Baseball Prospectus prospect Guru Kevin Goldstein released his Top Mets prospects yesterday.  We talk about them.  This part is focused on position players, although a few pitchers sneak in.

TH: From reader UBE 13: How come Lagares over Puello and Nieuwenhuis [pictured at right], given that Lagares’s success is almost solely BABIP driven?

KG: Well, nobody is saying Lagares is going to hit .370. But he does have a better hit tool then Puello or Capt. Kirk, and that matters, and none of them is going to be a center fielder in the big leagues. Puello is still far more tools than reality, and his approach is a complete mess, while Nieuwenhuis is certainly the most likely to have a career, but the ceiling is questionable.

TH: As a follow-up from me, you wrote that Lagares could grow into 15-18 HR annually, while his career-high is nine from 2011. Nieuwenhuis has a couple of 15+ HR seasons to his credit in 2009 and 2010. Do you think Nieuwenhuis, who’s about a year and a half older, has come closer to maxing out his power development?

KG: I do. The thing about Nieuwenhuis is that he’s kind of a what you see is what you get type. There are so few weaknesses in his game, but no star-level tools either.

TH: Dave in Spain wants to know: Which prospect in this Top 20 has the best chance of shooting up the rankings this year? Who could drop off the radar completely?

Kevin: Well, first off, tell Dave that he is in friggin’ SPAIN, and has better things to do than worry about Mets prospects.

TH: like drink good spanish wine, and eat delish spanish cheese?

KG: Or just, you know, hang out in Spain.

KG: Akeel Morris has really great stuff and it all looks right and will a few refinements, I could see him moving up significantly next year. As far as the opposite goes, I realize he’s young, but at some point Wilmer Flores has to hit to the position he’s going to end up at.

TH: Good answers. I’ve been getting lots of Valdespin questions. You have him ranked as a 2B. I’ve never talked to anyone outside the Mets organization who thinks he can play shortstop. Have you?

Kevin: Not really. One of those frustrating types who has the athetlicism for the position, but just can’t play it.

TH: And because of this, and the fact that he has some strike zone control, I still have Reese Havens ahead of Valdespin. You went tools of Valdespin. Am I just being stubborn? How hard a decision was this for you, recognizing that they’re separated only by Jenrry Mejia’s surgically repaired UCL in your rankings?

KG: Havens is incredibly hard to rank, at least for me. What do you do with a player like that? Like I wrote, if he had been healthy throughout his career, he’s already be the Mets second baseman, and probably an established one. But here we are, and he misses 80 games a year. His career high is 97, and that’s three years ago now. What do we do with that?

TH: Hope he doesn’t develop arthritis like Fernando Martinez? Sorry, cheap Mets joke.

KG: Exactly. At some point it’s going to take it’s toll.

TH: The perfectgame wants to know: “Did you give C Albert Cordero any consideration for a spot at the back end of your Top 20? Cordero and LHP Josh Edgin, while neither a top prospect, are two of the guys I’m most interested in following this season. Any thoughts on either player?” I know Edgin was your sleeper

KG: Edgin was my sleeper, and I know the Mets think he can move quickly, and scouts agree. As for Cordero, he not only received consideration, he was the LAST cut from the list, so he’s No. 21.

TH: As long as we’re on guys who missed. I think I’m the highest on Aderlin Rodriguez of anyone still out there. I get the negatives: the batting average was iffy this year, he swings all the time, he struggles at third. Still, he has significantly more power than Wilmer Flores and Jefry Marte, both of whom still land in your Top 20. How much did Rodriguez miss by?

Kevin: He would have been in the 20s. I just don’t think he’s anything more than a 1B, and 1B can’t have the kind of holes in their game that he does.

TH: So the implied logic is that you give Marte a better chance of staying at third than Rodriguez?

Kevin: and a batter chance to hit more than his weight.

TH: Ooof.

Kevin: Look, Aderlin has CRAZY raw power, but that’s it. Every other aspect of his game is a mess right now.

TH: Yeah. I think I’ve written nearly that exact sentence. I saw a lot of Aderlin in 2011.

KG: Sure, you know him as good as anyone. You’ve seen the mess and once ever eight days he hits a ball 430 feet.

TH: Pretty much. With lots of pop-ups in between. I guess for me, he has a plus, if not better, MLB tool. I’m not sure Marte does. And Aderlin’s arm is better.

Kevin: Marte is at 17, and that was a late surge. A couple of scouts in the Arizona Fall League had good things to say about him, at least offensively, so I put him up there, to the chagrin of our Cordero fan.

