Sam Haggerty made it to the big leagues

Sam Haggerty was acquired by the Mets as the secondary piece of the Kevin Plawecki trade last offseason. A 24th round pick of the 2015 draft by the Indians, Haggerty spent three seasons fighting his way through the lower minors before finally making his way up to Triple-A briefly last year.

The 25-year-old has never been considered much of a prospect, but does bring unique speed and versatility at multiple positions. That said, Fangraphs ranked him as the 19th-best prospect in the Mets’ system last offseason, which may say more about the depth of the Mets’ system than it does about anything else.

Haggerty spent most of the 2019 season at Double-A Binghamton, save for the month he missed with a hamstring injury. In 68 games there, he hit .259/.370/.356 with 19 stolen bases. That earned him a brief call-up to Triple-A Syracuse, where he slashed .310/.383/.524 in 12 games.

At the conclusion of the minor league season, the Mets were preparing to expand their major-league roster to set themselves up for a September playoff chase. Recognizing a lack of speed on the team, the team needed to add any speed off the bench they could. So they decided to make some room on the 40-man roster and called up Haggerty to be a pinch-runner down the stretch. The Mets social media team released the video of Syracuse manager Tony DeFrancesco informing Haggerty of his call-up, and with it being such a feel-good, genuine moment for him, the video received a lot of publicity and got Haggerty some recognition.

Haggerty made his MLB debut as a pinch-runner on September 4 in Washington, but did not get a chance to flash his wheels. He did get a chance two days later, though, when he was brought in to pinch run for Todd Frazier in the 8th inning of a 2-2 game against the Phillies. Haggerty advanced to second on a bunt, and scored the go-ahead run on a Pete Alonso single to left field, beating the throw to the plate.

Haggerty got his first MLB plate appearance on September 11, in another feel-good moment. Even though the Mets were blowing out the Diamondbacks out, the entire team went to the top step of the dugout to cheer Haggerty on. The fans joined in as well, giving him a nice hand. Even though he struck out, it was an at-bat Haggery will never forget.

He made some other sporadic pinch run and hit appearances over the rest of the month, but never had much impact on another game. He appeared in 11 games overall, and had 4 plate appearances and went 0-for-4 with three strikeouts.

Haggerty is probably not a player who will ever stand out in your memory, but he was involved in some cool moments. For a player like him, you never know when, if ever, he will get another crack at the big leagues, so it’s always cool to see someone like him have his hard work recognized and his dreams come true.