BREAKING NEWS: Pascucci returns
According to BA’s prospect blog, the Mets have signed Val Pascucci to a Minor League deal.
Hat tip to the great Nate Freiberg and Bobby Valentine in the comments section for the heads up.
Nate is, I should mention, the person who first tipped me off to Pascucci’s existence in the first place, long before he ever signed on with the Mets.
Boss, if you’ll recall, is a large, right-handed three-true-outcomes masher that plays first base and the outfield corners. He earned folk-hero status among certain Mets fans — mostly me and John Peterson of Blastings! Thrilledge fame — by dominating Triple-A pitching in 2008 while the Mets were carrying Marlon Anderson as a bench “bat” all season.
By most accounts, he’s not much of a fielder, and since most of the higher-ups in the Mets organization didn’t seem to even bother learning his name the last time around, I can’t imagine he’ll see any time on the Major League roster in this one. But he’ll put asses in seats in Buffalo, for sure, and should he hit well enough and the Mets carry enough dead weight on the 25-man roster — spoiler alert: it’s a reasonable bet — you can bet I’ll be banging that drum again.
Pascucci endured a down year with Padres’ and Dodgers’ PCL teams in 2009, posting a .793 OPS for the season. But at 31, he’s probably not quite declining yet, and it’s reasonable to expect him to return toward his career Triple-A mean, an impressive .906 mark.
Also, when I tracked him down for a phone interview back in 2008, Pascucci tipped me off to this, a Japanese baseball cheer in his honor. So he’s got that going for him, which is nice:
