AA
Record: Binghamton Mets 3-6, sixth place, out of six, in the Eastern League Eastern Division

Quick Overview: The B-Mets are hitting an anemic .189/.261/.302.  They’re last in the 12-team league in runs scored, batting average, 11th in OBP and 8th in slugging.  The team hit three home runs Sunday, and is now tied for second in the league in the category.  By the way, the Eastern League as a whole is hitting .238/.306/.350.
The pitching staff, led by Brad Holt and Mark Cohoon is third in the League in ERA (2.91) but 10th in strikeouts (60 in 77.1 IP), which isn’t totally fair because the B-Mets have thrown the fewest innings of any team in the league.  The B-Mets have issued the fourth-fewest walks (25).

Good News: The Starting Pitching has Been Really Good
Three B-Mets -  Brad Holt, (0.00), Mark Cohoon (0.75) and Robert Carson (0.90) – are in the top seven in the League in ERA after two starts each.

Is Brad Holt Back?
It’s early, but it sure looks good.  His season line: 12 IP, 7 H, 0 R, 3 BB, 8 K.  According to Mike, Holt was 89-94 in his start on Friday.  Also, as you can see from the embedded highlights from Holt’s start in this post, it sure looks like Holt has made progress with his secondary stuff.  At the :18 second mark, there’s a changeup that’s described as “nasty” and at the :30 second mark there’s a hammer curveball with short, tight downward break.

–1. Moving from the Mental to the Physical
In nearly every published interview, Holt has insisted that his struggles in 2010 when he walked 79 in 95 innings were purely mental.  I never believed that as a complete explanation, and received conflicting reports (from those outside the Mets organization) about what was happening to the point where I really didn’t feel like I knew what was going on.  What’s interesting here is that he explains for the first time (that I’ve seen) how the mental can translate into the physical:

“(Last year), that (situation) [ed: second and third and two out] would’ve bothered me,” Holt said. “I would’ve been a lot more tense. I probably wouldn’t have been as loose with my arm. That kind of takes an effect on your pitching game. This year, I’m trying to stay confident and not worry about it.”

Interesting.  I really hope this is true, that Holt is now more relaxed and thus able to repeat his delivery with men on base.  There’s even some empirical evidence to back up Holt on this.  With the bases empty last year, the Eastern League hit .262/.375/.361 against him (although with 11 walks and 11 strikeouts) in 61 AB.  With runners on, that rose to .403/.500/.597 with 12 walks and 14 strikeouts in 67 AB.

By St. Lucie at the end of the year, he was making progress in this area.  Opponents had an .840 OPS against him with the bases empty in 119 AB and .830 with runners on in 127 AB.

– 2. Keeping it on the Ground
On Friday, Holt induced 10 groundball outs and needed just one flyball.  In his first start of the year, he picked up six ground ball outs to four fly ball outs.  In two starts, that’s 16 outs on the ground and just five in the air.  Maybe I’m missing something, and I hope that readers will correct me, but as I calculate it, that’s a Ground Out/Air Out ratio of 3.2.  MiLB.com has Holt at 1.33.  Huh?
Anyway, using the GO/AO numbers from minor league baseball for Holt’s career:

Yeah, yeah, I know we’re dealing with small numbers again, but it’s a dramatic change and a damn good one.  For shits and giggles, I made a graph of Holt’s ERA vs. his AO/GO ratio.

Mark Cohoon is not a Surprise
After a rough first six starts in AA following his two-level promotion from the South Atlantic League, Mark Cohoon was terrific at the end of last season.  This year, well, he’s allowed just one unearned run in 12 innings.  In his last 50 innings at AA, he’s been very good.

Robert Carson is Better
When he was promoted to AA last year, the Eastern League hit .343 against Robert Carson and launched seven home runs against him.  This year, the Eastern League is hitting .270 against him and has yet to hit a home run in 10 innings.  After a zero walk first start, Carson issued four free passes in five innings on Sunday.  Carson just turned 22 so is the youngest of the three guys in the B-Mets rotation with ERAs below one.  Anyway, it’s two pretty good starts from a guy who really struggled in AA last year.

