We’ll go team-by-team through the NL East, and our first victim/guest is Craig Calcaterra of Hardballtalk.com. He’s great and offers bourbon recommendations.
We’re on itunes here. We love reviews and rankings.
You can call to leave a voicemail for the show at (347) 915-METS, or shoot us an email at mostlymetspodcast (at) gmail.com.
Show rundown after the jump
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MiLB.com has a nice interview up with Zack Wheeler discussing his progress in 2011 with his breaking stuff, his mechanics, and playing baseball with his older brothers growing up.
On his early baseball memories:
We would be in the backyard before they went to their Little League games when I was like 3 years old, just this little kid. I would put on these huge shin guards that were for a grown person and a chest protector and a mask and they would just throw the ball at me because I wanted to get hit by it every day.
And his introduction to New York’s passionate fans.
MiLB.com: I heard a story that when you got traded to the Mets. Did your number of Twitter followers exploded?
Wheeler: Yeah. I went from San Jose where they have an awesome fan base and they are die-hard and they love their players. I had like 3,500 followers which is pretty good, but as soon as I got traded my phone started blowing up and I had to hurry up and turn off that email from Twitter that tells you every time you get a new follower.
It was just blowing up. I got back on two hours later, and people were asking me so many questions about the trade. I had like 7,000 followers and I was like, “Oh my gosh, I guess I am with a New York team now. Everybody loves me.”
Jon Mayo at MLB.com has his official Top 100 prospects in baseball up and this year, has three Mets on the list Zack Wheeler at #28, Matt Harvey at #38, and Jeurys Familia at #90.
On Wheeler, Mets VP of Scouting and Player Development Paul DePodesta said that of the three, he has the ”best wipeout stuff” and “if a hitter has two strikes, he’s probably the most dangerous.”
As for Familia and Harvey, their mental acumen stands out.
DePodesta on Harvey:
“Matt has really impressed me just with how mature he is, how dedicated and how focused he is on the task at hand, how willing he is to work on things, when he knows that they’re not going to benefit him immediately, but they may benefit him down the line.”
This has to be a reference to Harvey’s interest and focus on working on secondary stuff in game situations. Scouts thought he could dominate a-ball hitters just with his fastball, but were similarly impressed that he was working on his slider, curve and changeup, all of which made major strides last summer.
Depodesta on Familia:
“Familia has impressed me on a lot of different fronts,” DePodesta said. “For such a young guy, I’m impressed with his mental discipline and mental focus in addition to the stuff. All these guys have electric stuff, and that jumps out at you right away.”
Mayo’s comment on Familia was plenty interesting, writing “Famillia’s pure stuff will be good enough to pitch near the top of a rotation. How he harnesses that stuff will determine his ultimate ceiling.” Considering his age, performance at double-A and mid-90s fastball, I think Familia gets underrated a little. It’s all nitpicking I suppose, but so it goes.
This is part four of four of our series looking at players who made last year’s Top 41 Mets Prospects who will not join the list again this time around. Part one on the recent MLB position players is here, part two on recently graduated pitchers is here, while part three on the pitchers who slipped is here.
#7 – Fernando Martinez
He’s an Astro now that the Mets have released him, in a decision I found perplexing at the time. He would have fallen down the rankings, but remained in the top 20 on age, legacy of potential and in fact, underrated production at triple-A given his age. Again, he showed above average power at AAA last year as measured by isolated slugging percentage.
#22 – Brad Emaus
The Mets gave him his chance out of spring training and he responded by hitting .162/.262/.162 in 42 plate appearances in 14 games in April before the team put him on waivers. The Rockies traded minor leaguer Chris Malone to the Blue Jays for Emaus. Despite hitting .313/.389/.564 in 45 games for triple-A Colorado Springs, the Rockies were not interested in brining him up for another big league look and in fact might be interested in Justin Turner, reigniting the Mets’ thrilling 2011 open competition at second base. (Correction: the Rockies traded Emaus to the Red Sox for a player to be named later or cash on January 11. He appears destined to be the Paw Sox starting 2B in the International League.)
#32 – Sean Ratliff
He’ll be 25 for Opening Day 2012 and is coming off a career threatening injury that including damage to his eye and eye socket. When he last played, he combined to hit .298/.353/.505 with 21 homeruns over 130 games between A+ St. Lucie and AA Binghamton.
The bone has healed nicely, but his eye is not yet back to game ready. He’s hoping it will be ready in time.
