The St. Lucie Mets will look to improve on a poor 2024 season.
The 2024 St. Lucie Mets season left much to be desired. The team went 22-44 in the first half and 23-40 in the second half, good for a 45-85 record overall. St. Lucie was the youngest team in the Florida State League and one of the youngest in all of Single-A baseball with an average age of 21.4 for pitchers and 20.1 for hitters, and with youth comes inexperience. That is not to say that there weren’t standouts- Nick Morabito and Jonah Tong both put up video game numbers during their time with the team early in the season- but on the whole, St. Lucie’s hitters and pitchers struggled, as the team posted a second-to-last .646 cumulative OPS and a second-to-last 4.57 cumulative ERA.
In February, Luis Rivera was announced as team manager, replacing Yucarybert De La Cruz. Rivera has been in the organization for over a decade and has plenty of coaching and managing experience. Joining him will be Jonathan Jones, as bench coach, Luis Alvarado as pitching coach, and Devin DeYoung, as the hitting coach. The 2024 season will be the first one for Jones in the organization. Previously, he was the field coordinator, outfield coach, and first base coach for the Olmecas de Tobasco, a Mexican Winter League team. Alvarado joined the organization in 2022 as the FCL Mets life skills specialist and then as their pitching coach in 2023 and 2024. The 2024 season will also be the first one for DeYoung in the organization. Previously, he worked as a coach for the Greenville Drive in 2019 and was the bench coach and hitting coach for the Windy City Thunderbolts, a Frontier League team, in 2017 and 2018.
The team was at the bottom of the Florida State League in terms of runs allowed per game (5.36), hits allowed (1016), and walks issued (671), and were second in the league in ERA (4.81), but were third-best in strikeouts (1274). With few standout pitchers who will likely spend time in St. Lucie in 2025, it is likely that the team will once again find itself near or at the bottom in multiple pitching categories.
St. Lucie was also at the bottom of the league in terms of runs per game (4.13), hits (933), home runs (55), stolen bases (140), batting average (.223), on-base percentage (.328), slugging percentage .319, and OPS (.646). With multiple players who spent time in St. Lucie in 2024 and are candidates to begin the year there in 2025, or be promoted from the FCL Mets, there is a good chance that the 2025 St. Lucie Mets field a stronger offense than the one that took the field in 2024.