At Baseball Prospectus, Kevin Goldstein focused on Lucas Duda in his look at the Mets farm system this week.  He wrote in part that Duda’s:

…a behemoth with massive raw power, Duda works the count and makes a surprising amount of contact for a slugger, with scouts saying that his statistical line is no mirage. His play in left field is laughable, but
he understands the need to improve, knowing that the presence of rookie first baseman Ike Davis in the big leagues means that the weak outfield corner is his only path to the big leagues…

Duda’s at bats will be right up there with Jenrry Mejia’s offerings are going to be two of the most interesting things to me about the finale to the Mets season.
There’s a key point that Goldstein, and nearly everyone else who’s written about Duda, including me, recently has taken for granted: Ike Davis has first base locked down.  The 23-year old Davis has hit just .248/.331/.419 with 15 home runs.  That’s not good enough.  There’s some case he’ll improve, but his 27.9% K/rate is scary.  Davis is 27th among MLB first basemen in Fangraph’s batting runs.  He hops up to 17th in overall value (1.9 WAR) because he’s been the second-best fielder at the position (+7.4) behind only Justin Morneau.

It’s not going to be easy for Duda to supplant Davis at first, and frankly, no one should be rooting for it.  However, the idea that Davis is clearly the answer at the position is simply wrong.  Davis has done plenty of nice things in 2010, but the numbers make plain that he’s been a below average performer at first base.   Maybe Duda won’t hit much in the big leagues either.  In a perfect Mets world, both Duda and Davis hit enough to deserve everyday jobs on a corner with above average production.  Fans would not only watching good baseball players, but get the extra warm, fuzzy feeling that comes from knowing that they’re homegrown.  Right now, all fans have is the warm fuzzies without the production.

……

In the New York Post, earlier this week, Tim Bontemps argued that the Mets should not have recalled Jenrry Mejia to the big leagues right now.

The more prudent thing to do would be to keep Mejia in the minors, to have him pitch in instructional league and the Arizona Fall League toget to the necessary innings (roughly 125) for him to be a starter for the Mets next season, then prepare to have him as the team’s fifth starter in 2011, giving fans a bright new face to be excited about, one that isn’t tainted by what looks like it will be a rough finish to the 2010 season.

I just don’t buy any of this argument at all.  The question earlier this week was simply whether Mejia was going to start Saturday in Lehigh Valley for Buffalo or for the Mets in Chicago.  After that one start on Saturday, there’s no reason Mejia shouldn’t join the Mets rather than sit around watching the games on TV.
With Buffalo slipping out of the playoff race, it’s not like the Mets moving Mejia to the big leagues for Saturday’s start, was going to deny their affiliate a playoff payday.  So, the question is purely one of development.
As for Mejia, is one more start in AAA going to make much of a difference?  I don’t see it.
On the innings front, Mejia’s has thrown 70 innings between the Majors and minors right now.  If he starts every fifth day for the Mets from now until season’s end, they should be able to get him six more starts.  Lets say he goes five innings a start.  That takes him to 100 innings.  Then, if they wanted to, the team could have him throw a few games in instructs in early October if they were concerned with getting him a little more work.  This is actually preferable to having him throw in Buffalo on Saturday and then shutting it down for a few weeks before getting geared back up for Instructs/AFL.  Also, Mejia threw just 14.1 innings in the AFL.  The AFL is an extremely hard environment for a pitcher’s development.
Mejia won’t be “tainted” by the “rough” end to the Mets 2010 season.  He’ll be thrilled to be living his big league dream.
If you want him to make an impact in 2011, he should throw for the Mets here now in 2010 so that the team has a feel for whether his made enough progress both with his fastball command and his secondary offerings to be a viable option early next year.  I would bet that Mejia’s next month could help shape some of the Mets’ offseason pitching plans.

The “taking it slow” concept sounds nice, but Mejia has blown right past that.

So, Mets traded Jeff Francouer to the Texas Rangers for INF Joaquin Arias.  That’s a complete win.

