April is done, so it’s time to hand out the hardware for the top pitcher and position player on each affiliate in the month.

This isn’t purely about which player is the better prospect, but about who played or pitched better in this admittedly arbitrary endpoints game.  In cases of a tie, deference will be given to the player who improved his prospect stock more.

We’ll start with AAA, work our way down and then do an overall organization Player and Pitcher of the month.

Player

Kirk Nieuwenhuis

.301/.420/.554 9 2B, 4 HR, 16 BB, 22 K – 83 AB, 22 G.

Nieuwenhuis owned a 16 game hitting streak in April and led all Bisons with 10 games played or more in OBP and SLG.

The hole in his game remains his performance against lefties.

Thus far this year, he’s crushed righties at a .365/.467/.714 rate in 63 AB and done only .240/.367/.280 versus southpaws in 25 AB.

Pitcher

RHP Chris Schwinden

1-0, 1.15 ERA, 3 GS, 15.2 IP, 11 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 6 BB, 17 K, Opp AVG: .196

He’s not the prospect Mejia is, but he was great in his three starts for Buffalo.

Honorable Mention

Jenrry Mejia

1-2, 2.86 ERA, 5 GS, 28.1 IP, 16 H, 10 R, 9 ER, 14 BB, 21 K, Opp AVG: .168

– Mejia started off very well, but his command showed no improvement as the month wore on, and he finished on a down note with his lowest strike percentage in his last start.

– Also, Schwinden had him beat on K-rate, crazy as that is.

Friday, Baseball America named 3B Aderlin Rodriguez the 9th best prospect in the Appalachian League in 2010.  The week before, Rodriguez, who played the entire season as an 18-year old earned the Sterling Award as the teams’ MVP.  There’s little doubt he deserved the team MVP award, he was the best hitter on the K-Mets and the team’s best prospect.
His a big strong kid with a soft body.  His swing is reasonably short, but he generates real, easy power.  He can get a little overly aggressive, and Rodriguez says that becoming more patient is one of his major goals at the plate.  Defensively, his work at third is rough at best and even his Kingsport manager, Mike DiFelice suggested that he might outgrow the position.

In his writeup of Rodriguez, Matt Eddy wrote provacatively, “Rodriguez did draw criticism—and benchings—for uneven effort and lack of hustle. He’ll go as far as his bat takes him.”

In the game I saw in Kingsport, Rodriguez hit a ball that missed being a home run by a few feet.  He thought was out, and cruised a little bit out of the box, before hustling into second to save the double.  You can see this in the video below.

I believe in the bat.  I think Aderlin has more natural power than Wilmer Flores, for example. Of course, if you’re going to be an impact firstbaseman, you need to hit a ton.  Rodriguez did hit this year.

Eddy made this same point when asked about Aderlin in his chat:

Sholom (Smithtown, N.Y): What kind of player does Aderlin Rodriguez project to be?

Matthew Eddy: You have to respect Rodriguez’s power and
ability to make frequent, hard contact at his age. But when projecting
his future you have to accept the likelihood that he’ll move to first
base at some point. That won’t be a problem if his bat continues to
flourish, but ask fellow Kingsport alum Nick Evans how hard it is to
break into the big leagues as a RH-hitting 1B if you don’t hit for 30-HR
power. Back in ’05, a 19-year-old Evans hit .344/.382/.734 in 15 games
for K-port.

Aderlin Rodriguez photo courtesy of the Savannah Sand Gnats.

We’ve gone through the full-season Sterling Award winners including Organization Player of the Year Lucas Duda, Pitcher of the Year Mark Cohoon, AAA winner Dillon Gee, AA winner Kirk Nieuwenhuis, A+ winner Wilmer Flores, and A winner Cesar Puello,  so lets move on to the short-season award recipients, starting with Darrell Ceciliania of the Brooklyn Cyclones.

Ceciliani didn’t just win the New York-Penn League batting title by hitting .351, a new Cyclones’ record.  He won the NYP batting title by 21 points. He led the League in hits (95) and triples (12), was third in OBP (.410), and tied for third in doubles (19) and in extra-base hits (33) with teammate Cory Vaughn.  Oh, and he was the youngest player on the Cyclones.
Ceciliani is not just a hitter.  One Mets person suggested to me that that Ceciliani was just about the best defensive CF in the system.  That’s high praise.
There’s just so much to like here as a premium defender with a promising bat.  Ceciliani didn’t just hit singles, either: he drilled 33 extra-base hits in 68 games for the Cyclones.
Two minor cautionary notes: the 18% strikeout rate is fine, but any further rises would be a little troubling and despite plus speed, he was successful stealing bases in only 60% of his attempts.  More success will come with more repetitions.
I haven’t sat down and done my Top 41 rankings, but I think he’s safely into the top ten.  With Ceciliani, the only question is how high?

