At Baseball America, John Manuel ranked the top prospects in the Eastern League, putting Fernando Martinez at #7, Daniel Murphy at #13 and Jon Niese at #18. Martinez was #3 on last year’s EL Top 20.

Here are his important assessments on each guy:

On Martinez
Martinez continues to elicit a range of reactions.
One AL scout [...]

Jonathan Niese LHP
AA: 6-7, 3.04 ERA, 22 GS, 124.1 IP, 118 H, 53 R, 42 ER, 5 HR, 44 BB, 112 K, 1.5 gb/fb
AAA: 5-1, 3.40 ERA, 7 GS, 39.2 IP, 34 H, 15 R, 15 ER, 4 HR, 14 BB, 32 K, 1.66 gb/fb

What he is: At age 21, the Mets fifth starter, [...]

BA’s Ben Badler did the honors for Baseball America in their weekly ESPN chat this week.

Brian (Brooklyn): Was Wilmer Flores the number 1 international prospect signing last year? Also has he been the most productive from last year’s class?
Ben Badler: (2:20 PM ET ) Nope, there were eight others who got more [...]

Wenesday Keith Law Chatted at ESPN.com
Jeff (NYC): should I be excited about Holt and Flores?
Keith Law: Yes, although I still want to see a better second pitch from Holt.
Sure. Everyone does.

John - Philadelphia: Hey Klaw, Thoughts on Jon Niese’s debut last night. Results were pretty rough but that curve looked good at times. [...]

In response to my post below, about the long term roster and cost considerations that helped the Mets decide to go with Brian Stokes rather than Jonathan Niese for Saturday’s start, reader WC wrote:
And on the more practical side of things, they may have considered that throwing a soft tossing rookie lefty against a lineup [...]

Somewhere in the middle of Friday’s Mets broadcast on SNY, Gary Cohen recounted a conversation he’d had with Omar Minaya regarding Saturday’s starting pitcher. Cohen reported that Minaya said the Mets didn’t call up Jon Niese 1. because the team really didn’t want to bring Niese up for just one start, secure in [...]

Just as I was preparing a post comparing the relative merits of importing Jon Niese or Claudio Vargas from AAA or Bobby Parnell from AA for the Mets rotation, comes word from Will Carroll at Baseball Prospectus that the Mets are expected to sign Livan Hernandez by “mid-week.” Hmmm.
Really? Hernandez had allowed almost [...]

On Monday, the Mets announced that Jon Niese was being promoted from double-A Binghamton to triple-A New Orleans. Niese is scheduled to make his first triple-A start on Wednesday, bumping back Ruddy Lugo. As for his reaction to the news, Niese said he was both “surprised and excited” to be heading for triple-A.
[...]

1. HUGE win for the Mets.  Ollie was fantastic and Delgado put a great swing on that ball.
2. Officially remove Jon Niese (pictured) from consideration for Saturday’s spot start.  Niese just fired a complete game shutout (7 IP, 6 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 8 K) in Binghamton’s 11-0 blowout in game one of a [...]

Kevin Goldstein at Baseball Prospectus posted a National League East notebook on Thursday. His Mets analysis is based on a conversation with a pro scout who sees Jon Niese and Eddie Kunz as “productive big leaguers.”
Niese has had a solid year as the team’s ace, with a 3.09 ERA in 20 starts. [...]