How about Joaquin Arias?  Arias was the prospect that the Yankees traded to the Rangers, along with Alfonso Soriano for Alex Rodriguez in 2004.  The trade was initially consummated as a player to be named later, and I heard at the time that the Yankees moved Arias around in spring training to prevent the Rangers from getting a good look at him.  Arias was on the first minor league team I ever worked for, the 2004 Stockton Ports, then the Rangers California League affiliate.  At that time, he was a lanky, toolsy 20 year old with nice fielding actions and some feel for contact with questions about whether he would ever hit for power or show any plate discipline after a season in which he hit .300/.344/.396.  Now, he’s a utility infielder who turn 26 on September 21st, who walks roughly never (4.1% for his big league career) and hits for no power (.093, career) as evidenced by his .276/.290/.347 batting line.  That might be an upgraded on Ruben Tejada, but it should not be good enough to start for a major league team with designs on going to the postseason.

As recently as 2007, Baseball America had Arias ranked as the Rangers’ #6 prospect.  His career thus far has been a great reminder that most prospects, even those who hit .300 in Advanced-A or .315 AA at 21, don’t automatically become valuable big leaguers. Arias, who’s bounced between Arlington and AAA Oklahoma is out of minor league options, so he’ll have to stick on the Mets Major League roster, or they’ll risk losing him.

The other nice part of the Francouer trade is that the Mets promoted Lucas Duda.  As recently as Tuesday, I heard that Duda was not guaranteed to get a big league look in September.  At the time I thought that was silly, in large part because the 24-year old Duda has pounded out a .314/.389/.610 line in 70 games in AAA with 23 doubles and 17 homeruns.  The left-handed hitter has massacred righties at a .348/.421/.663 rate.  He’s a more natural first baseman, who’s played more leftfield than first in the last two years.  In 2008, he played 118 games at first for St. Lucie.  Last year in Binghamton, he played 49 games at first and 42 in the outfield, while this year, he’s up to 95 in the outfield and just 14 at first.  He’s always hit for average and controled the strike zone.  This year, he’s turned his big strong frame into usable game power.

Tuesday was a good day for Mets transactions.  However, as much as I like dispatching Francouer for Arias, it doesn’t solve the Mets second-base problem in 2011 or answer the Mets, who are third from last in the NL in WAR from their hitters, need for offense.  Rather, it’s a crucial first step in determining whether Arias and Duda can help create solutions.

So, about a week after the signing deadline and judging from the emails in my inbox, it’s past time I commented on the completed Mets draft.  It’s a very Mets draft.

- As the team has done recently, they targeted a player they wanted early, this time Harvey  and spent the money to get him.  Remember, the Mets have paid handsomely for pitchers, including Mike Pelfrey, Philip Humber and Steven Matz at the top of their draft classes.

- The Mets then went with college position players who signed for slot (Forsythe and Vaughn) or less (den Dekker) before moving towards pitching.

- As they did with Kyle Allen in 2008, the Mets took a great risk in the 24th round round chasing a first round talent in Erik Goeddel, who did in fact sign, and becomes one of the highest ceiling arms in the system.

- According to Baseball America, the Mets ranked 20th out of 30 MLB teams in total spending in 2010, or 104% of their recommended slot amount, 19th among MLB teams.

(Michael Diaz)- It was clear to me that the Mets front office targeted pitching, with 29 pitchers drafted (50 overall draftees).  The lack of power arms in the organization is a glaring need.  Harvey, Goeddel, and Morris will increase that total somewhat, but  there were players that the Mets could have taken and passed due to price tag.  Overall I feel this was a better draft class than “experts” predicted, but the Mets (as we all know already), need to flex their financial muscle and add more talented players in a sytem in need of talent.

- I’ve reordered the Mets’ draft by bonus amount rather than by round in the chart below.

(more…)

So after a thirteen-day trip to the big leagues, the Mets optioned Fernando Martinez back to AAA where he belongs.  As a corrective measure, I like the Thursday sequence well enough.  Martinez was optioned to Buffalo to make room for Rod Barajas, who returned from the disabled list.  If Barajas can play enough in the next week to convince some team who needs a catcher to pick him up before August 31st, and send an arm or some cash the Mets way, well cool.  If the Mets can’t trade him, Barajas, who’s not part of the Mets future and their next playoff team, should not take playing time away from Josh Thole, who might be.

