St. Paul – When the New York Mets traded Rylan Bannon to the Minnesota Twins organization on July 15, he was one of Triple-A Syracuse’s best hitters.
Bannon was tied with teammate Luke Ritter for the second-most games played for the Syracuse Mets at 79, only three behind Luisangel Acuña, the brother of Twins prospect Bryan Acuña and Ronald Acuña Jr. He also was only behind Ritter for the team lead in home runs by three (15) and RBI just by two (57) and led the team with a .867 OPS.
“When we got him we had talked about what he did to us when Syracuse came and played us and how we were really excited to get that caliber of player,” said Saints hitting coach Shawn Schlechter. “He plays hard, he shows up, he works hard every day.”
The Syracuse Mets played the Saints at CHS Field from June 4-9. Bannon was 7-for-22 (.318 batting average) with a home run, four runs batted in, and a .400 batting average on balls in play. Bannon’s success against Saints pitching helped propel the Syracuse Mets to a 4-2 series victory in St. Paul.
But Bannon didn’t maintain his mojo from Syracuse when he joined the Saints for the second half of their season. He’ll be the first to admit his struggles and what went wrong.
“I’ve really struggled since coming over here. It’s not a secret,” Bannon said about his struggles with the Saints. “I kind of broke down, been struggling with it mentally and physically for sure and those feed into each other a little bit. It’s definitely been a grind every single day, but I feel like I’ve handled it pretty well.”
In 49 games with St. Paul to finish the season, his triple slash dropped from .254/.392/.475 in 342 plate appearances with the Mets to .165/.330/.285 in 197 plate appearances with the Saints. Bannon still finished the season with 96 walks between Syracuse and St. Paul, the second most by any player in the International League this season.
What changed was that Bannon drew considerably more strikeouts, going from a 23.1 strikeout percentage to 28.9% in Minnesota. On the positive side, his walk rate increased slightly while he took more strikeouts, going from 17.5% in New York to 18.3%.
“I definitely need to work on some stuff at the plate,” said Bannon. “There’s some stuff glaring in my game right now that opened my eyes a lot this year, and obviously, I had a really strong first half, so I know what it feels like. I know what I need to do to get like that again, but baseball’s hard, man.”
The challenges that came with his 49 games in St. Paul impacted Bannon mentally. It wasn’t the first time in his career that the mental side of the game impacted him on and off the field. He shared his experience in the Baltimore Orioles farm system.
“I really let it beat me up that year,” Bannon said. “Even though I am not performing to the best of my abilities on the field right now, I think I learned how to deal with it mentally. It’s really easy to get yourself into a mental hole, and it turns into many other things. I’ve learned how to manage that and not take it home with me every night.”
Despite Bannon’s struggles on the field and with the mental side of the game, he was still a welcomed addition to the Saints clubhouse. He fit in as a mentor to younger players like Payton Eeles.
“Guys like him, Diego A. Castillo, they’ve had a decent amount of big league time,” said Eeles. “They’re not big names, but they’ve gotten their fair share, and I just like picking their brains about stuff. I think just position-wise, we’re in the same group, so I’m always taking ground balls with him. He’s a good guy, so I always end up sitting next to him in the kitchen when we’re getting food and stuff.”
“Rylan’s an awesome dude, man. He’s great,” said Saints manager Toby Gardenhire on Bannon’s presence in the clubhouse. “He’s had a little bit of a tough time since he’s come up here. But at the same time, when he came here with Syracuse in June, he absolutely killed us, and he’s had some good games here with us, and he’s had some tough times. At the same time, he’s a veteran dude. He’s the same guy every single day, plays good defense, does a lot of things right and we’re rooting for him.”
Bannon, 28, may have missed out on returning to the majors this season. However, he accumulated seven games in his career between the Baltimore Orioles, Houston Astros, and Atlanta Braves in 2022 and 2023.
The trade to the Twins and setbacks in his performance may have prevented him from returning to the big leagues in 2024. But with the amount of effort Bannon puts into the game every day, his teammates and coaches in St. Paul have no doubts he will work his ass off to ensure a return to the big leagues in 2025.
“You struggle physically, and sometimes that leaks into your mental side, it can really take a toll on you,” said Bannon. “So I’ve learned a lot this year and definitely have a lot to take into the off-season and work on.”
Bannon finished the Saints’ last game of the season with an inside-the-park home run in his first at-bat, but he wasn’t in for the final outs as he got hit by a pitch in the bottom of the seventh, removing him from the game. Despite the injury at the end of the year, Bannon still has an incredible home run to build off of with his off-season workouts and build back towards the Majors in 2025.