TH: Ha. Right.

TH: More from reader UBE13: Do you hold out any hope for Cory Vaughn?

KG: minor, tiny hope

TH: Ok, lets step back a moment from individual guys. Is there anything that made the Mets list particularly difficult from your perspective?

KG: Not really. They’re all hard, you know? I flip them all over the place and talk to a lot of people and I’m never 100% comfortable. But there was nothing specific to the Mets list.

me: Thank you!

Kevin: no problem

Yesterday, Kevin Goldstein released his Mets Top 11 Prospect Ranking at Baseball Prospectus.  I talked to him about the rankings, and the Mets system.  This is part 1 of the conversation, focused on pitching.  The position players will be the focus of part 2. I avoided asking questions that I felt were answered directly by his comprehensive writeups.

TH: Lets start at the top. How close was Harvey [pictured at right] and Wheeler at #1 for you, and should Mets fans worry about the difference?

KG: They really shouldn’t. My Top 101 isn’t out yet, but I can tell you that the two are a whopping five slots apart. I went back and forth on them plenty of times and if I did this again in four weeks, maybe Wheeler would be one. They really are that close.

TH: Ok. Same theme. I’ve got Jeurys Familia ahead of Wheeler because 1. he’s had success at AA and 2. throws more consistently harder. Looks like you took Wheeler’s upside. How far apart in some prospect-y world do you have Familia?

KG: Pretty far between Wheeler and Familia for me — hold on one sec. So Familia is good, but what’s good? It’s a fastball that’s arguably better than Harvey or Wheeler, but the secondary stuff is not as good, and with the delivery and the arm soreness, you have to wonder if he’s not just a reliever in the end. It’s at least in the back of your mind, and that matters.

TH: Fair. How much did Jenrry Mejia’s TJ surgery affect his prospect ranking?

KG: It has to play a role, just in the sense that even though the recovery rate for that is fantastic, it’s not 100% and that kind of thing, like Familia, creates questions about future role. Not every pitcher is designed to throw 200 innings a year. In fact, few are.

TH:  I like this question, from reader Sylvan: Is there anyone outside of your top 20 who struck you as having especially high upside (but, presumably, too far from the majors to earn a spot on the list)?

KG: How about Domingo Tapia, just as a highly projectable righty with upside.

TH: Yup. How about a ceiling and then a “most realistic” outcome for Darin Gorski?

KG: That’s a helluva start.

TH:  ?

KG: I’m kind of laughing because ceiling is No. 4 or 5 starter and that might be the most realistic outcome too. That or a middle reliever.
TH: Chris Schwinden snuck onto the back of your Top 20 list. Really a fifth starter? I figured he’d be a 27th man on the roster, bouncing between AAA and the big leagues.

Kevin: Possibly a fifth starter, and close enough that I was comfortable putting him there.

Kevin Goldstein at Baseball Prospectus has his top 11 (actually 20) Mets prospects up:

Five-Star Prospects
1. Matt Harvey, RHP
2. Zack Wheeler, RHP
Four-Star Prospects
3. Jeurys Familia, RHP
Three-Star Prospects
4. Brandon Nimmo, OF
5. Juan Lagares, OF
6. Jordany Valdespin, 2B
7. Jenrry Mejia, RHP
8. Reese Havens, 2B
9. Cesar Puello, OF
10. Michael Fulmer, RHP
11. Kirk Nieuwenhuis, OF

His overall comments:

System In 20 Words Or Less: With improvement coming via all three areas—draft, trades, international—the Mets are finally moving in the right direction.

Summary: It’s easy to look at the Mets system and see a pitching staff of the future. As for where the runs are going to come from, that’s still a bit of a mystery.

Kevin has agreed to do a Q & A about this list, so fire off questions in the comments section.

Rany Jazayerli has just written a terrific pair of articles at Baseball Prospectus arguing persuasively that in the MLB amateur draft, younger high school hitters have a dramatic advantage over their older high school peers (part 1, part 2).

Here’s a money quote:

We can safely say that the youngest 20 percent of high school hitters in any particular year will return, on average, about double what the oldest 20 percent of high school hitters will.

And translating it to specific picks:

The data from 1965 to 1996 suggested that a player drafted #100 overall could be expected to perform as well as a player one year older who was drafted #24 overall. But from 1997 to 2003, the impact of age was so great that the 17-year-old player drafted #100 was as valuable as the 18-year-old player drafted #13 overall.

There’s an obvious Mets implication for Brandon Nimmo and Philip Evans, which we’ll explore next.