Now onto the Martinez end of things.  He hit .167 (3-for-18) in seven games in the last week and a half in the big leagues.  Seven games of playing time should not be enough time on which to base a decision about a young player’s ability.  Essentially, we have no more new information now than on August 7.  When he was promoted to the Mets now 13 days ago, I wrote “I don’t get this at all“  in arguing that Martinez, who had hit .255/.321/.466 in 68 games in AAA this year wasn’t ready to play everyday in the big leagues.  I don’t think that’s controversial.

Mets manager Jerry Manuel, as quoted by Adam Rubin at ESPNNY agrees that Fernando Martinez wasn’t ready,

“He’ll be back. I’m sure he’ll be back. We talked about some things with him as far as his mechanics, his fundamentals in hitting. He’s a guy that the approach that he had is one that doesn’t really recognize offspeed pitches. If you don’t recognize offspeed pitches, then you have to guess with that. And he’s done a good job to survive with what he’s doing in guessing what is what. What we’re trying to do is take him to a level where he can recognize the offspeed pitch and use that quick bat that he has and that power that he has and put a good swing on it.”

What happened in the last 13 days that changed whether it was a good idea to have Fernando Martinez on the big league roster? If promoting Martinez to the big leagues 13 days ago was the right move then, demoting him now is wrong.

…And yet, since I thought it was silly to have Martinez in the big leagues anyway, sending him back down to AAA where he really can play everyday makes perfect sense.  Martinez needs to be in the lineup and if Manuel wasn’t going to play him everyday, and wasn’t going to be commanded to play Martinez, the youngster belongs back in the International League where he can join Lucas Duda, Kirk Nieuwenhuis and friends in helping the Bisons’ playoff push.

It’s a baffling sequence for Martinez, but in the end, shouldn’t matter much beyond costing him a few AB while giving him a few extra hours in this country’s fine airports.

Dillon Gee set a new Bisons’ strikeout record last night.  Even so, despite a sparkling 4.2 K/BB I cannot make an argument based on Gee’s stats that he’s ready to be an asset to the Major League team.  Lets compare him the International League averages across a couple of key rate categories.

As the chart above makes plain, he strikes out more guys than the average AAA pitcher, walks fewer but gives up more home runs, and has a higher batting average against to go along with a higher BABIP against.  There could be some element of luck involved, but the Bisons have been trotting out a pretty solid defensive team behind him, so I read the numbers as suggesting that when batters do make contact against Gee, they’re hitting it harder relatively than they do against the average IL pitcher.

I don’t see much in Gee’s splits to tell me he’s ready now and wasn’t earlier.  Do you you?  Even in August, when he owns a pretty 26 strikeouts against four walks, he’s allowed 13 runs in 24.1 innings.

If his results at the AAA level are below average, what will happen against MLB competition?

If you believe that his home run rates are fluky and that the average (and average on balls in play) is the result of shaky defense, then you’ll look at all of this and say, “Oh, he should be starting at the back end of a big league rotation.”  I think we’ll see that in September, but I’m not convinced it’s going to go well.

Adam Rubin just tweeted that Fernando Martinez “informed he’s being called up to the Mets.”  I defended Martinez as undervalued yesterday, but I don’t get this at all.  Sure, it’s great that the team, which is 8 games out of a playoff spot is looking to the future, but at the same time, I don’t see anything in Martinez that says he’s big league ready now.  What’s the value in him struggling at the MLB level?

The 21-year old Martinez has hit .255/.321/.466 for Buffalo.  He’s come out of a 3-36 slump at the end of July to hit .435 (10/23) with three doubles, two home runs, four walks and six strikeouts in his last seven games.  Seven games.  Again, he’s hitting .255 this year, at AAA.

Yes, he’s hopefully part of the future in a way Failcouer is not, but …. the future is not now.  Or is it time travel people?

The kids over at Lookout Landing used the Tejada/Martinez scratch to discuss a Figgins+cash for Castillo and a prospect swap.  The 32 year old Figgins is getting paid $8.5 million to hit .251/.342/.303 this year.

More when this thing is official.