Ace Gervase: Paul Gervase Takes Big Strides Towards Queens

It is hard to miss Paul Gervase’s presence at the ballpark. The 6-foot-10 right-handed pitcher generally towers over his competition with his stature. However, in 2023, Gervase was also imposing in his performance.

Starting his first full professional season on Coney Island, Gervase was the Cyclones’ lone honoree on the South Atlantic League Post-Season All-Star team as a relief pitcher. Among SAL relievers with at least 45.0 innings pitched, the 23-year-old posted the league’s lowest ERA (1.72) and hits-per-nine innings (4.60), in addition to the circuit’s highest strikeouts-per-nine inning ratio (14.55).

After a head-turning campaign that culminated with a playoff run at Double-A Binghamton, Gervase went back to familiar surroundings in the offseason to take another stride forward toward his call to Flushing.

“I probably spent about a month down in Baton Rouge [Louisiana] training with all of my old teammates,” said Gervase about his winter regimen. “A lot of big-name prospects, a lot of guys that maybe people haven’t heard of, but I love working out down there with those guys.”

What makes the environment on Paul’s old college campus at Louisiana State University so special? Well, not only has the Southeastern Conference program accrued seven national titles since 1990, but it has become a place where students and alumni of all ages can improve their craft.

“We can just bounce ideas off each other,” Gervase said concerning what he loves about LSU. “You got guys that are good at throwing sliders. You have guys that are good at throwing changeups. You have guys that are good at so many different things, we use all that to pick each other’s brains and see what works for each guy and use it to better our games.”

Gervase will have an opportunity to showcase what he has worked on during the winter months in Major League Baseball’s inaugural “Spring Breakout” set to be held the weekend of Friday, March 15. The right-hander was among the 27 New York Mets prospects selected to participate in Friday’s game against the Washington Nationals farmhands at Clover Park in Port St. Lucie.

“Yeah, it’s really cool. I really like what they’re [MLB] doing putting it together,” said Gervase about the event. “Put guys that aren’t as well known, as obviously, the big-league guys and kind of give them a showcase.”

While, the Fuquay-Varina, N.C. native is excited about the opportunity to showcase his arsenal, he and his fellow Mets farmhands not only want to put on a show for the audience. They want to win.

“It’s cool to be named and all this, but we’re out here to compete and win against the Nationals,” said Gervase. “They [the Nationals] got a lot of Pipeline guys that are ranked pretty high, but you know, we got some pretty good players on our side too...We think our farm system can stack up with anybody else.”

In addition to receiving the opportunity in the inaugural Spring Breakout, the 2022 12th-round pick has made a handful of appearances in New York’s Major League Spring Training games, registering a strikeout against former National League MVP and St. Louis Cardinals first baseman Paul Goldschmidt.

“Yeah, that was pretty nerve-wracking, because it was bases loaded too,” said Gervase with a laugh about the experience. “I was just kind of like, alright [Omar] Narváez, what do you got on this guy? I was just trying to execute everything he was calling. There was no way I was shaking him off.”

“If you go after these guys with your best stuff and don’t be timid or nervous or anything like that you’re going to have a lot of success,” Gervase added. “I got him to swing and miss a couple of times and eventually did strike him out, which was really cool.”

The opportunity to whiff one of the game’s best also helped hammer home lessons shared by Mets right-handed relievers Sean Reid-Foley and Adam Ottavino during the spring.

“You got drafted for a reason, we’re in the minors getting promoted for a reason, it’s because our stuff is good enough,” said Gervase about what Reid-Foley shared with him. “He’s like, ‘You got it, treat everything like it’s 3-0 and just go after guys.’ I thought that was cool coming from a guy in the big leagues who has been there.”

With the 2024 regular season on the horizon and a full year of professional baseball under his belt, the lanky right-hander has become a resource himself for the following crop of Mets' prospects, including the next generation of Brooklyn Cyclones set to fill his void.

"I would say embrace the chaos," Gervase advised future Cyclone superstars. "Just focus on your game and then you see all the excitement [at the ballpark], especially when you're not playing...So, just embrace it and enjoy yourself."