In a recent open thread discussion, Kevin Goldstein of Baseball Prospectus answered some Mets prospect questions.  Juan Urbina, Jeurys Familia, and Wilmer Flores were referenced:

Q: Thank you for the chat: Any word on Juan Urbina this year? He’s giving up an awful lot of HR’s so far..

KG: Talked to a scout who saw his last start. Up to 93, some feel for the secondary stuff. He’s very raw, but there’s real talent there.

Q: What kind of ceiling/reasonable future can we expect from Familia?

KG: Bullpen arm, but a damn good one.

Q: Do the Mets have any closer candidates on their farm?

KG: Familia.

Q: is Wilmer Flores still a prospect?

KG: Barely.

Reaction from the baseball prospect experts regarding the Mets acquisition of Zack Wheeler has been uniformly positive.

ESPN.com’s Keith Law:

In acquiring pitching prospect Zack Wheeler from the San Francisco Giants for Carlos Beltran, theNew York Mets made out like bandits. …

Wheeler, who ranked No. 31 on my most recent prospect rankings, is an elite pitching prospect with a high ceiling. The right-hander will most likely be a solid No. 2 starter, but there is some chance he will be better than that because of the big fastball. He’ll touch 97 mph and sits 91-94 or better with an above-average curveball that has shown it can miss bats. He has a fringy changeup that’s a little too firm, and left-handed hitters are not impressed yet, as they’ve hit .292/.404/.487 against him this year. The fastball-breaking ball combo is top-notch, but between the changeup and a few other issues, Wheeler is high-risk as well as high-reward. His control is below average, with three starts this year in which he walked five or more batters, and he’ll have to show durability to match his frame, as he’s retired more than 18 batters just twice this year. You have to add an arm like that to your system any time you get the opportunity, but even as a fan of Wheeler’s I admit he’s no sure thing.

Baseball Prospectus

To their credit, the Mets had no designs on saving money by dealing Beltran, nor seemingly in acquiring depth. Rather, from the outside, their decision-making process revolved around finding the single best prospect that could, leading to the rare one-for-one deal, as Beltran is bound for the Bay Area in return for 2009 first-round pick Zack Wheeler. It’s easy to find dings in Wheeler, who has a 3.99 ERA in 16 starts for High-A San Jose, especially in his command and control and an arm slot that makes him susceptible to lefties, but he also has mid-90s heat, a sharp breaking ball, and one of those bodies that just looks like an All-Star starter. He has a front-of-the-rotation ceiling but hardly a good chance of reaching it, yet any pitcher with a non-zero chance of getting to that level is the kind of pitching prospect that everyone looks for—be it in trades, the draft, or through the international market.

…

There is such a thing as a pitching prospect, his name is Zack Wheeler, and while chances are good he’ll be a big leaguer, chances are poor that he’ll turn into a star. Nonetheless, he’s exactly what the Mets needed.

Baseball America

The sixth overall pick in 2009, Wheeler logged just 59 innings last season as he dealt with a cracked fingernail on his pitching hand—though he used the down time to iron out his pitching mechanics. A full recovery is evident in Wheeler’s performance this season. He ranks among the California League leaders in strikeout rate (10.0 per nine innings, fifth) and opponent average (.224, fourth). But while he’s given up just seven homers in 16 starts, he’s been too liberal with walks, handing out 4.8 per nine innings. Wheeler sits in the low- to mid-90s and can dial his plus fastball up to 96 mph with a quick, easy arm action. His curveball doesn’t always feature power or shape at this stage, and his changeup sometimes lacks finish, but he’s flashed plus with both pitches at various points. If Wheeler sharpens at least one of them to above-average status, he’s got front-of-the-rotation potential.

From Monday’s Ten-Pack over at Baseball Prospectus:

Jeurys Familia, RHP, Mets (Double-A Binghamton)
Few pitchers in baseball have done more for their stock this year than Familia, who entered the year as a big arm with plenty to figure out, and is suddenly among the best pitching prospects in the system. … last year despite mid-90s heat, many projected Familia as a reliever, but that’s no longer the case, … His stuff hasn’t taken a step forward (not that it needed to), but his control has improved by leaps and bounds; after walking 74 over 121 innings last year, he’s handed out just 11 complementary pizzas in 50 1/3. This season is critical in terms of defining his future role; six weeks in, he not only looks like a sure-fire starter, but an above-average one at that.

Your top three Mets pitching prospects are clearly Matt Harvey, Jenrry Mejia and Jeurys Familia.   How you rank them is up to you.  Coming into the year, I had them at Mejia, Harvey and Familia.   Now?