Ryan Clifford
Week: 6 G, 24 AB, .286/.375/.762, 6 H, 1 2B, 0 3B, 3 HR, 3 BB, 6 K, 0/0 SB (Triple-A)
2026 Season: 55 G, 201 AB, .229/.307/.483, 46 H, 10 2B, 1 3B, 13 HR, 24 BB, 78 K, 4/6 SB, .292 BABIP (Triple-A)
That wraps up a productive May for Ryan Clifford. In 23 games, the slugger hit .233/.308/.534, adding 5 more doubles, 1 triple, and 8 homers to his ledger for the year. In total, he is now hitting .229/.307/.483 with 10 doubles, 1 triple, 13 homers, 4 stolen bases in 6 attempts, and 24 walks to 78 strikeouts.
Clifford has a solidly above-average 10.5% BB% at present, somewhat balancing his Brobdingnagian 34.2 K% rate, but even that is not enough to make him an above offensive contributor in the International League; believe it or not, Clifford has a 96 wRC+ with two months in the book. In 34 games last season, he was able to maintain a 15.5% BB% and 24.6% K%, which helped him produce a 102 wRC+ in Syracuse last season; Clifford is going to need to bump his walk rate up a bit while optimally shaving that strikeout rate a bit.
One way to do that would be swinging at fewer pitches out of the zone (revolutionary, I know!) Last season, Clifford had a 22.9% O-Swing rate and 43.3% O-Contact rate; this season, he has a 29.3% O-Swing rate and 53.3% O-Contact rate.
In a lot of cases, chasing pitches out of the zone is not necessarily a bad thing; if a pitch is drivable, it’s drivable, whether or not it’s in the strike zone or not. In Clifford’s case, it hasn’t been. Excluding clear waste pitches and mistakes that are nowhere close to the zone, nearly 64% of the pitches that he has seen during official plate appearances have been outside the zone, either in the shadow of the zone or in the chase zone. In total, he is hitting .178/.301/.381 against pitches outside of the zone with a 37.9% whiff rate, .194/.271/.441 against pitches in the shadow of the zone with a 33.3% whiff rate, and .120/.389/.160 in the chase zone with a 54.5% whiff rate.
He has done some damage against pitches in the shadow of the zone, hammering 3 doubles, 1 triple, and 6 home runs, but in the chase zone, all he has to show for his troubles is a measly double. Clifford needs to tighten up his internal visualization of the zone and just ignore pitches with trajectories past a certain point, whether or not they look like they are within his plate coverage ability (easy for me to say, of course!). Taking more pitches out of the zone will not only increase his walk rate over time, but will also force pitches to throw more pitches in the zone, giving him a better opportunity to put them in play with authority.
Also, a weird tidbit I noticed: Clifford is hitting .280/.354/.600 in 113 plate appearances at home, but .178/.261/.366 in 110 plate appearances on the road. Nobody else among the everyday Syracuse starting lineup had home/road splits as pronounced as that; Jackson Cluff came the closest with a .250-point OPS differential in favor of playing at home, but that still pales in comparison to Clifford’ .375-point differential.
I don’t like leaving my house either, I completely get it, but that said, I don’t know what up with that.
Jose Chirinos
Week: 1 G (1 GS), 6.0 IP, 3 H, 1 R, 0 ER, 1 BB, 9 K (Single-A)
2026 Season: 9 G (7 GS), 42.0 IP, 34 H, 16 R, 11 ER (2.36 ERA), 10 BB, 48 K, .292 BABIP (Single-A)
Of Chirinos’ nine strikeouts, two-thirds were swinging; In the bottom of the first, he struck out Sammy Stafura swinging on a curveball middle-away and then got Edgleen Perez looking on a sinker down-and-away. In the third, he struck out Josh Tate swinging with a slider almost middle-middle that he got away with. In the fourth, he struck out Eddie King Jr. with a cutter down-and-away and then struck out Luke Scherrer swinging with a sinker middle-and-low. In the fifth, Chirino struck out the side, first getting Richard Ramirez swinging on a curveball middle-and-low, then getting Dylan Palmer looking on a sinker up-and-away, and then Eddie Rynders on a sinker down-and-in. Finally, his last strikeout of the evening came in the sixth, when he got Jaden Kim to strike out on a foul tip on a changeup down-and-away.
Last season, the right-hander threw 56.1 innings with St. Lucie over 15 games, starting 10 of them, and posted a 3.20 ERA with 40 hits allowed, 30 walks, and 51 strikeouts. We are getting close to Chirinos matching the amount of innings he has pitched, with 42.0 innings this season over the course of 9 games, 7 of which have been starts. The right-hander is showing some real improvements in virtually every facet of his game as compared to last season’s innings in St. Lucie. His ERA is nearly a full run lower, his xERA is roughly 0.50 points lower, and his FIP and xFIP are both a full run lower. His strikeout rate, 28.4%, is up from 20.6%. His walk rate, 5.9%, is down from 12.1%.
The only point of trouble currently would be the fact that his flyball rate is up slightly, 39.2% from 34.4%, and he is giving up more home runs as a result- Chirinos currently has allowed 3 longballs, up from 1 not just with St. Lucie but in his 71.2 innings total with St. Lucie and the FCL Mets. Those three homers- a Jacob Friend homer to right center on a pitch down-and-away, a Johnathan Mejia homer to left on a change-up right down Broadway, and an Abranham Ramirez homer to right-center on a cutter down and in- don’t show any specific trends, like all being from breaking balls down-and-in that were pulled or fastballs up-and-away that were poked away, and as such, I don’t think the spike is of any real concern; allowing a single home run in 71.2 innings is more of an outlier, if you ask me.
By far, his slider has been his best pitch so far this season; throwing it 18.7% of the time so far this season, batters are hitting .174 /.208 /.217 against it with a 46.3% whiff rate. By comparison, they are hitting .233/.303/.267 against his sinker with a 26.2% whiff rate, .243 /.268 /.351 against his cutter with a 20% whiff rate, .280 /.357/.480 against his changeup with a 23.9% whiff rate, and .000/.000/.000 against his curveball in extremely limited usage with a 55.6% whiff rate. Over the last month, the pitch has averaged roughly 80 MPH, with above-average vertical drop and very little horizontal movement thanks to its lower velocity band and a spin rate hovering around 2000 RPM.
The last tall, lanky pitcher the Mets developed who had a head full of hair, wore 48, and threw a slider that struck a lot of batters out worked out pretty well. Jose Chirinos is almost half as old as that guy, but if Jose Chirinos developed half as good as that guy, I’d say that would be a pretty remarkable outcome.