In an article, on ESPN.com, Jose Arangure Jr. talks about Mets prospect, Fernando Martinez. Arangure asks the question, can a prospect be labeled a bust at the age of 21? According to Mets GM Omar Minaya, “In an ideal world we wanted him to spend all of last year in Triple-A and get at-bats, we put him in a situation where as a young man he was hitting in the fifth hole. I think he gained something from that experience. And really we didn’t have a choice [but to call him up]. We were down to our fourth and fifth options.”

According to Arangure, with Fernando’s early struggles this winter, whispers had begun about whether Martinez was out of shape and whether he could ever actually live up to his potential. Having had a strong Dominican series finals, Martinez has silenced some of his critics. Martinez hit .387 with 2 home runs and a series-high 6 RBIs in helping lead the Leones to their 1st title since 1992. Martinez will hope to lead Escogido to a Caribbean World Series title, starting Feb. 2 in Venezuela.

Minaya acknowledges that the main goal for Martinez is to stay healthy this year. “We expect him to be a contributor in the majors in a year or so”, Minaya said Minaya also says that they still believe that Martinez can play center-field, but it has yet to be determined. Everyone knows that this is a pivotal year for Fernando’s development. Asked if the organization has lost faith in the 21-year old Martinez, “Our opinion of him has not changed,” Minaya said. “It’s just a matter that we have to give him a chance to play.”

While Michael has done a strong job keeping track of what everyone else has been writing about prospects (thanks Mike!), I’ve been battling a powerful storm while driving across the middle of this country.

Wednesday, we spent the morning detouring north from I-40 to the Grand Canyon.  It was spectacular and an absolute must if you find yourself driving cross-country.

Thursday, we woke up in snowy Tucumcari, NM planning on heading east again on I-40.  Bad news.  After 116 very slow, snowy treacherous miles on 40 to Amarillo, TX I-40 closed in deference to the weather.  No matter.  We hung a right down to Dallas on US 287 to spend a night with a friend’s family and escape the snow in favor of first dry roads and then driving rain.

My dad hates eating in chain restaurants, so we’ve enjoyed a lot of burritos on this trip.  If it wasn’t for tiny Mexican joints, there would be no independent food options anywhere near a highway anymore, or so it seems.

Baseball thoughts: resigning Fernando Tatis reflects a complete lack of imagination and a failed winter to improve the Mets.

BP released the first run of their PECOTA projections and it’s ugly for the Mets who are projected for 77-85 and fourth place in the NL East.  After the Great Santana, no starting pitcher is projected with a VORP (that’s Value Over REPLACEMENT Player) above 8!  Replacement.  Measured in runs.  I think the system is light on Jon Niese, but man, is that alarming.

I wrote earlier this week that it was reasonable enough for the Mets not to sign Joel Pineiro.  However, given the fact that they weren’t even close to Ben Sheets or Jon Garland, should they have been more aggressive with JP?  I vote yes.  This team simply doesn’t look primed for a playoff run barring massive contributions from youngsters exceeding expectations.

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Keith Law, of ESPN.com, has published his Top 100 prospect list. I believe the content is for paid insiders only, so I will give you the scouting reports on each of the Mets on the list.

Jenrry Mejia #23-Mejia entered 2009 with no experience above short-season leagues, but finished it in Double-A despite missing time in the middle of the year with a strained finger on his pitching hand. He has top-of-the-rotation stuff, but is just 20 with the command you’d expect to see in a live-armed teenager with barely 200 innings in pro ball. His fastball sits at 93-96 and will tick higher, and the ball sometimes shows natural cutting action toward left-handed hitters. His changeup is his best off-speed pitch and, at 85-87 mph with good tail, looks like a soft two-seamer. His curveball is very inconsistent, but at its best, it’s plus with good two-plane break and depth in the upper 70s. He’s thick but not tall, and his slot is just below 3/4 — so he has to work on staying on top of the ball, and the finger injury reduced his already below-average command. That said, he’s 20 and has shown he can get advanced hitters in Double-A out. If the Mets slow him down a little and let him spend all of 2010 (and maybe some of 2011) in the minors to improve his command and the consistency of his changeup and curve, they have a chance for a No. 1 or No. 2 starter.