As he told Metsmerized online:
My vision has been steadily improving since my last surgery in late August, and is fairly close to hopefully being game ready by the time spring training ends.
Here is Ratliff explaining his surgery history:
I received an emergency laser repair for a giant retinal tear two days after my injury, which unfortunately did not hold. The Mets staff connected me with one of the premier retina hospitals in the nation, the Bascom-Palmer Eye Institute in Miami, where Dr. Harry Flynn performed my first major eye surgery. The recovery was 4-6 months with a follow up surgery at the completion of the recovery (from the first surgery), my final procedure in August. Now my recovery mainly consists of working with optometrists to find a custom contact lens that will bring my vision back to where it needs to be.
The bottom line is that at 25, he no longer has the upside of a regular, and the downside is that his vision doesn’t finish recovering to the point where he will ever play professional baseball again. That stinks, but it’s a possibility.
#38 Robbie Shields
Injuries have robbed Robbie Shields of crucial development time. He missed time in 2009 with Brooklyn, Tommy John Surgery cost him the first half of 2010, and then back pain cut his 2011 to just 80 games between Savannah and St. Lucie. The bottom line is that he’ll be 24 in 2012 with just 20 games to his credit at the advanced-A level.
The Mets moved Shields from shortstop to second base because his range plays better on the right side of the diamond. Add it all up, and he looks like organizational depth.
This is part three of my series looking at guys who were on my pre-season Top 41 Mets prospect list who will not appear this year. We took on the MLB graduates yesterday, and today we’ll look at guys who for injury or performance, or both, are off the list.
Each player’s name links back to his scouting report from last year.
#16 – Mark Cohoon
The command left-hander met his match in triple-A in 2011 after blowing through a-ball and double-A in 2010. It wasn’t only that he ran an ERA of 6.11, but the manner in which he did it. Batters collected 120 hits in 94.1 innings, and his K/BB was just 1.3 behind a K/9 of 4.9. As wonderful a story as Cohoon has been, I just don’t see big league value here.
#21 – Manny Alvarez
After a great 2010, Debbie Downer was concerned that Alvarez was a “one-year wonder.” She looks awfully prescient. After 10 unimpressive innings between double-A and triple-A, Alvarez hurt his elbow in May and disappeared for the year.
#24 – Steven Matz
Matz, the Mets second-round pick in 2009, Matz missed the 2010 and 2011 seasons recovering from May 2010 Tommy John surgery. Most pitchers bounce back fully from the TJ procedure, but remember that Matz was a prospect before the surgery, and would have needed considerable development time before he was potentially close to big league-ready.
It’s not only that I do not know how he’ll look when he comes back, he doesn’t either.
#25 – Josh Stinson
“But Toby, he made his Major League debut on September 2, 2011. He had a good year.” True, and false.
Stinson made his MLB debut on 9/2/11 at Washington. In 13 big league innings, he gave up 10 runs on 14 hits with seven walks and eight strikeouts. That’s not why I’m bailing on Stinson. Nope, it’s the ordinary numbers at double-A and bad numbers at triple-A. In 61.2 innings with Buffalo, he gave up 77 hits, walked 33 and fanned 32. More walks than strikeouts at AAA. No thanks.
With an average fastball at 93 mph, Stinson is a four-pitch guy with a slider, and seldom used curveball and changeup.
#26 – Brad Holt
It’s been a pretty dramatic fall from grace from Brad Holt who I had at #3, #7 and #26 in the system in the last three years.
In his third try at double-A, Holt put up his best ERA at the level, but his walk rate (5.5 BB/9; 13%) still was ugly. He fanned 7.1 batters per nine (17.5%), which hardly portends greatness. In fact, one of the remarkable things about Holt is how consistent his strikeout rate at double-A has been, from 18.2% in 2009, to 16% in 2010.
He doesn’t have a special pitch. The fastball has lost velocity and sits around 92.
#29 – Kyle Allen
I essentially gave Allen a pass on a bad 2010 when he had issued one more walk than strikeout on the theory that he was having back problems. The bad news: he repeated his 2010 walk rate of 11.8% to the decimal point in 2011. More bad news: he gave up 131 hits in 106 innings pitched on his way to a 6.28 ERA.
#35 – Nick Carr
I just don’t know what to do with Nick Carr anymore. He had his best season in the Florida State League in 2011 (2.40 ERA, 10.2 K/9, 4.2 BB/9 in 30 IP) in his FOURTH try at the league.
