The good guys over at Project Prospect have put together their list of the top five prospects in the Arizona Fall League.  Their list:

1. Stephen Strasburg
2. Buster Posey
3. Dustin Akley
4. Yonder Alonso
5. Josh Bell

HM: Domonic Brown, Starlin Castro, Mike Leake, Jenrry Mejia, Thomas Neal and Jose Tabata

I think the top three on that list are pretty much unassailable.
However, I was very surprised by Alonso at #4.  The 22 year-old broke his hamate bone this year, limiting him to 84 games, over which time he hit just nine homers.  In 49 games he hit .303/.383/.497 in the FSL and then .295/.372/.457 in 29 games in the AA Southern League.  In 23 games in the AFL, Alonso hit a pedestrian .267/.353/.395 with two homers, three doubles and a triple.  While he didn’t show much power, he did draw 12 walks against 15 strikeouts.

Davis, meanwhile, split his year nearly evenly between the FSL and AA, smacking 20 homers on his way to a .298/.386/.524 year.  In the AFL, Davis hit .341/.394/.565 with four homers and seven doubles.

Davis is a better defender.  Alonso showed more patience in the AFL, but drew only slightly more walks in AA.  Davis hit 20 HR to Alonso’s 9 in the regular season.  Wrist injuries badly sap a hitter’s power even after he’s returned to the lineup, so Alonso’s power potential will become much clearer in the coming season.

To rank Alonso this much ahead of Davis requires some combination of the following:
1. a belief in that Alonso will hit for much more power than he did in 2009
2. a belief that Davis’ tendency towards striking out will drag his entire offensive game down at higher levels.

Let’s take a look how some of the more interesting prospects are fairing in winter ball:

Hitters
VWL

Josh Thole is still on a torrid pace. He leads the league in OBP, and is 2nd in BA, and 4th in OPS.

AFL

The AFL came to a close this week. Reese Havens ended his AFL on a torrid 7-game hitting streak, hitting .444 (12-27), with 3 doubles,1 triple, and 2 HR’s. Ike Davis ended his AFL in the top 20 in BA, SLG, and OPS.
DWL

Its good to finally see Fernando Martinez back on the field. Staying healthy is the next step for him.

So, did you know that the Mets have a pitcher named Jack Egbert on their 40-man roster?
The Mets claimed the 26 year old righty from the White Sox on September 25, a time when many Mets fans were watching football already.  Egbert, who made his MLB debut for the White Sox on April 21, 2009, is a New Jersey product from Rutgers, Rutherford HS and Rutherford Little League.  In his two MLB appearances, Egbert gave up eight hits, eight runs and a homer to Aubrey Huff in just 2.2 innings.  Returned to AAA Charlotte where he had been working out of the bullpen, he also returned to the starting rotation, where he made 18 starts, but did not fare well.  In 30 appearances overall, he had a 5.05 ERA, 132 hits allowed, 78 strikeouts and 33 walks in 108.2 IP.  He was roughed up in the second half, when he posted a 7.17 ERA and had an ugly 28/21 K/BB ratio after a 3.39 ERA in the first half for Charlotte with a sharp 50/12 K/BB ratio.

Egbert did not make BA’s Top 30 White Sox Prospects in the 2009 edition, but was ranked 16th entering 2007 and fifth entering 2008 after a strong 2007 season at AA Birmingham when he struck out 165 and walked 44 in 161 IP on his way to a 3.06 ERA.  At the time, BA wrote that Egbert had “refined his changeup into a plus pitch” but his fastball was only fringe average.
According to the pitchfx from his MLB debut, Egbert’s fastball was 89-91 mph, and he threw a breaking ball and changeup.

Friday, November 20th was the deadline for Major League teams to finalize their rosters for the upcoming Rule Five which will take place on December 10, the final day of the baseball Winter Meetings.  The Mets added no players immediately before the deadline, but added 3B Shawn Bowman in early November to prevent him from becoming a six-year minor league free agent.  At present, it looks like the Mets might have the first crack in the Rule 5.  The Mets own the 7th pick, but all six teams ahead of them, (Washington, Pittsburgh, Baltimore, Kansas City, Cleveland and Arizona) have full 40-man rosters which would preclude them from adding players.  The Mets 40-man roster currently stands at 36 players.  Only Milwaukee (35), St. Louis (34), the Dodgers (33) and Boston (32) have more open spots than the Mets.   Remember, any free agents signed to major league deals must immediately be added to the 40-man roster, so in a winter where the Mets are hoping to add a bat, an arm and maybe a catcher, the team should have room on the 40-man roster at this point.

