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This is part five of my continuing review of my pre-season ranking of the Mets Top 41 prospects. Part 1 (36-41) is here, part 2 (31-35) is here, part 3 (26-30) is here and part 4 (21-25) is here.
ALL STATS IN TABLES ARE AS OF JULY 1, 2009.
#16 C Josh Thole
| G | AB | H | 2B | 3B | HR | BB | SO | SB | CS | AVG | OBP | SLG | BB% | SO% | XBH% | PA | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 08 FSL | 111 | 347 | 104 | 25 | 2 | 5 | 45 | 38 | 2 | 1 | .300 | .382 | .427 | 11.19 | 9.45 | 7.96 | 402 |
| 08 AFL | 19 | 69 | 22 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 10 | 6 | 1 | 0 | .319 | .400 | .420 | 11.63 | 6.98 | 3.49 | 86 |
| 09 EL | 68 | 257 | 89 | 21 | 2 | 1 | 31 | 25 | 4 | 2 | 0.346 | 0.414 | 0.455 | 10.44 | 8.42 | 8.08 | 297 |
Stock: UP
After leading the Eastern League in batting average for much of the spring, Thole has answered any questions about his hitting ability. Note that his walk, strikeout and extra base hit rates are essentially unchanged as he moved up from FSL to the EL, that in itself is some kind of accomplishment. However, there are still major questions surrounding Thole’s defense, mostly about his arm. He’s improved his receiving skills to be adequate. However, if he can’t stick behind the plate, his value drops dramatically. As much as I love an OBP above .400 and a hitter who walks almost as much as he strikes out, he doesn’t have the power to profile as a classic firstbaseman. Working in Thole’s favor at this point is his age (22), underlying hitting ability and work ethic, as even those who question his tools praise his effort.
#17 OF Cesar Puello
| G | AB | H | 2B | 3B | HR | BB | SO | SB | CS | AVG | OBP | SLG | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| GCL | 40 | 151 | 46 | 6 | 0 | 1 | 5 | 32 | 13 | 5 | .305 | .350 | .364 |
Stock: unchanged
The Mets assigned Puello to Kingsport, a perfectly age appropriate level for the 18-year old. Puello struck out a fair amount, in 20% of his PA in 2008, so this could become an issue for him as moves up. Of course, to be a productive MLBer, he will also need to hit for more power and walk more than once every 30 AB or so.
#18 LHP Robert Carson
| ERA | G/GS | IP | H | R | ER | HR | BB | SO | BB/9 | SO/9 | SO/BB | GO/AO | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 08 GCL | 1.57 | 5/5 | 23 | 11 | 5 | 4 | 0 | 6 | 25 | 2.35 | 9.78 | 4.17 | 0.52 |
| 08 APP | 1.76 | 6/6 | 30.2 | 29 | 12 | 6 | 1 | 18 | 21 | 5.36 | 6.26 | 1.17 | 2.94 |
| 09 SAL | 2.39 | 14/14 | 75.1 | 76 | 37 | 20 | 1 | 26 | 51 | 3.12 | 6.11 | 1.96 | 1.91 |
Stock: Down or Holding
Carson’s pretty 2.39 ERA masks the 17 unearned runs he’s allowed, which push his total RA to 4.42. Ultimately, the pitcher is responsible to some degree for all baserunners, although the defense the Sandgnats have fielded behind him has been quite poor. While Carson has dropped his walk rate since a wild run over his final six starts in the Appalachian League last year, his strikeout rate remains a pedestrian 6.11. He must start missing more bats if his prospect status is to rise again. His groundball rate of nearly two is still strong and he doesn’t allow homers, which leaves some room for optimism that the young southpaw will learn to put hitters away in the coming years.
#19 SS Ruben Tejada
| G | AB | H | 2B | 3B | HR | BB | SO | SB | CS | AVG | OBP | SLG | BB% | SO% | XBH% | PA | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 08 FSL | 131 | 497 | 114 | 19 | 4 | 2 | 41 | 77 | 8 | 5 | .229 | .293 | .296 | 7.39 | 13.87 | 4.50 | 555 |
| 08 HWB | 24 | 86 | 20 | 3 | 1 | 0 | 7 | 14 | 2 | 2 | .233 | .284 | .291 | 7.29 | 14.58 | 4.17 | 96 |
| 09 AA | 74 | 258 | 72 | 13 | 1 | 2 | 25 | 37 | 7 | 1 | .279 | .352 | .360 | 8.39 | 12.42 | 5.37 | 298 |
Stock: Up
Fans who want to feel good about the Mets farm system will point to Ruben Tejada holding his own at AA at the tender age of 19. The problem is that he’s still the player he was last year. Tejada hits out of a slightly open stance and uses a leg kick (seen at right) to generate well below average big league power, so pitchers are willing to challenge him. As a result, he rarely strikes out because there are so many pitches in the strike zone. His plate discipline is impressive for a player of his age, but until he fills out and starts driving the ball, his offensive ceiling will remain very limited. His hands and arm are just good enough to play shortstop at the next levels, although he still has a little trouble on his backhand. I view his absolute ceiling as a regular whose offensive value derives from his contact ability with some OBP. At worst, he looks like a utility infielder.
