The Mets announced Monday morning that they’ve signed infielder Rylan Bannon to a minor league contract. The Beverly Hills Sports Council client will be invited to big league camp in spring training.
Bannon, 27, has appeared in parts of two big league seasons and appeared with three clubs despite only tallying a total of 21 plate appearances. He’s collected just two hits in that time, both coming with the Orioles. He’s also had very brief stints with the Braves and Astros.
A former eighth-round pick by the Dodgers, Bannon was once a fairly well-regarded prospect who went from Los Angeles to Baltimore as one of five prospects in the 2018 Manny Machado swap. He spent all of last season with the Astros organization, batting .241/.360/.449 with a dozen homers and steals apiece in 408 trips to the plate. In parts of four Triple-A seasons, Bannon carries a .232/.344/.426 batting line with a huge 13.8% walk rate against a 22% strikeout rate.
Bannon has primarily played third base in his professional career, logging more than 3100 innings at the hot corner between the minors and the big leagues. He also carries more than 1300 innings at second base, however, and is viewed as a viable option at either position. He’s more of an emergency option at shortstop, where he’s played 86 career innings.
Newly hired president of baseball operations David Stearns has primarily completed on depth signings in his first several weeks on the job, though the Mets are reported to be in pursuit of several more notable free agent and trade targets. Bannon joins Cole Sulser, Jose Iglesias, Taylor Kohlwey and Andre Scrubb as former big leaguers to sign minor league deals with the Mets in recent weeks. New York has also claimed Cooper Hummel, Tyler Heineman and Zack Short off waivers and signed Jorge Lopez, Joey Wendle, Austin Adams and Michael Tonkin to low-cost deals that put them on the 40-man roster.
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