One more point about the lefties: both Carson and Cohoon have been reunited with pitching coach Marc Valdes who coached both hurlers in Savannah (Carson in 2009 and Cohoon in 2010).

Jordanny Valdespin is Still Looking for “It”
In nine games spent at short, Valdespin is hitting .188/.289/.344 with one home run Sunday, which the game recap on B-Mets.com describes as wind-aided.  There’s a lot of season left, of course, and he’s walking more, and a few extra hits would make that line look pretty different.

Looking Forward
This team will be at least a little bit better offensively too, as outside of Michael Fisher, who’s hitting .400 (6 H/15 AB) no one else is hitting above .250.  Even so, as a whole, they’re going to struggle to score consistently.
On the other hand, the starting pitching here is the thing to watch as Holt and the lefties Cohoon and Carson bring a wide range of style and pedigree but are off to good starts.

I should have finished this series up last week, but the reason I do month-by-month analysis is to give myself a chance to break down the season into manageable chunks to tease out various story lines.

Despite a potent offense, the K-Mets struggled to a 9-17 record in July.  The offense hit .290/.368/.436 and scored 184 runs, 7.1 runs per game.  Meanwhile, the pitching owned a 5.25 ERA and allowed 6.6 runs per game, 172 overall.  Once again, a Mets affiliate with a positive run differential, had a losing record.  If this sounds familiar, St. Lucie pulled the same trick in July.  How to explain this?  I can’t.

Player of the Month
2B Alonzo Harris (.306/.366/.541) led the K-Mets with seven and tied for the team lead as one of three players with eight stolen bases.  He’s just 19, and was a good enough athlete to attract attention as a defensive back at DI schools for football.  He’s a prospect.  One note of caution, as is common for young hitters, Harris is aggressive; he walked ten times and struck out 24 in 111 AB over 25 games.  He’ll need to be careful with that strikeout/walk rate as he moves up.  Also, as long as we’re talking about 19-year olds, remember that he’s the same age as Ruben Tejada but is playing four levels below him.

Honorable Mention
Four different players who played in at least half of the K-Mets hit over .300 in the month.
CF Darrell Cecilliani (.303/.361/.447) was 8-for-9 stealing bases, and knocked two homers and five doubles.  The Mets drafted the 19-year old Ceciliani in the fourth round out of Columbia Basin (WA) CC and paid him $204K to sign.
1B Jeff Flagg (.330/.387/.530) took advantage of all of those dudes on base in front of him to drive in 30 (!) runs in 25 games in July.  At 23, I’d sure like to see what Flagg would do with a month in the SAL.

Pitcher of the Month
LHP Angel Cuan: 1-1, 3.64.  In 29.2 IP, he fanned 24 and walked eight and gave up 32 hits.  The 20-year old began the year in the year with two starts for Brooklyn before the Mets sent him down to the Appy League.

So I’m bringin back the monthly reviews for each affiliate, starting in St. Lucie…

The New York media has, over the course of the summer of 2009, become fixated on the angle that the Buffalo Bisons and Binghamton Mets poor overall records reflect a weak New York Mets farm system storyline.  The link between actual farm system strength and affiliates’ wins and losses is not strong.  However, St. Lucie, which struggled to an 8-19 July after playing .500 baseball for the rest of the season had as rough a month as any other Mets affiliate.

Yet, the team’s July record, going 11 games under .500, looks fairly fluky.  The team hit .252/.334/.385 and scored 129 runs or 4.8 runs per game, a solid mark in the FSL and yielded 127 runs. So, St. Lucie had a positive run differential (+2) which would predict that the team would be at about .500, and yet they underperformed by 11 games.  Wow.

Brant Rustich was DLed towards the end of the month with a shoulder strain.

Player of the Month

Zach Lutz – .338/.416/.529 with four doubles, three homeruns, six walks and 11 strikeouts in 20 games.  Lutz played 15 games at 3B and a three at first.  Lutz is 23 and has been hampered by injuries since the 2007 so it’s nice to see him healthy and raking again.  He’ll get a chance to prove himself playing everyday in AA next year.

