Sorry, I’m watching baseball today, wearing lots of sunscreen, but no shirt.

Chris St. John at Steal of Home has a great analysis comparing many of the major Top 100 prospect lists. The only Met about which there was any measure of disagreement on was Jeurys Familia. The rankings who had him relatively high: Seedlings to Stars (#54), Baseball Instinct  (#66), MLB Prospect Portal  (#78) and Project Prospect (#73).
Store that away.

Lets rank some prospects…
My goal will be three or four prospect write-ups per weekday between here and the start of spring training.

So apparently the Mets placed Fernando Martinez and Danny Herrera, on waivers Monday, or are planning to place the two on waivers.

It’s a pretty amazing fall from grace for Martinez, who was originally signed for $1.3 million out of the Dominican Republic in 2005 and was widely regarded as a Top 100 prospect overall, and eventually the Mets’ #1 prospect.

It seems a cruel twist, that as a friend pointed out to me, the Mets refused to trade Martinez for Johan Santana, but just a few years later, dropped him to add Ronny Cedeno.

It’s interesting that a 40-man roster that has space for Robert Carson, a left-hander with limited double-A success, doesn’t have room for Herrera, a left-hander who’s had some MLB success.  Of course, Carson can throw 95 mph on a good day.  Herrera can’t.  Ever.  This is a 40-man roster that still carries Armando Rodriguez, a right-handed who has never pitched above a-ball, and has average fastball velocity at best.  This is a roster that still carries Josh Stinson, who has an ERA almost six (5.92 at AAA) in 89.2 innings in the last two years.  And it doesn’t have Martinez.

And perhaps the Fernando Martinez era isn’t over.  After all, some team would have to claim him on waivers, and maybe no one will.  More Tuesday.

Just the numbers here, regarding the Mets dropping their Gulf Coast League affiliate in 2012.  Barring any other MLB teams adding or dropping short season or international affiliates for 2012, the Mets will be right in line with baseball norms.

The Mets will send players to eight total affiliates: four full-season teams at AAA, AA, A+, A, two domestic short-season teams: short-season A Brooklyn and rookie level Kingsport and two international teams, both in the Dominican Summer League.

Of the 30 MLB teams, 16 will have seven total affiliates, 12 will have eight, and just two will have nine, as the Mets did in 2011.  The remaining nine-ball players: Tampa Bay and Seattle, both of whom have seven domestic teams and two international teams.  The Mets will be one of 23 teams with six domestic affiliates compared with seven who still have seven, which essentially means three short-season teams.

What we’re seeing is a coalescence around two short-season teams. By rule, all MLB teams must have four full-season teams, one each at the triple-A, double-A, advanced-A and low-A level. While top prospects drafted out of college routinely skip low-A, very, very few players skip advanced A. So essentially, teams are using three affiliates (rookie- Kingsport, short-season-A – Brooklyn, low-A – Savannah) to feed their three upper level affiliates and the big league team.

I wonder too, whether the new CBA has influenced the decision to cut back on an affiliate. Remember, the new CBA will dramatically lessen the ability of all teams, including the Mets, to spend on amateur talent. There are separate spending caps on both the draft AND in the international market. Perhaps the Mets felt it was more important to spend on the top of the market rather than on the guys who would be roster-filler in the GCL, Kingsport and Brooklyn.

Internationally, will the Mets spend more money on fewer players? Or will they avoid the top of the market to try to spread their allocation across more players? If they choose the former, perhaps cutting an affiliate makes sense.

How does this square with Sandy Alderson’s comments that “The bang for the buck is in player development and I think that’s something that ownership realizes”?  Maybe the Gulf Coast League just wasn’t providing much value.  As cheap as it is to run a complex league team, that’s hard to fathom, but maybe there is data to support this assertion.  Or maybe the Mets really, really needed to save $800,000.

Full number of affiliates by team after the jump.

Kevin Goldstein of BP basically told Matt Cerrone the same thing I’m saying here: that it’s not a good thing, but it’s not a huge deal.

(more…)

The review of second-base was getting long, so I split it into three parts.  This is part two- the guys who played second for Savannah and St. Lucie.

A+

Your leader in games played at second for St. Lucie in 2011 was non-drafted free agent Rylan Sandoval who hit .224/.292/.351 while turning 24 in August.  He’s a nice guy to have in the organization.

Robbie Shields played 17 games for St. Lucie at second after he was promoted from Savannah immediately after the Gnats clinched the first half title in June.  However, his season was cut short by persistent back problems.  Shields, a college shortstop began the transition to second in Savannah, where he played nine games at the position.  He seemed to handle the move with relative ease, but noted the change in footwork around the bag.  He showed much improved plate discipline over the 2010 season which helped produce a .274/.354/.425 line in Savannah and a .269/.338/.388 line in 20 games in St. Lucie.  Shields, the Mets’ 3rd round pick in 2009, will turn 24 in December, so time is becoming scarce.  Put another way, he’s a year younger than Havens, but the same age as Jordany Valdespin.

