Fr
iday, in his chat at Baseball America, Matt Eddy took a few Mets related questions:
- richard (brooklyn): do you think jerry mejia,brad holt, and josh thole will be in the top 100 and if so where?
Matthew Eddy: Holt and Mejia have a bead on the Top 100 if they keep up the pace. Though Holt’s ankle injury has sidelined him since his first Double-A start. Thole shows an impressive feel for hitting (he leads the EL in average), but without another standout tool, he’s probably not a Top 100 prospect.
Just to review, the traditional five tools are: hitting, hitting for power, catching, running and throwing. Thole’s hit tool is just fine, his power is below average, and his arm is average. That leaves the big question: his defense. I’m hoping to catch him in person by the end of this week and get some other perspectives on his development.
Brian (Brooklyn NY): As a Mets fan am I being overly optimistic by liking their system? Niese and F-Mart ceem to profile as being contributor and Meija and Davis have both had excellent seasons while Holt and Havens have showns flashes when healthy. Throw in Flores and Marte and it would seem to me like they have a top 10-12 system. Am I being incredibly biased?
Matthew Eddy: Yes and no. The Mets brought on a lot of premium talent in the past two years, especially through the ’08 draft (Davis, Havens, Holt) and the ’07 international class (Flores, Marte), but in terms of depth at the upper levels, they’ve come up short this season. Consider that Triple-A Buffalo and Double-A Binghamton are two of the worst teams in the minors and that the Mets have had all sorts of trouble plugging holes at the big league level as injuries have decimated their starting unit. (And the one player who has exceeded expectations, Omir Sanots, was brought on as a minor league free agent, so you can credit their pro scouting effort there — not their amateur scouting.)
Eddy nails this point about the farm system’s relative inability to help so far this year. Jon Niese is in AAA and pitching much better, as are Eddie Kunz and Adam Bostick in the Bisons ‘pen. However, the lack of upper level bats in the system has been badly exposed.
On the show formerly known as Mike and the Mad Dog last week, Omar Minaya specifically credited Tony Bernazard for finding and signing Omir Santos. So any suggestion that Omar signed Omir because he liked his name was totally specious. That, and the Mets don’t employ an Omer, Omur or an Omor that I know about.
re: Thole – Eddy is right.. the only thing that has stood out from Thole is his superb hitting and eye at the plate.. but other than that, his defense is still developing and he doesn’t have power.
I think he’ll be an effective 2-hole hitter in the future for the Mets though.. I know I’ve said this so many times but think Paul LoDuca in 2006 (.318/.355/.428 .. only 5 HR)
He actually has been hitting an awful lot of doubles, so its not like he has no power – just lacks HR power. But you are probably right that he is unlikely to translate that doubles power into 25+ HR per season, or anywhere near there. Also, I realize you included LoDuca’s line as an example, and not Thole’s gold standard, but I will add that it would not be a stretch to see Thole with a higher relative OBP and SLG than LoDuca’s 2006 line, as he seems to walk more than LoDuca
Yeah I think he’ll be better than LoDuca in his career, which is why the Mets should hang onto him. If you compare their minor league numbers, LoDuca didn’t play in AA full time until he was 25 (he had a small 61 game stint in AA when he was 23).. He put up a .327 avg/.399 obp when he was 25 in AA (105 games), compare that to Thole’s .343 avg/.407 obp at the age of 22 (65 games).. also worth noting was LoDuca had 28 doubles in those 105 games, Thole has 21 doubles in 65 games, so hes on pace to hit more double than LoDuca did at the time.
With the way Citifiled is playing, a high OBP line drive hitting doubles machine will be perfect.