Honorable Mention

Stefan Welch, after an undistinguished month in Savannah, Welch took off with a monster July for St. Lucie hitting .337/.402/.483 with five doubles and two homers.  The Aussie has always made a lot of contact, but he did a terrific job controlling the strike zone in July, walking nine times and fanning just 12 in 23 games.  Lutz was sixth in the FSL in AVG in July, while Welch was seventh.  Welch will turn 21 next week, so he’s no longer extremely young for his level.  He needs to finish strong in August to prove that July was no fluke and that he’s ready to play 1B everyday at AA next year.

Pitcher of the Month

Tim Stronach (1-2, 2.45) gave up ten runs in 25.2 innings working as both a starter and a reliever despite 12 strikeouts and 11 walks.

Honorable Mention

Jeffrey Kaplan (1-2, 3.90) had nice month as well, fanning 25 and walking eight in 30 innings, which led the St. Lucie staff.

The Gnats in May were largely similar to the Gnats in April, sporting an offense that relies very heavily on batting average (.255/.319/.376) and a strong pitching staff (3.11 ERA). However, the team was three-games over .500 in April and three games under (13-16) in May. The team finished May at an even 25-25, in fifth place, three and a half games behind first-place Rome in the tightly bunched Southern Division.

Why? However, after scoring five runs a game in April ( on a .277/.322/.378 line), the Gnats dipped to 3.67 in May. The Gnats team ERA moved from 3.36 in April to 3.11 in May, but ERA really doesn’t tell the story for this team. The Gnats allowed 17 unearned runs in April and 21 in May. Obviously, that has much to do with the 31 errors the team committed in the month, but it also reflects poorly, to a lesser degree on the pitchers, who put runners aboard in the first place. Jefry Marte’s miserable May included 11 errrors in 29 games, doubling the next most butcherous – 2B Jordany Valdespin with 5 miscues.

Seventeen-year old SS Wilmer Flores missed ten days in the middle of the month with what was described as fatigue.

Player of the Month

Sean Ratliff

Ratliff was on fire in May, hitting .321/.377/.571 with a team leading 18 extra-base hits. The Mets fourth round pick from Stanford will swing and miss a lot – he whiffed 28 times in 28 games, and remember this is over a period when he was going well. I fear that as he moves up, pitchers will continue to exploit the holes in his swing. He ended May 10^th in the league in batting average, first in hits and tied for seventh in extra-base hits.

Honorable Mention

Eric Campbell, the Mets’ 8^th round pick out of Boston College last year hit .286/.374/.440 in 23 games. A college thirdbaseman, Campbell mostly played first and a little left (2 games). The 22-year old did a nice job controlling the strike zone; he walked 12 times and struck out just 14 times. His month ended on a down note, as he hit the DL left rotator cuff tendonitis.

OF Raul Reyes hit .356/.397/.508 for May.

1B/2B Josh Satin kept his quick start going by hitting .291/.403/.437 with nine doubles. Satin drew 20 walks and fanned 25 times so he’s clearly seeing lots of pitches. However, in a-ball, I prefer to see the types of numbers put up by Campbell, similar numbers of walks to strikeouts with whiff in roughly half the games versus nearly one whiff per contest. That many strikeouts says to me that a batter, in this case Satin, will have trouble making enough contact as he moves up the ladder. For power guys, it’s slightly less of an issue, but Satin will need to maintain his batting average to be an asset offensively.

Pitcher of the Month

Leading the league in ERA? Check. Promoted two days after the month ends? Check. Meet Jeffrey Kaplan who was 3-0 with a 0.85 ERA in five starts in May. In 31.2 IP, he struck out 19 and walked eight, while allowing just four runs, three earned. His peripherals were good, but he outpitched them in terms of his ERA which suggests that he was managing the game well or even a little lucky. On the day Brad Holt and Jenrry Mejia were promoted from St. Lucie to Binghamton, Kaplan got the nod to move up from Savannah to St. Lucie. Kaplan, with a high 80s fastball is hardly overpowering, so will need to be pinpoint with his control to have any success at higher levels.

Honorable Mention

LHP reliever Jimmy Johnson was spotless in May with a 0.00 ERA in 12.2 innings out of the Savannah ‘pen. He fanned 12 and walked five. Johnson left Savannah with 16 straight scoreless innings to his credit.