A

During the first half, when Shields was playing shortstop, Wilfredo Tovar, who turned 20 during the season, played second base.  We’ll talk about Tovar, who’s now out in the Arizona Fall League, more when we get to shortstops.

After Shields departed for advanced-A, Tovar flipped across the diamond from second to short, and freed up the second-base position for Luis Nieves. Nieves, who will be 23 in December, hit .238/.312/.297.  That’s pretty much all you need.

AAA
There’s nothing here. Well, Nickeas hit .214/.286/.304 in 60 games.
Raul Chavez, at the tender age of 38, hit .199/.214/.253 in 80 games, which actually was the most games any Bison played behind the plate.
Solomon Manriquez, who turned 29 in September bopped .321/.356/.429 in 27 games for the Bisons after a much less impressive .254/.304/.388 in 60 games for AA Binghamton. The Mets signed Manriquez out of the independent Atlantic League in 2010, and he’s been a good organizational player the last two years in AA and AAA.

AA
This was not a productive position for the B-Mets.
Kai Gronauer (pictured) led the B-Mets in games caught with 51, hitting .253/.326/.373 at age 24. His season was interrupted by a hamstring injury. Gronauer is a good communicator and a good interview, but threw out 29% of opposing base stealers (17 of 58). That’s not enough to even be Nickeas.
At age 25, Jean Luc Blaquiere hit .229/.368/.331 in 38 games behind the dish and 47 overall while nabbing 32% of potential thieves (16 of 50).
Dusty Ryan, who turned 27 in September, spent the second half of the season with Binghamton, where he hit .265/.351/.496. Ryan appeared in a combined 27 games for the Tigers in the big leagues in 2008 and 2009 before getting stuck in AAA with the Padres affiliate in Portland for all of 201.

A+
After a foot injury held him to 10 games in advanced-A in 2010, Francisco Pena returned and hit a whopping .223/.275/.310 in 95 games, 91 of which were spent behind the plate. He’s listed at 6’2″ and 230 pounds and it appeared soft when I saw him briefly in August. He threw out just 25% of potential base stealers (22 of 87). I don’t know what the Mets will do with Pena, who will be 22 in ten days, but sending him to St. Lucie for a fourth season in 2012 doesn’t seem like the right answer. However, his performance does not suggest that he’s at all ready for double-A.

Pena’s back-up, Juan Centeno, who turns 22 in November, is interesting. He’s tiny (listed at 5’9″, 172 lbs) but he makes contact and hit .318/.368/.382 in 157 AB spread over 52 games. The Mets rewarded him with a trip to the Arizona Fall League, where he can prove he deserves a spot on the 40-man roster. He’ll be rule 5 eligible this winter, and while it’s a stretch to think a team would want to carry him on their MLB roster all year in 2012, the Nationals did pluck Jesus Flores from the Mets straight from the Florida State League. Centeno threw out 39% of opposing base-stealers (19 of 49). After backing up Blake Forsythe in Brooklyn in 2010, and Pena in St. Lucie in 2011, he seems poised to grab the bulk of the playing time in double-A Binghamton next year.

A
Coming into the year, Baseball America ranked Blake Forsythe as the 29th best prospect in the Mets system, the only catcher to make their Mets top 30. Forsythe earned the ranking because he flashed some power, and a strong throwing arm. Then he hit just .220/.295/.353 in 50 games in the first half of the SAL season. He was much better in the second half (and turned 22), both at the plate and in the field. At the plate, he drew nearly twice as many walks in the second half (36) as he did in the first half (20) while doubling his homer output from three to six while hitting .249/.368/.431. That’s the good news. The bad news? He still struck out 68 times in 55 games. For the year, he fanned in 28% of his at-bats.

Behind the plate, Forsythe, to my eyes, became a better receiver, and more adept at blocking balls, especially those to his right. He threw out just 29% of opposing runners (20-for-68) this year, suggesting a need to improve his footwork and release.

Albert Cordero (pictured) split time nearly evenly with Forsythe. For my money, he was the most improved Gnat hitter from Opening Day through the end of the season, and it wasn’t particularly close. Sure, he made some minor mechanical tweaks to put him in a better hitting position, and improve his balance, but the major difference was that he stopped chasing everything. Cordero hit .219/.248/.297 with eight extra base hits and four walks in 45 games in the first half and .330/.373/.439 with 15 extra-base hits and 11 walks in 59 games in the second half. He became very good at taking pitches on the outer-half into right field.

It’s nice that he hit, but he has the tools to become a strong defender. He has really good feet and soft hands. He threw out 40% of the runners who attempted to run on him (24-for-60) which would have been good enough for fourth in the South Atlantic League. However, he could get sloppy at times, as his 17 errors and 14 passed balls attest.

We’ll get into the short-season catchers in a second post.