The Mets did not have to add their top prospects to the 40-man roster because those players who would need to be protected are already on the roster having made their Big League debuts.  This includes the college draftees from 2006 Daniel Murphy and Tobi Stoner and those who were 18 or younger when they signed in 2005 like Jon Niese, Fernando Martinez and Josh Thole.  Moreover, the Mets traded their first two picks from that ’06 draft: Kevin Mulvey (Santana package) and Joe Smith (JJ Putz package).

As long as we’re here, lets examine one role on the team, the second LOOGY to help out Pedro Feliciano in the bullpen.  The left-handed relievers on the Mets 40-man roster are  Feliciano, Arturo Lopez and Pat Misch.

The Free Agent
Adam Bostick is now a six-year minor league free agent after three years in the Mets organization.  Bostick, who lowered his arm angle, and moved to the bullpen this year, was very effective for AAA Buffalo, particularly against lefties who hit just .211/.286/.263 against him in 38 AB. Overall, Bostick had 43 strikeouts against 18 walks in 38.2 IP with a 3.26 ERA in Buffalo.  Four of his 14 inherited runners scored.  To be fair, the Bostick has been hit hard in winter ball in Venezuela where he’s given up 11 hits, seven walk and ten runs in eight IP.

The Waiver Claim

What exactly does Lopez, who was claimed on waivers from the Padres in April offer other than his lefty-ness?  In 30.1 innings in Buffalo, Lopez put together a 3.86 ERA with 19 strikeouts and 13 walks in 30.1 innings, less impressive numbers than Bostick.  Lefties hit .242/.324/.364 against him in 33 AB for a .688 OPS, one hundred and twenty-nine points worse than the .549 OPS lefties managed in a similar sample against Bostick in AAA in 2009.

There’s an argument to be made here that parsing L/R splits into 35 AB samples at AAA is too small a sample size.  However, Lopez’s pure stuff isn’t any better than Bostick’s.

So why is Lopez a Met and Bostick looking for employment?

Last night, Toby Hyde spoke with NY Baseball Digest’s Mike Silva about the state of the Mets farm sytem.

Here is the Mike Silva interview with Toby.

TH: Oh yeah, I tweeted about this interview (I’m @tobyhyde) but forgot to do a post on it.  Thanks, Mike.

Update:
Reese Havens goes 3-4 with an opposite field HR today. He lead off the 9th inning with a single, and eventually scored the game winning run. His season totals now stand at .368/.478/.658/1.136 in 38 AB’s.

Original post:

Reese Havens continues his hot hitting, falling a homerun short of the cycle Wednesday, leading Surprise to a 11-9 win over Peoria. Havens is currently riding a 6-game hitting streak, where he is hitting, .391 (9-23) with 2 doubles, a triple, and a homerun. He has raised his AFL totals to .324/.439/.559/.998.

Havens tells Robert Emrich, in a MLB.com report, that he has tried to stick to his routine and to continue to work.

As Toby reported, Havens is on the taxi squad, meaning he plays games only on Wed and Sat. Thats a tough thing to do, but Havens has seemed to get comfortable as the season moves along.

Also, in an ESPN.com chat, Baseball America’s Jim Callis took my question concerning Havens and Ike Davis.

Mike (MO):2011 Mets INF…..Wright, Reyes, Havens, Davis… Am i crazy or is that realistic?

Jim Callis(2:46 PM):Realistic.

Havens is known for his grittiness and hard work, but he also has the talent to back that up. That is a great foundation to build on. Staying healthy for a full season is the next obstacle for Havens to hurdle.

Jenrry Mejia has had a rough time in the Arizona Fall League.  Wednesday, he was clocked over 97 mph with his fastball and sat 94-96 mph, but was still hit up for five runs.

The colors follow Gameday’s pitch identification algorithm.  I think it’s fairly clear that Gameday is miscategorizing some of Mejia’s changeups as two-seamers.  In fact, all of the pitches that Gameday thinks are two-seamers, I think are changeups.  The blue circle are the pitches I think are changeups.

In Mejia’s previous start, he did throw a lot of two seamers in the 93 mph range.  I’ve circled what appears to be a cluster of fastballs that could be two seamers although their velocity matches Mejia’s other four-seamers.  One thing the chart makes clear is both the incredible movement on Mejia’s heater, and it’s variability.  Mejia simply must learn to harness his ability to make the ball move, but do so in a way where he can control it.  He’s not doing that now.

Lets focus in on the movement on Mejia’s offerings.  The graph below shows both the horizontal and vertical movement on each of Mejia’s pitches. Outside of the two curveballs he threw, the striking thing about the chart to me is that everything else is fairly indistinct.

The take home message for me: there’s a lot of velocity (duh!), but everything else needs some work.