Wilmer Flores #41-Flores, as predicted, broke with a full-season club in 2009 and held his own despite playing most of the year at 17. He has very quick wrists and is short to the ball with good finish. The ball flies off his bat, especially in BP, in which he shows the promise of future plus power, and in games he has already shown that he can square balls up against pitchers two or three years his senior. In fact, of players with at least 400 at-bats in the Sally League in 2009, only one hitter had fewer strikeouts than Flores did. His main deficiency as a player is very slow feet, even though he’s not thickly built, and he has no shot to stay at shortstop and little shot of handling third base, which means he’ll end up at first base or in an outfield corner, although there’s an excellent chance his bat plays in any of those positions.

Ike Davis #64-Davis’ mediocre debut in 2008 turned out to be a red herring, as he finished his first full season in 2009 in Double-A and isn’t far from reaching the majors. He has raw power, especially dead pull power, and showed that he can murder a fastball and lay off a lot of pitches out of the zone against right-handed pitchers. On the downside, Davis doesn’t hit left-handed pitching at all, and even against right-handers struggles to recognize off-speed stuff. He’s a reasonably good athlete who can handle first base and actually has a plus arm — he was 92-94 mph as a reliever in college — although that’s less relevant at the position. A full year in Double-A/Triple-A to work on pitch recognition and on improving his approach against left-handers is probably critical for his future as an everyday player, but he has a chance to be an above-average one if he can shed the “platoon player” tag with more reps.

Fernando Martinez #73-Martinez has one of the biggest drops of anyone on this list (from last year’s list), but I’m not down on Martinez’s offensive potential — the ball still comes off his bat incredibly well, comparable to Starlin Castro, who sits in the Top 25 of this list because of that skill — and I could have left Martinez in the Top 25 and justified it. The problems with “F-Mart,” aside from the fact that Mets fans decided to give him a nickname more appropriate for a farm-equipment discount store, aren’t about baseball skills. He continues to have trouble staying healthy, and there’s a real risk of Chris Snelling disease here, with lack of playing time limiting his development; he’s never had more than 400 plate appearances in any season, and even including winter ball this offseason, when he was just back from knee surgery, he had fewer than 300 PAs in ’09. Martinez has also had his work ethic and conditioning called into question, including a visible lack of effort more than once at the big league level last year. Very few players can coast to major league stardom on talent alone, and Martinez needs to grow up — he’s still just 21 years old — to turn himself into an elite corner-outfield bat. (It looks like Martinez has exactly 45 days on the Mets’ active roster, which would make him eligible for the Rookie of the Year award in 2010, as well as for this list. If he had just one more day on the active roster, he’d no longer be eligible.)

Law also lists his Top 10 by organization. Here is the Mets Top 10, according to Law:
1.Jenrry Mejia
2.Wilmer Flores
3.Ike Davis
4.Fernando Martinez
5.Brad Holt
6.Jon Niese
7.Josh Thole
8.Reese Havens
9.Jefry Marte
10.Juan Urbina

Interesting contrasts between different “experts”. All have their points, and have different sources of information. Nice to see the Mets represented here. Martinez’s injuries are definitely the major factor in his decline.

In Law’s Mets Top 10, Marte and Urbina are the biggest surprises. Having struggled in his 1st full-season, Marte (.223/.279/.338/617) still has the raw tools and ability. Kirk Nieuwenhuis, Jeurys Familia, Kyle Allen, and Ruben Tejada could have better arguements than Marte or Urbina. Toby’s Top 41 will be here very soon.

Jonathan Mayo, of MLB.com, published his list of the Top 50 Prospects in baseball. Here is a breakdown of the Top 50, as well as video of the Top 50 Countdown. The Mets were shut out of Mayo’s top 50, but Jenrry Mejia did make his, “just missed the cut” list at #52.

According to Mayo the criteria for the list includes: To be eligible for the Top 50 list, players must have rookie eligibility. To qualify for rookie status, a player must not have exceeded 130 at-bats or 50 innings pitched in the Major Leagues, or accumulated more than 45 days on the active roster of a Major League club or clubs during the 25-player limit period, excluding time on the disabled list or in military service. With this criteria, both Jon Niese and Fernando Martinez were ineligible, but with that being said I am not sure if they would have made the list anyway. For what its worth, Mayo did point out on the show that Fernando Martinez was not eligible due to his MLB service time in 2009. Once again these lists should be taken with a grain of salt. While it stirs up great discussion, it also makes you wonder, how can these lists differ so dramatically? The Mets were the only NL East team without a representative. Hmmmm, that should raise a few eyebrows..

