PORT ST. LUCIE — Carlos Cortes nonetheless typically breaks out his right-handed glove throughout pregame drills to take grounders at second base.
The ambidextrous Mets prospect needs to be prepared, simply in case.
Cortes, a third-round choose by the Mets within the 2018 draft, stopped taking part in the infield (throwing right-handed) final season, leaving him for now as a lefty thrower within the outfield. It’s his pure throwing hand, and the one he trusts essentially the most.
“I grew up lefty-lefty, however my motor abilities are righty,” the 24-year-old Cortes stated this week at Mets minor league camp. “I'm sort of all combined up.”
Cortes eats right-handed, however brushes his enamel left-handed. He picks up objects along with his proper hand.
He began throwing along with his proper hand round age 8 and gave it a shot as an ambidextrous pitcher early in highschool, however quickly scrapped the thought due to troubles with right-handed precision.
“I may by no means throw a curveball, I simply had no really feel for it,” Cortes stated. “I sort of have one now, however it was like fastball-slider and I drilled lots of people. I attempted it as a freshman or sophomore in highschool and I stored drilling folks with fastballs and, yeah, ‘I'm not doing this anymore.’ ”
Cortes, the Mets’ No. 11 prospect based on MLB Pipeline, performed the outfield full-time for Double-A Binghamton final season and owned a .257/.332/.487 slash line with 14 homers and 57 RBIs in 79 video games. It wasn’t sufficient to earn Cortes a spot on the Mets’ 40-man roster, leaving him unprotected for the Rule 5 draft, which can happen after the MLB lockout concludes.
“There are in all probability 4 or 5 guys we've got that concern about,” Mets director of participant growth Kevin Howard stated. “On the finish of the day there’s solely so many spots and each workforce is put within the place the place they've to go away guys they actually like unprotected and that I feel is sort of the scenario we’re in with Carlos.”
In 2019, Cortes performed largely second base for Single-A St. Lucie and had a slash line of .255/.336/.397 with 11 homers and 68 RBIs in 127 video games.
He arrived from the College of South Carolina in the identical draft class that introduced Jarred Kelenic and Simeon Woods-Richardson to the Mets forward of him. Kelenic and Woods-Richardson have been later traded (to the Mariners and Blue Jays, respectively), leaving Cortes as the very best remaining draft choose from the Mets’ 2018 class.
Although Cortes is ambidextrous, he stated he by no means gave switch-hitting severe consideration.
“My dad was not a giant believer in that,” Cortes stated. “There’s not too many Chipper Joneses, Pete Roses and Jose Reyeses on the market.”
This season, he's anticipated to proceed taking part in the outfield virtually solely. It's potential he'll start the season at Triple-A Syracuse.
“I'm undoubtedly specializing in the outfield much more, I feel I'm higher on the market,” Cortes stated. “However I'm by no means going to shut that choice to be right-handed … I'm going to attempt to preserve my arm prepared so I simply don’t throw sooner or later and blow it out, however it’s by no means going to be like I've to relearn it. It’s there, it’s all the time going to be there, however clearly the rate I'm going to must preserve coaching to maintain up with that.”
Cortes’ targets for the season lengthen past simply reaching Citi Area.
“My private largest objective is I wish to put myself in a scenario the place I'm a candidate to assist the foremost league workforce,” Cortes stated. “Not simply make it to the large leagues, however be precious to the workforce and assist them win if I can.”
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