#20 C Dock Doyle
| G | AB | H | 2B | 3B | HR | BB | SO | SB | CS | AVG | OBP | SLG | BB% | SO% | XBH% | PA | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 08 APP | 41 | 159 | 49 | 11 | 1 | 0 | 22 | 24 | 1 | 1 | .308 | .390 | .390 | 12.1 | 13.2 | 6.6 | 182 |
| 08 NYP | 5 | 16 | 4 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 6 | 0 | 0 | .250 | .294 | .375 | 0.0 | 35.3 | 11.8 | 17 |
| 09 NYP | 5 | 17 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 4 | 0 | 1 | .235 | .350 | .235 | 15.0 | 20.0 | 0.0 | 20 |
Stock: Down
Doyle’s stock is way down simply because he hasn’t played much, and when he has, he’s been too old for the level. I expected him to break camp with Savannah, but instead a pair of guys who I left off my top 41, and have done little to change my mind, Kai Gronauer and Jean Luc Blaquiere, have been the Gnats’ primary backstops. Instead, Doyle has reported to Brooklyn with the Cyclones as a 23-year old. If the organization can’t find a spot to play their fifth round pick from last June in a full-season league, well, he doesn’t deserve a top 20 ranking. Unless there’s an injury which was never reported, I don’t get the Mets handling of Doyle. I’m not arguing that Doyle’s a future star, or even big league regular, but I really don’t understand why the Mets won’t give themselves a chance to find out. Why spend a fifth round pick and $167,000 on Doyle in June 2008, play him nearly every day that summer, and then send him to Brooklyn, where he’s way too old for the league? I could find a much more fun way to waste $167K.
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RSS 2.0 You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.
off topic, but worth posting — brad holt: 7.0 IP, 4 hits, 0 runs, 1 BB, 7 K
….and somewhat on topic news, tejada had another great game: 3-4 with a BB and 3 RBI.. Ike Davis on the other hand was hitless in 5 at bats but did have a BB.
Very much disagree with you on Carson, you point to the unearned runs allowed, but consider that Marte has 32 Errors, Wilmer Flores has 10, Valdespin has 8 in limited playing time. It’s that sheer quantity of errors (Bordering on the ridiculous) that is inflating his RA more then anything else. There’s a reason they subtract errors (And the runs that come from errors) from a Pitchers stats.
I can understand some concern about the lack of a great SO rate, but when you’re inducing 60% groundballs, you’re doing something right.
Agreed 100%, there’s nothing in Carson’s BABIP that suggests his results are out of whack with what should be expected of an average defense. The stranger part is that the Gnats have a poor defense, and it actually seems like they’ve played up for him a bit when you look at his BABIPs on different types of batted balls. If anything, they’re a bit high. The BABIPs on FBs, GBs, and LDs in the major leagues, according to fangraphs, is about .730, .240, and .150 respectively. Carsons are .778, .232, and .214. In this case, the high error and unearned run rate seems more likely to be statistical noise than his low overall BABIP, and though his ERA is low, its more likely a result of his 66.1 LOB%. Still, none of this should kill his neutralized run rates. This is all reflected in his FIP and tRA, the proclaimed defense independent run rates, which are 3.43 and 3.27, respectively, both agreeing that he’s been quite effective.
Here’s the fangraphs article that talks about eBABIP and the rates on different types of batted balls:
http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/index.php/expected-babip-for-pitchers
Also, Toby, when you say “His groundball rate of nearly two is still strong” are you talking about GO/AO? In this case, and in most, I think GB% is a much better indication of ability than GO/AO. The big reason for this is GOs and AOs are just outs, and don’t include hits. As far as the pitcher is concerned, the difference between many groundouts and groundball hits is fairly arbitrary (not always, but often), and is more a result of defense and defensive positioning than a flaw on the pitchers part. There are other reasons I prefer GB%, but in this case, as adropofvenom points out, his 60% GB% is much more outstanding looking than his GO/AO ~2.00.
Meddler, yeah I was using go/ao rather than gb%. I suppose I should start using gb%.
BABIP in the minors is tricky. And I’d caution against relying too heavily on it.
I now can’t remember where I read it (likely BP or HBT), but it works differently in the minors. In the big leagues, as we know, BABIP really does oscillate around .300 and pitchers have relatively little control over it. (The exception is pitchers with an exceptional breaking ball can post repeatedly low BABIPs, but we digress). The point is that all MLB guys have reached a certain minimum level of competency having reached the bigs. This is not true in the minors where some of the guys move up, some move on from playing baseball and an even smaller number make the big leagues.
Anyway, the study I’m recalling found that at the minor league level, pitchers with lower BABIPs went on to be better MLBers than their minor league counterparts with higher BABIPs. The point is that PREVENTING HITS is an MLB SKILL, shared more or less evenly by MLB pitchers. I think that among MLB pitchers, their BABIPs rose through the minors from very low to near .300 as they approached the majors. This might have been a different study.
The other problem with using BABIP at the A-ball level is that A-ball glovework is vastly inferior to the stuff played on MLB diamonds.
It occurs to me that I haven’t read much on the subject this season, so if there is new, current research on the predictive power of minor league BABIP, please point it out to me. .
re: Carson – I know high K-rate is a really eye opening thing with pitching prospects, but its not always right. If you look at somebody like Chris Volstad, he is/was one of Florida’s top prospects and never put together eye-opening numbers .. about 8-9 hits per 9 IP, very low K-rate ..
ruben tejada is the man, fact.
they challenge him? blah blah, he’s the man.
he has always had ridiculous plate discipline, even when he was a 17 year old in st. lucie.
every coach loves him. tim teuffel spent like 15 minutes going ga-ga over this kid.
ruben tejada is the man. 4lyfe
Toby,
You are way too kind on the Mets handling of Doyle.
The only thing all year I have seen worse was Castillo’s handing of the pop fly against the Yankees.
“As a result, he rarely strikes out because there are so many pitches in the strike zone.”
My head just exploded.
Pick up the pieces. I expressed that poorly, but stand behind the main idea: pitchers aren’t scared of Tejada so they’re letting him make contact. Thus, he’s seeing lots of hittable fastballs. If pitchers were more scared of his power, they would nibble more, and throw him more breaking balls.