Braves-2 (Heyward #1, Teheran #30)
Marlins-2 (Stanton #3, Morrison #25)
Nationals-2 (Strasburg #2, Storen # 40)
Phillies-2 (Brown #14, Aumont #47)

Once again we have to be careful into putting too much weight on these list. Mejia and Ike Davis are the 2 players that have the strongest arguments to be on the list. This always stirs up great debate and team pride seems to puff up even more. Only time will tell on all prospects, so let the debates continue!!

TH: Did I miss something?  I have both Niese and Martinez as still rookie eligible, barely.

Jesse G writes:

Jesse, that’s really interesting stuff you have there.

- Braun followed up his big ’06 by starring in the PCL for the first 33 games of the season in ’07 where he hit .333/.403/.675 with 12 2B, 9 HR with 13 BB against 11 K.  I saw him repeatedly in his month + in the PCL and he was easily the best hitter in the league.  He was actually the best hitter in the league all year, in a decent year for PCL prospects with Geovany Soto, Hunter Pence and Adam Jones, for example.  Note his absolute complete command of the strike zone with more walks than strikeouts and his ridiculous power with 21 XBH in 33 games.  His low strikeout numbers in the PCL are fairly aberrant among his career totals both in the big leagues and minor leagues.  In the majors, he’s owned K rates between 19 and 25%, while his minor league numbers were similar to Davis, which you can see in the chart below.

- In 2009, the Eastern League hit .258/.332/.385 as a whole while the Southern League hit a nearly identical .255/.332/.380.  Of course, Braun played in the SL in 2006, but lets basically call it a wash as the overall offensive levels appear very similar.  Both hitters’ AA home parks, Huntsville and Binghamton, play largely fair.

- And yes, Ryan Braun did play in the AFL following his 2006 season.  Like Ike, he raked in the league:

Braun hit for a little bit more power (16 XBH to Ike’s 11), walked a little more, and struck out a little less.  Over fewer than 100 AB is the difference real?  Barely.

- Lets keep digging deeper to see if the two players are as similar as their counting stats suggest:

During their age-22 regular seasons, Davis walked more than Braun.  In AA and the AFL, Davis whiffed more than Braun.  Note that Davis’s production relied on very high BABIPs, which were between 23 and 57 points higher than Braun’s in each league and will be unsustainable moving forward.  For what it’s worth, Braun’s MLB BABIPs have bounced around, but been strong, going .367, .308 and then .355 in his 2.75 MLB seasons.

- The stolen base difference you point out is key.  It indicates simply that Braun is faster and more athletic than Davis at the same age.

- How about defense? Remember that Braun was attempting to play third base at this point.  He was awful at third (-23 UZR in only 111 G) so the Brewers moved him to left field where he’s been comfortably below average, but not embarrassing (-17.6 over two years).  Davis, should be at least average with a chance to be plus at first.

Basically, your comparison of Davis to Braun is an absolute best case scenario for the Mets and their fans.

I don’t think Davis will be able to equal Braun’s offensive production in the big leagues because Braun’s swing is a cleaner and his power is a little more natural.  On the other hand, Davis has shown more patience in the minors, so while I expect him to hit for a lower average, he should get on base plenty.  Also, Davis’ potential defensive edge could help narrow the gap.

Keith Law, of ESPN.com, ranks the Mets #15 in his list of MLB’s top farm systems.

According to Law, “It’s fashionable in New York to bash their system, but productive international scouting continues to bail out their draft efforts, which are repeatedly hamstrung by ownership’s refusal to exceed slot in the first few rounds.”

Other notable rankings:
Braves-#5
Marlins-#12
Nationals-#23
Phillies-#24
Yankees-#25

To reiterate Law, the Mets system usually gets a bad rap. With the influx of international talent, and some decent draft picks, the Mets system is climbing towards respectability. I have to think that if the Mets drafted consistently overslot, the system would have significantly more talent.  The Yankees and the Phillies systems in particular have been hurt due to trades, but those trades have strengthened their big league club. I believe Omar wants to build through the farm system, and with this year’s #7 overall pick, the farm should definitely get stronger.

So I recently accepted a new job.  It’s a cool opportunity, and will lead to excellent new content here.

Over the weekend, I packed everything I could fit into my car, moved out of my place, and after a quick visit, left my sister’s apartment in San Francisco Tuesday morning.  For those who didn’t know, I have lived in California for the last few winters.  After heading south, my Dad and I took a left on I-40 and stopped in Williams, AZ.  Wednesday,  we’ll visit the Grand Canyon first thing, and then keep moving East.

Who knows where I’m going?

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