LHP Robert Carson’s 1.01 ERA looks great, but it misses the fact that he allowed three earned runs and seven unearned runs in 26.2 IP. Adding the unearned runs back in gives him a r/g of 3.37. His peripherals (21 K, 10 BB and a 2.29 gb/fb ratio) remained strong.

Is it June Yet?

Jefry Marte (.153/.193/.279) with 11 errors is stoked by the calender’s change.

The biggest story in May in St. Lucie was on the mound where Brad Holt and Jenrry Mejia were simply dominant. Both earned their promotions to Binghamton earlier this week and will throw for the B-Mets this weekend.

On June 1, Mejia’s 2.06 ERA was fourth in the FSL, while Brad Holt’s 50 strikeouts were second. Ike Davis’ 16 doubles was led teammate Carlos Guzman by one, for the top spot in the league. Guzman’s .503 SLG was fifth in the FSL.

On June 1, after a 13-12 May, the St. Lucie Mets were 23-22, 7.5 games behind the first-place Fort Myers Miracle (Twins) who were setting a blistering pace atop the FSL South. The Mets began May in streaky fashion, alternating three-game winning streaks with three game losing streaks, a run that was interrupted by the rain in the middle of the month, which rained out four of the five St. Lucie games from 5/17-5/19.

Player of the Month

Kirk Nieuwenhuis. The Mets’ third round pick in 2008 out of Azusa Pacific led St. Lucie in OPS (.922) in May as part of a .284/.376/.545 month in which he bashed five homers. Long and rangy with a clean set up at the plate, Nieuwenhuis has impressed scouts in his brief minor league tenure. With Fernando Martinez working on establishing himself in the big leagues, the 21-year old Nieuwenhuis is the next best OF prospect within hailing distance of the big leagues.

Honorable Mention

Carlos Guzman. Guzman turned 23 in May, so he’s a little old for top prospect status, but he’s been so remarkably consistent in 2009, that even Joe Morgan would be awfully proud. After a .303/.354/.500 April, Guzman hit .303/.355/.505 in May with 3 HR in each month. No, those aren’t typos. Really, I doublechecked.

This has been a breakout year for Guzman, although he will need to keep proving that it’s real. At present, Guzman has 15 doubles and six homeruns through 49 games. Last year with Savannah, Guzman collected 14 doubles and eight homers in 84 contests.

Ike Davis. His May (.263/.360/.432) wasn’t explosive, but he’s been solid all the way along and now leads St. Lucie with an .844 OPS. Coming off a very disappointing 2008 professional debut, Davis needed a rebound and is absolutely providing one.

Pitcher of the Month

So, you be the judge:

There’s no wrong answer here, but I’ll take Brad Holt on the strikeout rate and the K/BB ratio. Mejia’s backers will point to the gb/fb ratio to make the case for their guy.

Is it June Yet?

After an April power surge, Reese Havens hit .184/.336/.310 in May. Havens was still drawing walks (17) and was not striking out much (15 in 87 AB over 24 games) so it could well have been that he was getting at least a little unlucky and just couldn’t find the singles that would have made his overall line look good. He still homered three times. Now shelved for six weeks with a strained quad, Havens will have to wait until July to reinflate his batting average.

C Francisco Pena went .222/.263/.278 in 18 games in May.

The Binghamton Mets finished May 11-18, in last place in the Eastern League Northern Division, six games behind the Connecticut Defenders. The B-Mets allowed 5.6 runs per game in the month and scored but 4.2, easily explaining their mark at seven games under .500.

The thing that stands out in the month about the B-Mets pitching staff was the lousy K/BB ratio. The B-Mets pitchers walked 4.2 batters per nine while striking out just 5.8 for a k/BB ratio of 1.4.

On the first of June, Josh Thole led the Eastern League in batting average and OBP while DJ Wabick was 8^th with his .327 average. The common knock on Thole is that he doesn’t hit for enough power, and yet, his 16 doubles were tied with DJ Wabick and two others for the league lead. Ryan Coultas’s 2.55 ERA was sixth on the circuit. Manny Garcia’s 14 stolen bases were fourth.