I’ve written about the Sterling Award winners including Organization Player of the Year Lucas Duda, Pitcher of the Year Mark Cohoon, AAA winner Dillon Gee, AA winner Kirk Nieuwenhuis and A winner Cesar Puello.  So lets plug the holes and finish this series.

Wilmer Flores, who turned 19 in August, won the Sterling Award as the St. Lucie Mets MVP despite playing exactly on half season in the FSL after being promoted at the SAL All-Star break.
The chart below tracks his production since Opening Day 2009 in the South Atlantic League.

- Note first the major jumps in extra-base hit percentage and walk rate between Savannah in 2009 and 2010.
- Note the splits between April-May and then May-June in the SAL.  What was behind them precisely, is hard to explain.
- So, what happened in St. Lucie?  First, he hit .300, a nice round number of a statistical accomplishment.  He basically maintained his extra-base hit rate (8.8% in the SAL to 8.0% in the FSL) while moving to the higher level.  His strikeout rate ticked upwards, but his walk rate plummeted.  … or did it?
- In his first 39 games in the FSL, Flores drew exactly two walks in 143 plate appearances, an anemic, bordering on ridiculous rate of 1.4%.  And then he relaxed in August and drew seven free passes in his final 121 plate appearances a more reasonable rate of 5.8%.
- Overall, Flores had a big season combined between the SAL and the FSL, hitting Flores a career-high 36 doubles and 11 home runs.
- Even when he wasn’t walking, he never struck out much.  This contact ability, the simple ability to put the barrel of the bat on the ball, is what makes him such an impressive prospect.
- Defensively, Flores possesses many of the gifts of a successful shortstop: soft, quiet hands, a strong arm, but the simple question will be whether he can cover enough ground to stay at the position long-term.  He got quicker between 2009 and 2010.  Will the Mets give him a chance to improve more this off-season?  The bet here is yes.
- Two related questions about Flores: what level will he start 2011 and at what position?
— It would appear as though Robbie Shields is headed for shortstop at St. Lucie.  If Flores is to stay at short, it’s either going to be at Binghamton or in a time-sharing arrangement (which would serve no one) in St. Lucie.  I’d sure love to see him dominate the FSL in the first half of 2011 with power and patience, before seeing him move to AA Binghamton, but I think that this Sterling Award is a sign that he’s on his way to AA Binghamton to begin 2011 as a 19-year old in AAA.

Ted posted this the other day, and I hope you check out Tedquarters.net daily, but if you don’t, here goes:

Kevin Burkhardt chats with Mets Sterling Pitcher of the Year, LHP Mark Cohoon during last night’s Mets game. As Mets fans have found out, Cohoon, is a talker.

Before tonight’s game, the Mets will honor their Sterling Award Winners for their Organization Pitcher and Player of the Year and the MVP of each affiliate. So, if you want to catch some minor leaguers in street clothes, head on out to Citi early tonight.

I’ll write a little more about each of these guys tonight, but here’s the list.  Most of these choices were pretty obvious.

Sterling Organizational Player of the Year

Lucas Duda

After hitting .286/.411/.503 in 45 games in AA, the 24-year old went nuts at AAA bashing 17 home runs in 70 games as part of a .314/.389/.610 line at the minors’ highest level.  In all, he finished with 40 doubles and 23 home runs in the minors while hitting .304/.398/.569.  Impressively, he drew 60 walks while striking out just 84 times.  By the time he reached AAA, he pummeled righties (.348/.421/.663) while holding his own against lefties (.244/.323/.500).  Maybe he could be Nick Evans’ platoon partner in LF.

Pitcher of the Year

Mark Cohoon
At the time of his promotion to AA, Cohoon was leading the SAL in ERA (1.30) and innings pitched (90.1) and had not
allowed an earned run in his last 33.1 innings pitched.  He had tossed three straight complete game strikeouts, matching a League record most recently set in 1992.  He struggled initially in AA in July and then was dominant in August.

I’ve put this up before, but it’s worth revisiting, but here is Cohoon’s time in AA, split by month:

Other Team Winners:
AAA: Dillon Gee
AA: Kirk Nieuwenhuis
A+ – St. Lucie: Wilmer Flores
A – Savannah: Cesar Puello
SSA – Brookyn: Darrell Ceciliani
R- Kingsport: Aderlin Rodriguez
R – GCL: Domingo Tapia
DSL #1: CF Eudy Pina
DSL #2: Hector Alvarez

Amazin’ Avenue is running an R.A. Dickey Face contest.  I submitted the image below.