Baseball America has posted its AFL Top 10 prospect list. The Mets are the only team with 2 players on the list.

1. Stephen Strasburg – RHP – Nationals
2. Buster Posey- C -  Giants
3. Dominic Brown – RF -  Phillies
4. Dustin Ackley – OF – Mariners
5. Josh Bell – 3B -Orioles
6. Jenrry Mejia – RHP – Mets
7. Freddie Freeman – 1B – Braves
8. Yonder Alonso – 1B – Reds
9. Starlin Castro – SS – Cubs
10. Ike Davis – 1B – Mets

TH: The Braves would have had two players in the Top 10, except Jason Heyward did not accumulate enough at-bats to join Freddie Freeman on the list.

Here are excerpts from the reports on Mejia and Davis, written by BA’s Ben Badler:

Jenrry Mejia, rhp, Mets

The results weren’t pretty….But Mejia showed one of the league’s strongest arms with a 90-96 mph fastball that touched 98. His fastball at times has excellent cutting life, and at other times he’ll put sink on it to generate an abundance of ground balls.

TH: In certain starts Mejia emphasized the two-seam fastball relative to the four-seamer to produce groundballs.

Mejia still needs to bring his secondary pitches up to par, but each one flashes potential. His most advanced offspeed pitch is his changeup, which he throws with good arm speed and has good depth at times. His curveball comes and goes, though it flashes quick break at 78-82 mph.

TH: Yup, the secondary stuff needs work.  Experience and repetitions keys.  The fastball is special, as is the groundball rate, which according to firstinning.com and @adamwfoster was 60% in the AFL.  Video of Mejia getting batters to ground out, is below, with Ruben Tejada playing shortstop behind him.

Ike Davis, 1b, Mets

… the 2008 first-round pick still draws mixed reviews. Davis has the raw power to hit 25-30 home runs annually, though he has a somewhat unorthodox swing, starting his stance with a high hand setup then dropping his hands before he hits. He crushes righthanded pitching but still needs to show he can hit enough against lefties. Davis has below-average speed, but he moves well around first base and has a strong arm.

Davis out hit both Alonso and Freeman, who are ranked ahead of him during the regular season as well as in the AFL. You probably would get those three grouped together in most lists. Seems to me that most scouts are not as sold on Davis as they are on the other two. To quote Toby, who wrote about Alonso vs. Davis recently:

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.

I think that scouts are not entirely sold on Davis, due to his unusual loading of his hands.. His hands start in a normal behind the ear position, but when loading his hands to his hitting position, he drops them considerably. This will be a problem with high fastballs, but if he continues to square ball up and lay off the high fastball, there should be no concern with his mechanics. With another solid season, Davis could be in Citifield come Sept-2010.

TH: Freeman’s two years younger than Davis.

Video showing Davis’ hand path is below.  There are freeze frames to illustrate Davis’ hand path.