How Reds coach Alon Leichman helped the growth of Mets pitching prospects Christian Scott and Mike Vasil
Mets prospects Mike Vasil (left) and Christian Scott (right) both can credit Reds coach Alon Leichman (inset) with helping their development. Credit: Newsday/Alejandra Villa Loarca; AP/Ross D. Franklin
CINCINNATI — It takes a village to raise a pitching prospect. For the Mets, one of the villagers is in the opposing dugout this weekend.
Alon Leichman, the Reds’ assistant pitching coach, played a fleeting but important role in the recent development of two of the Mets’ top minor-league starters, Christian Scott and Mike Vasil, forging a relationship with continued two-way overwhelmingly positive feelings even though they don’t get to cross paths these days.
Then Leichman almost got hired by the team for a role on the major-league staff, a tantalizing opportunity but a risk he decided he couldn’t take.
“He’s very gifted in how he can communicate to players,” said pitching coach Jeremy Hefner, who met Leichman through a mutual friend around 2018. “He can take a lot of information and make it very simple, very actionable. He has a very empathetic and caring heart and really wants the best for the guys that he works with and the people that he’s around.”
Or as Scott put it bluntly: “The GOAT.”
Scott and Vasil crossed paths with Leichman in the Arizona Fall League in 2022. The developmental mini-season features rosters and coaching staffs composed of folks from a bunch of organizations, a mishmash that yielded Leichman, then a minor-league instructor with the Mariners, working with Mets prospects on the Peoria Javelinas.
At that point, neither righthander had much of a changeup. In his freewheeling, try-anything approach to coaching, Leichman suggested the same new grip to both: the ball between their middle and index fingers, which were split but not so much so that the pitch would be a true splitter. It was meant to roll off the middle finger, with the seam positioned in such a way that the ball spun sideways, which was different but good, Leichman explained.
Vasil and Scott didn’t understand all that at first. That was OK. They didn’t have to.
“I’m never coming with the approach of ‘you need to do this,’ ” Leichman told Newsday. “It’s more like, hey, try this. If it’s anywhere in the vicinity of what I think it can be, then hey, do that again. Or if it’s really, really bad, all right, [expletive] it. Forget about it.
“They don’t even know why I’m asking sometimes. I’m not coming with a whole ‘hey, this is what I’m thinking,’ blah, blah, blah. I want them to not think too much about it. Hey, try this real quick. I got a crazy grip I want you to try. ‘All right.’ Boom.”
Over the course of several days, they toyed with that version of a changeup during their warmup catch sessions, just getting a feel for it. Scott said he practiced it “like 1,000” times.
Soon it clicked.
“We didn’t know at first what was going on,” Vasil said. “He was just like, ‘hey, try this.’ After two days, we got it. We did and it worked out. Which is rare. It doesn’t always happen.”
Leichman said: “My style is really messing around with a lot of grips . . . Their changeups weren’t really good. I was like, ‘hey, just try this. Hold it here, throw it hard.’ They both pulled it out the next game because that’s the fall league, that’s why we’re here. Just go do it.”
Eighteen months later, that changeup remains a part of the repertoire of both pitchers, who loom with Triple-A Syracuse as potential rotation options later this year.
In his season debut, Vasil threw his changeup more than any pitch but his fastball. Scott, whose offering has evolved into more of a split-change, used it less often but got three whiffs (and one foul ball) on four swings in his Triple-A debut.
Leichman said when he texted with Scott last week, Scott told him: Yep, still throwing with his grip.
“It’s an important pitch for them to continue to develop and realize when to throw it and when not to throw it,” Hefner said.
In the weeks after that AFL season, the Mets needed a bullpen coach heading into 2023. They sought to interview Leichman, who that day was interviewing with the Reds. Cincinnati offered him the job on the spot and wanted an answer by the next morning — when he could have been in New York.
Intrigued by the Mets, Leichman opted for the sure thing, a major-league role with the Reds. The Mets wound up with Dom Chiti, a buddy of then-manager Buck Showalter.
“You’re always trying to attract smart people and good humans,” Hefner said. “It hasn’t quite synced up.”
Leichman hoped to see Vasil or Scott this weekend, but that didn’t sync up either. A promotion now would’ve been a tad quick for the Mets’ tastes. Maybe in September when the Reds come to Citi Field.
“They’ll both be good big-league pitchers,” Leichman said. “I don’t see how they won’t be.”
Tim Healey is the Mets beat writer for Newsday. Born on Long Island and raised in Connecticut, Tim has previously worked for the South Florida Sun Sentinel, the Boston Globe and MLB.com. He is also the author of “Hometown Hardball,” a book about minor league baseball in the northeast.