#39 – Jimmy Fuller
The little lefty missed the entire 2011 season with a shoulder injury.
#41 – Zach Dotson
GCL: 2 G, 1 IP, 4 H, 6 R, 6 ER, 5 BB, 3 WP. The Mets spent $500,000 to sign their 14th round pick in 2009. So far, he’s a useful reminder that going over slot is no guarantee of success.
This is part two of a look at guys who made last year’s Top 41 Prospect list, but will not appear this year. Part one looking at the position players is here. This is the happy section with the MLB graduations. The next parts will discuss the guys who have slipped off the list.
#11 – Dillon Gee
A year ago, Dr. Pangloss said, “Gee won’t be any kind of star, but could well stick as a competent (and cheap) fourth or fifth starter.”
Indeed, Gee pretty much was a bottom-end fifth starter. His 4.43 ERA nearly perfectly matched his 4.46 xFIP, and was slightly below his 4.65 FIP for a 84 ERA+. In total, he put up a 0.2 fWAR and a 1.6 BRefWAR. With basic rates of 6.39 K/9 and a 3.98 BB/9 or a 10% walk rate and a 16% strikeout rate, he is a back-end kind of starter.
#15 – Pedro Beato
Hi, I’m a middle reliever – 4.30 ERA, 4.64 xFIP and a -0.3 fWAR and -0.3 BRef WAR. He fanned 5.2 batters/9 IP, walked 3.6 or in percentage terms fanned 13.8% and walked 9.5% of batters faced.
A year ago, Debbie Downer wrote, “His K/rate of 7.5 at AA was a little ordinary for my taste.”
Sure, mid-90s heat is great, but the fastball is better than the whole package now. Beato will be fighting hard for the Mets’ last bullpen spot, and might well land back in Buffalo, now that he’s no longer subject to the Rule 5 roster restrictions, to refine his game to start 2012.
I counted 17 players from last year’s Top 41 prospect list who will not make this year’s list, which I should start writing about Wednesday. We’re going to spend today looking at those 17. There are some happy stories including MLB graduations, and many less joyous outcomes.
We’ll start with the three MLB graduates on the position side.
#9 – Lucas Duda
A year ago, I nominated Lucas Duda to be the Mets’ starting right fielder if Carlos Beltran was injured on Opening Day. As it turned out, that was unnecessary – Beltran was healthy and effective in the first half. However, when he was called upon, Duda hit a solid .292/.370/.482 in 100 games. Sure enough, his defense (-11.8) UZR ate away at his overall value, but he’s a valuable and cheap piece for the Mets moving forward.
#17 – Justin Turner
I thought Turner would make a strong platoon-partner with Daniel Murphy at second base. That platoon never really materialized. Once the Mets tired of the Brad Emaus experiment, Turner played second nearly every day in May while putting together a 325/.378/.458 month with eight doubles and yes, 20 RBI that made him an early media darling.
The bad news? His OPS peaked at .962 on May 20 when he was hitting .364/.417/.545, and it was more or less all downhill from there, permanently dropping below the .800 mark on June 4 and the .750 mark a few days later. He flirted with a .700 OPS the rest of the way, finishing at .690 as part of a .260/.334/.356 campaign. From May 21 through the final day of the regular season, he hit .245/.322/.329.
MLB second basemen hit .260/.320/.389 in 2011, so taking Turner’s season as a whole, he produced above average on-base skills, but below average power for the position.
Turner fared poorly by the defensive metrics as well, with BIS’s defensive runs saved putting him at -11 runs for the season and UZR at -10.
Combine average-ish offensive production with below average defense, with the ability to back up shortstop, and he looks like a bench piece or, perhaps a trade chip moving forward, rather than a long term answer at second.
#20 – Ruben Tejada
Ruben Tejada posted the fifth-best fWAR among Mets’ position players in 2011 at 1.8 behind Jose Reyes (6.2), Carlos Beltran (3.4), Daniel Murphy (3.2) and David Wright (1.9). At 96 games played, Tejada played the fewest games as a Met, of any member of that quintet.
Ultimate Zone Rating putting Tejada 1.1 runs to the good, or about 11 runs, while Defensive runs saved has him a run below average at shortstop. Call it a wash, and say he played something around average shortstop.
Bottom line, a .360 on-base percentage with average defense at short is very valuable. Now, if he could only slug his on-base percentage, the Mets would really have something. At 22, he should get a little stronger, and could well continue to develop offensively.
