Rookie – Kingsport: 1B Jeffrey Flagg

Born: 11/7/85

Where he came from: Drafted 27^th Rd 2008 (Mississippi State University)

What he is: A big (6’6” 250lbs) first baseman with some natural power who beat up on much younger competition in the Appalachian League

When he grows up: An organizational slugger

Other Good Candidates: Anyone who won’t turn 24 in November.  3B Joe Bonfe (.327/.426/.462), who’s 21, was the only K-Mets regular to put up a higher OPS (.888) than Flagg’s .865.  Alonzo Harris (.273/.321/.447) hit as many HR as Flagg (10), while playing as a 19-year old, four years Flagg’s junior.  Richard Lucas (.357/.471/.622) tore the cover off the ball for a month as a 20-year old, but played in only 26 games before his promotion to Brooklyn.

The Mets released the list of the Sterling Award Winners for each affiliate today.  In the coming days, I’ll break them down in a similar format to 2008′s winners in the righthand sidebar.

Player of the Year: Ike Davis

Pitcher of the Year: Jeurys Familia

AAA: OF Jesus Feliciano

AA: C Josh Thole

A+: CF Kirk Nieuwenhuis

A: LHP Robert Carson

SSA: LHP Mark Cohoon

Rookie – Kingsport: 1B Jeffrey Flagg

Rookie – GCL: OF Julio Concepcion

DSL: 1B Alexander Sanchez

VSL: OF Andres Perez

According to Adam Rubin, the Mets have named 1B Ike Davis the 2009 Sterling Minor League Player of the year and RHP Jeurys Familia the pitcher of the year.

After going without a HR in his professional debut last year, Davis combined for 20 jacks this year between St. Lucie and Binghamton.  Davis told Rubin:

“I can’t say I’m going to hit 20 home runs every year,” Davis said by telephone from Italy, following a four-hour bus ride with Team USA from Germany. “I hope to be a power hitter. I want to be a power hitter. I’ll work hard in the gym this offseason and keep hitting the ball hard and see what happens. I definitely hit some balls this year that wouldn’t have been out in Brooklyn. It’s hard to hit the ball in Brooklyn to right field (because of the wind off the ocean). But I squared up balls more this year. I was stronger this year. Put those two together and you’ll hit more home runs.”

Other than that [Davis's L/R splits], his season was very strong and he should be ready to help sometime next year.

Davis had a nice first full pro season and does have big power potential, but he still strikes out a lot and I don’t think he could step in to the Mets’ lineup in early 2010 and be effective. Both need at least another half-year in the minors maybe more.

At the Hardball Times, Carson Cistulli, writes an entertaining piece about attending the Brooklyn Cyclones season finale.

He pulls the league average from baseball reference – “FYI, the league average rate stats for the NY-Penn league are: .245/.320/.351, 7.9 K/9, 3.3 BB/9, 0.4 HR/9.” to give a solid piece of context to the NYP League stats.

However, analysis of the burgers from his buddy might be my favorite part:

They might be playing Short Season A baseball at Coney Island, but that’s a Double-A sandwich.

According to Adam Rubin, from his Surfing the Mets Blog:

By the way, as the Daily News previously reported, top-10 prospects Ike Davis, Jenrry Mejia and Ruben Tejada will participate in the Arizona Fall League. They will be joined by pitchers Scott Moviel, Eric Niesen and Josh Stinson. Davis is currently with Team USA at the World Cup in Europe.

On their final Prospect Hot sheet of the 2009 season, Baseball America ranked Ike Davis #18, and Kirk Nieuwenhuis as among the Helium crowd for fastest risers.

BA wrote in part about Davis:

One of five college first basemen taken in the ’08 draft’s first round—a group that includes Yonder Alonso, David Cooper, Allan Dykstra and Justin Smoak—Davis this season led the quintet in average, home runs, RBIs, OPS (.906) and isolated power (.226). The power came at a cost: He also averaged the most strikeouts per at-bat (26 percent) and posted the lowest walk-to-strikeout ratio (.48), indicating areas for improvement.

