More Stuff

The Herd:

New York Mets recalled Jonathon Niese from Buffalo Bisons.Niese takes the spot of Oliver Perez, who has been horrid this year. He got off to a great start, striking out five in six innings, walking none and allowing only two runs. He had been gasoline on fire in Triple-A, but turned it around in the majors. If he can keep it up, he could stick in the rotation all year. More than likely, he'll soon be replaced by Tim Redding and then when Perez returns, that could spell the end of Livan Hernandez.Just 22, Niese figures to be a long-term member of the rotation in due time.

http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/lost-in-transactions-5-4-5-10-09-manny-suspended-the-future-arrives


B-Mets:

On cool April day in New York, Mike Antonini received a glimpse of the future he hopes will materialize.He walked off the Citi Field mound that day after two scoreless innings against the Boston Red Sox, perfectly performing his part despite the Mets’ 9-3 loss. Pitching in the second of two exhibition games to christen the Mets’ new home, Antonini loved the feel of pitching in a stadium packed with nearly 40,000 fans stacked three decks high.He craves a longer stay.“Unbelievable experience,” he said from the dugout at Waterfront Park, where his Double-A Binghamton Mets were in town to face the Trenton Thunder. “I have dreams of getting there and playing at that level, but I have to take it one step at a time.”The Cardinal O’Hara High graduate is continuing his rapid ascent from an unheralded 18th-round selection in the 2007 draft, to more than a mere blip on the big club’s radar. A year ago the left-hander leapt through three levels in his first full season.“He came to Brooklyn (in the short-season New York-Penn League) as a reliever, but impressed so much that he ended up starting in the playoffs,” said Hector Berrios, Antonini’s first manager, who also made an upward move to Binghamton. “We put him in the rotation, and he hasn’t left.”Antonini posted an 0.46 ERA in 192/3 innings with Brooklyn, and began the 2008 season with Savannah. Thirteen starts and a 2.71 ERA later, he earned a promotion to high-Class A St. Lucie and was even better (1.84 ERA in seven starts).
http://www.delcotimes.com/articles/2009/05/11/sports/doc4a0799764e899133327925.txt


International:

There's a disease of "more" in baseball prospect coverage, and it has seeped all the way down to the growing interest in the Latin American market of 16-year-old amateurs. While this might seem borderline creepy and of dubious importance, there are many layers to this emerging foreign market. Before I start into a full sprint with scouting reports, rumors, and rankings of talent from south of the border, I want to take a page out of Kevin Goldstein's playbook, when he kicked off his prospect coverage here at BP with a series on scouting theory and lingo by catching everyone up on how business is done in Latin America.

The Aim

Latin insiders, agents, scouts, and executives take part in a number of behind-the-scenes conversations about this market, and how to scout and sign these players most effectively. Most of those conversations would be fascinating to any baseball fan, but they aren't discussed by a media that, for the most part, surveys the Latin American amateur landscape and covers it in one of three ways:

"This system is a cesspool for corruption, MLB is doing little to nothing, and it's a shame."
"Look at this poor country, these great young players, and this soft-focus lens."
"Bonus amount, quote from scout—what else could you possibly want?"

These three storylines give us some insight, but they also get stale quickly when you wonder how legitimate business is done in a market that now has all 30 clubs eagerly spending millions per year. Given the relative guesswork on scouting the players, I prefer to focus more (but not exclusively) on the hows and whys of the grownups involved. We can't agree on MLB fantasy or amateur draft rankings of players in their 20s and 30s, so consider how futile it is to write long-form around the abilities of 16-year-olds, coming through a frequently corrupt foreign system with little to no game competition

http://baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=8853