Pitcher of the Month

Ryan Coultas. The converted SS from UC Davis never hit as a professional, so the Mets moved him to the mound. Coultas is making that decision look prudent. In May, he was 3-1 with a 2.23 ERA in 32.1 IP over five starts. One monstrous note of caution: he struck out only fifteen batters and walked 11. I wonder whether, and I haven’t crunched the numbers, converted position players have lower K/rates than one might expect given their raw stuff because they aren’t as comfortable setting hitters up and then putting them away.

Honorable Mention

Tobi Stoner returned from a slight labrum tear in spring training and was 1-1 with a 2.49 ERA in his first four starts of the year. Again, his K/BB rate (12/9) is problematic.

Player of the Month

DJ Wabick turned 25 on the penultimate day of May, a month in which he hit .377/.417/.528 with 13 doubles and a home run.

Honorable Mention

Josh Thole .361/.429/.485, with nine doubles, a homer and 12 walks against 12 strikeouts had another excellent month.

Shawn Bowman (.275/.319/.468 in May) clubbed four homers, the only B-Met with more than one.

As perfectgame noted in the comment section, I unfairly omitted young Ruben Tejada who hit .309/.374/.415 in May with nine walks and nine strikeouts in 94 AB over 28 games.  That plate discipline and contact rate from a 19-year is very solid.  Tejada played 22 games at short and six at secondbase indicating just how highly the organization regards his skill set.  The more versatile a player can be, the better his chance of fighting his way onto a big league roster.

Is it June Yet?

OF Carl Loadenthal (.219/.337/.233 in 23 G) didn’t hit much.

The bullpen as a whole was really bad. Nick Abel (12.41 ERA), Edgar Alfonzo (6.57), Eric Brown (5.76), Roy Merritt (6.35) all were ineffective or at best, inconsistent in May.

Back-to-back Bisons posts!  That doesn’t happen much.

The Buffalo Bisons improved from miserable in April to simply bad in May when the team went 12-18. Once again, the team’s offense was largely punchless, as the Bisons hit .251/.311/.375 as a team. As June dawns, the Bisons sit 17 games behind the first-place Scranton Wilkes-Barre Yankees.

Now two months into the season, many of the events in Buffalo must be viewed through the lens of the action at the big league level. Fernando Martinez was having a great month of May (.337/.378/.663 with 7 2B and 7 HR) but would have remained a Bison but for injuries to Carlos Beltran, Ryan Church and Carlos Delgado which moved Daniel Murphy back to 1B. Ramon Martinez played nine games for Buffalo, and was simply next in line when Jose Reyes and Alex Cora were forced to miss time simultaneously. Cora briefly rejoined the Bisons before hurrying back to the Mets to relieve Cora.

On the mound, for example, the Mets called up Jon Niese for a look, but he did not pitch well enough to convince the team that he deserved to stay in the big leagues. Moreover, he’s been hit very hard in his time in Buffalo, suggesting that what fans saw in his brief time in New York was not an aberration.

Dillon Gee hit the DL towards the end of the month with shoulder soreness. He pitched better in May than in April, but was never healthy.

Oliver Perez made one rehab start, but decided his knee (and perhaps his psyche) needed more time off.

Player of the Month

I like it when it’s easy. Fernando Martinez tore the cover off the ball and earned his journey to New York City.

Pitcher of the Month

Brandon Knight: 3-2, 3.93 ERA, 34.1 IP, 33 H, 15 R, 13 BB, 31 K

The numbers certainly aren’t overwhelming, but the dependable Knight made six starts and a relief appearance and led the staff in innings. He’s kept the Bisons in games and won ¼ of the team’s games in the month of May.

Is it June Yet?

This might fall into the, “is it 2010 yet?” but Nick Evans was 1-16 in May before the Mets took him out of his misery at AAA and sent him down to AA by way of extended spring training to clear his head. He was 7-for 75 (.093) in AAA. Evans began his 2009 AA tenure by going 8-for-40 (.200) in May.

Jon Niese was 0-2 with a 7.47 ERA in three starts and allowed 22 hits in 15.2 IP. He was in the strike zone, as he fanned 13, and walked five, but was just way too hittable.

Carlos Muniz, who saw the big leagues a year ago, was 0-2 with a 8.38 ERA in six relief innings. In 9.2 innings, he gave up 14 hits and 14 runs.