.
But the Mets will likely employ a sixth starter on occasion, with Joey Lucchesi and Jose Butto in that mix along with Megill.
“A lot of guys are hungry to go out there and compete and I want to be a part of that,” Megill said.
