Why Ranked Here: As more than one scout who saw him this year said, this “slight” lefty “has a chance.” At this point, on the list, that’s all one can ask. Both of Cuan’s secondary offerings, a true curveball and a changeup have a chance to be MLB average. His fastball, which lives at 84-89 mph is the weak link in his game. Lefties can get by with middling heaters, but he’ll need to at least maintain 87-89 to give himself a real big league chance.
2009: The Mets started Cuan off in Brooklyn, where he was hit hard in two starts (15 H, 7 R, 8 IP) before he was sent down to Kingsport, because as we all know around here, losing in Brooklyn is simply unacceptable. Even with the Cyclones, Cuan’s ratios (9 K, 2 BB) were fine. With Kingsport, he was still hittable (76 H, 59.2 IP), but his K/BB was strong: a touch above three. - link
In November, appearing at the annual GM meetings, Minaya continued beating the drum saying, “After last year, our offense is an area we want to address. I’d like to see us slug more than we did this year. Starting pitching is another area we have to address.”
Free agent John Lackey signed with the Boston Red Sox, Matt Holliday resigned with the St. Louis Cardinals and Roy Halladay was finally traded – of all places – to the Philadelphia Phillies.
Randy Wolf, Jon Garland, Ben Sheets, Aroldis Chapman, Joel Pineiro and Jason Marquis, Erik Bedard, Chien-Ming Wang and Jarrod Washburn were available on the free agent market. Instead the Mets signed Josh Fogg, Kelvim Escobar, Ryota Igarashi and Hisanori Takahashi.
With pitchers and catchers scheduled to report next week it’s apparent the plan changed. - link
It appears that Omir will receive a share of the catching at bats for the Mets in 2010. This is based mostly on his prowess against right-handed pitching in 2009. He struggled mightily against left-handers, however, and that is why he will sit on the bench against the majority of those pitchers. Omir toiled in the minor leagues, mostly for the New York Yankees, for eight seasons with very mediocre numbers. He is a bit of an enigma to Met fans as this fact, along with his age of 29 (30 in April), might surprise you. His bat appears to have some quickness in it, and his production last year illustrated that. I do believe that it is smart that the Mets stockpiled other players for the position, just in case adjustments are made against him by big league pitching this year. - link
OF, Mets - The Mets have a dilemma with Martinez, 21, who needs to play to improve. Even with Carlos Beltran's knee problems, Martinez could be the odd man out of the outfield now that New York has added Jason Bay and Gary Matthews Jr. GM Omar Minaya has long sung the praises of Martinez's potential, but he's still learning to hit left-handers and has never hit more than eight homers at any minor league stop. Hampered by hamstring problems in 2008, he hit .176 in 29 games for the Mets before requiring knee surgery in July 2009. - link
Rudy Terrasas has been scouting for almost 30 years now, and it was during his first decade of scouting that he met up with general manager Omar Minaya with the Texas Rangers. Terrasas spent almost 20 years with Texas, and he only left when Doug Melvin was replaced with John Hart after the 2003 season. Terrasas’ job with the Mets is his first shot at being a scouting director, and that job was seemingly in jeopardy as the 2009 season came to an end. However, Mets management decided to stick with Minaya, who in turn decided to stick with Terrasas as his amateur scouting director. This year will be Terrasas’ fifth draft, so it’s time to look at some trends from his first four. The first trend that’s apparent is a preference for arms in the early rounds. Usually this is in the supplemental first round and beyond, as Terrasas’ two first-round picks have both been college bats. Until 2008, Terrasas had not even selected a bat in his first five picks. The last two drafts have featured a fair number of bats, but it’s obvious that Terrasas prefers arms in the second to fifth rounds. A second trend, which lies in pitching, is a preference for bigger, more projectable arms, even in the college ranks. Magnifico was a bit of an anomaly in that he’s “only” 6’1’’, but the majority of Terrasas’ pitching picks were big or absolutely huge (Moviel). One final trend to look at is that when Terrasas does pick bats, he prefers athletic players with solid defensive ceilings. Davis was the least athletic of the bunch, but he did have a plus arm, and he profiled to be about average at first base. I look for that trend to continue, though Terrasas generally doesn’t pick hitters that are projecting to be plus hitters at the Major League level. - link
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