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In case you missed it yesterday with all of the injured Mets and thrilling trades, the Arizona Fall League released its initial 2009 rosters. The biggest name on the list is the Nationals’ Stephen Strasburg, who figures to make his professional debut as a Phoenix Devil Desert Dog.
The Mets will send 1B Ike Davis (.306/.392/.536 in 49 G at AA) and SS Ruben Tejada (.282/.345/.362 in 123 G at AA) to the Surprise Rafters. The Mets are also entitled to send an outfielder, a starter pitcher, and three relievers.
The outfield spot is a no-brainer for me. 22-year old Kirk Nieuwenhuis (.270/.354/.465 in A+) should go with one of the A-ball exemptions. His 16 HR place him second to Davis in the system, and his 16 SB, place him second behind AA CF Manny Garcia (.249/.305/.321).
As for the pitchers, it might be a nice opportunity to get Jenrry Mejia or Brant Rustich, who both missed a month or so, a few more innings. Maybe Jose De La Torre would get a look to put him on the fasttrack in 2010.
The AFL, which consists of six teams, stocked with the prospects from five MLB organizations, is a finishing school for top prospects. This year, the AFL will be the only fall league run by major league basball after Hawaii Winter Baseball went belly-up after last season. There had been some talk about creating an AFL2 for younger players, A-ball types, not ready for the AFL, but MLB did not build it into the budget. Instead, the AFL is relaxing its roster rules this year, and teams can now send up to two players from A-ball instead of the standard one.
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Not to take anything away from Nieuwenhuis, but t’s hard to believe that 16 HR and 16 SB are good for second in the system in both categories.
what exactly does he mean by 2nd in the system?
I think he meant out of the Mets’ stateside minor league affiliates. So if you lumped all of the players from Buffalo down to the GCL into one group and sorted them by HR, Niewenhuis would be second behind Ike Davis, and if you sorted by SB, he’s be second behind Manny Garcia (at least now that Greg Veloz is gone).
oh yeah.. wow thats weird how i didnt understand what he meant at first.. i guess i skimmed over it too fast ha
Interesting selection of Tejada over Havens. With the way Tejada faded last year I would think a full year of AA would be the safe way to go. Havens has missed so much time and was expected to be a fast mover he would seem to be a guy who could benefit the most from this challenge.
Would Dillon Gee be an option? After not having surgery he has been mia since late May… not a whole lot of upper level pitching that seems worth sending, unfortunately.
Depends on his rehab. He’d be a better option than Eric Brown, I think.
What are you trying to say? Because just about everyone in the Mets system would be a better option than Brown.
Getting Gee some games against high end competition, the kind he missed in AAA this year would seem helpful. The AA pitching doesn’t really have many guys who stand out for these assignments unfortunately.
Are you suggesting he would be a waste of this resource?
totally tongue in cheek.
Is it sad that the first thing I thought when trying to think of which RPs they’d send was, “Knowing them, they’ll probably send Eric Brown”? Scott Moviel is another option if they don’t want to send Mejia.
i would love for them to send mejia there as a reliever.
I like this idea, prepare him for next year when they may put him in that role in Sept or earlier.
Generally due to the amount of pitchers and short AFL season there aren’t many pitchers who go 5,6 innings anyway, so it may be all the same in the end. But yes, getting him used to that different role and routine could be helpful.
havens should definitely be there too..
Is Mejia even eligble? I don’t know the rules for foreign players; for some reason I didn’t think Tejada would be eligible, being from Panama, but obviously he is. Mejia only has 80 innings at this point, so maybe they could send him. I understand they won’t be sending Holt though.
Looking at those rosters, some of them are stacked. It looks like this team is going to need some good pitching from the Mets.
I would send:
1B Davis
SS Tejada
CF Nieuwenhuis
SP Stoner
RP Niesen
RP Rustich
RP Mejia
If Mejia isn’t eligble, I would go with Antonini as a pen arm. That team could use a couple of LHP.
its only 1 foreign player i think (?)
In that case Stoner could be out too, he’s was born in Germany…
Agees, its not so much that the lights are out… as the Wilpon’s sold off the light fixtures so they can afford to eat…
Misch followed by Broadway on Friday afternoon in Wrigley. Probably a good thing most will miss that disaster for work. Hope the wind isn’t blowing out, yikes…
Ollie is out for the season. They’re bringing up Broadway. Didn’t the lights already go out?
If I remember right —
Stoner pitched in AFL last year — but could be wrong