In his chat, Ben Badler’s very first Q&A concerned Davis:

ray (ct): is ike davis have a chance to be a everyday 1b or even a allstar?

Ben Badler: Definitely. I watched him take BP for Team USA before they left for the World Cup (I believe they’re on MLB Network right now) and he showed more raw power than anyone else there, including Justin Smoak and Pedro Alvarez. It�s not a simple swing, but he�s produced this year and there�s plenty of raw power there.

“Not a simple swing” – that cracks me up a little.  All at once, it’s true, gentle and charitable.

For Nieuwenhuis, BA wrote in part:

After hitting a combined three home runs in June and July, Nieuwenhuis began pulling the ball for power in August. The results: he batted .345/.406/.647 with six homers and 13 doubles in 27 games, earning a promotion to Double-A for the final week. … that assault on Florida State League pitching catapulted him to a No. 1 ranking among league batters in doubles (35), slugging (.467), extra-base hits (56) and runs scored (91). He finished third with 16 home runs. A physical, lefty-swinging center fielder, Nieuwenhuis will have to reign in the strikeouts as he advances, but it’s an encouraging full-season debut for an NAIA product who bypassed low Class A.

While going bonkers in August, Nieuwenhuis struck out at a similar rate (24 in 116 AB) as he did for the rest of the FSL season, in which he whiffed between 22 and 27 times in every full month of action to finish with 118 in 123 games.  He fanned nine times, and drew four walks in eight games in AA where he hit .406 (13-32) with five XBH.  He’s a near lock to start 2010 at AA.

While the Mets play out the string, and admire Josh Thole’s work, with Jerry Manuel noting that the young catcher just might have a “bright future,” we will start the first full week of the post-2009 minor league season by catching up with guys still playing meaningful baseball across the Atlantic at the IBAF World Cup being held across Europe.  The tournament has drawn fairly large crowds by European standards.

The US Team

RF Ike Davis helped the US advance to the second round by going 3-5 with a triple and a home run in Saturday’s 9-1 win over Germany.  The big question is now whether Davis, who was already a fine defensive first baseman, can play the outfield as a professional.  As a former collegiate pitcher at Arizona State, he should have enough arm for either corner.  As an infielder, he employed a short arm action.  Outfielders have the luxury of adding a crow hop for more oomph on their throws, which should come naturally to Davis from his time stretching out his arm as a former pitcher.  Will he have enough range to play the outfield?  He was a below average runner at AA Binghamton in 2009, but there are plenty of guys in the big leagues who turn in below average times to firstbase, who play strong outfield defense and rely on reads, jumps and experience.  Davis’ position in the Arizona Fall League and his aptitude in the OF are now absolutely one of the biggest stories in Mets prospect-land in the coming months.

Davis was 1-4 in the US team’s 8-0 win over China to complete round one and did not play in his team’s 8-0 win over Canda to begin round two.

The Australian Team

After helping boost the Australians into the second round by hitting .429 (6-14) with three doubles, a triple, and a homer in round one, 1B Stefan Welch kept on rolling in the Aussie’s 19-6 drubbing of the Netherland Antilles to start round two.  He was 2-5 with a triple and 5 RBI.

The Canadian Team

SS Jonathan Malo was 3-3 and scored three times as Canda crushed Sweden 19-1 on Saturday to move on to round two.  Malo was 4-8 with a homer and three walks as the Canucks cruised through the first round with a 3-0 record.  3B Shawn Bowman was 3-12with a double, his only extra-base hit in round one.  Both Malo and Bowman were held hitless by the US LHP Cory Luebke, who took a no-hitter into the eighth inning Sunday in the US’s 8-0 win.  Luebke, the Padres supplemental firsr-round pick out of Ohio State in 2007, advanced from the advanced-A California League (8-2, 88.1 IP, 73 H, 17 W, 80K) to AA, where he was also successful (3.70 ERA, 41.1 IP, 15 BB, 32 K) in 2009.

The Germans

C Kai Gronauer was 0-3 Saturday, in Germany’s 9-1 loss to the US.  Germany, which was 1-2 was eliminated by the loss.  Gronauer, who played in all three games, was 3-9 with a pair of doubles.