Cyclone skipper continues success with Binghamton Mets

There’s a saying in baseball that “catchers make the best managers” and the Binghamton Mets’ Pedro Lopez — who once skippered the Cyclones — continues to prove that saying to be true.

Entering his fifth season with the B-Mets, former minor league catcher Lopez is coming off of a third consecutive season in which he has led his team to a post-season appearance while becoming Binghamton’s all-time game winning manager during his four-year (2012-2015) tenure in the Southern Tier.

In his second year at the helm at the New York Mets’ minor league Double-A affiliate, Lopez led his team to an 86-55 first place finish and was named the Eastern League’s 2013 Manager of the Year. Following that success in 2014, Lopez led the B-Mets to their first Eastern League championship in 20 years and was subsequently enshrined in Binghamton’s Baseball Shrine at NYSEG Stadium in 2015.

Starting out as a manager in the Mets organization first in 2008 at the Mets Rookie League in Kingsport, Tennessee and then with Short Season-A Brooklyn in 2009, Lopez first led the Cyclones to a Wild Card playoff appearance. Like his fellow minor league players, Lopez moved up in the Mets’ minor league ladder with stops in Low-A Savannah in 2010 and High-A St. Lucie in 2011. Now entering the 2016 season, Lopez promised another exciting season with his major league hopefuls as the Binghamton Mets celebrate their silver anniversary season (1992-2016).

Recently, Binghamton was the showcase-launching site of former 2014 Brooklyn Cyclone star Michael Conforto, who was called up to New York during the 2015 mid-season to help a struggling Met team with some much-needed offense — a move that helped the team to a World Series run. Going back to the 1950s and 1960s when Binghamton was a Double-A affiliate of the New York Yankees, future major league stars like Whitey Ford and Thurman Munson also played in front of Binghamton fans.

Current New York Met stars like Jacob deGrom, Noah Syndergaard, Steven Matz and Wilmer Flores — who contributed to last season’s New York Met success and eventual 2015 World Series appearance — also played at Binghamton during Lopez’s four-year tenure. Entering this season, Lopez will have three minor league notables to manage; two 2015 New York Met Sterling Award winners, pitcher Robert Gsellman and first baseman Dominic Smith, as well as the son of a star New York Met, second baseman L. J. Mazzilli.

Of all the players that came through Binghamton, the most respected B-Met player ever to don the uniform starred there in 2004 and continues to be “an ambassador to the game,” to quote former New York Met and minor league manager Howard Johnson. That player, of course, is the New York Mets’ lynchpin David Wright who simply reinforces the B-Mets’ current affiliate slogan, “Watch tomorrow’s stars today.”