The Mets Infielders That Couldn’t

Every baseball team only has so many top prospects. Some have less than five. Ten is a great number. I know it’s hard to believe that a team can draft 50 players very year, sign every kid out of Latin America, and participate in trades and free agency and only wind up with a handful of top players, but that’s how high the standards are to make it to a major league starting lineup.


There’s a bunch of us out there that rank Mets prospects and, though we all vary on which player is where on that list, we all agree that the Mets have three potential majors leaguers in SS Wilmer Flores, 3B Jefry Marte, and 3B Aderlin Rodriguez.



They are all Latin, they are all young, they are all great hitters… and they all aren’t infielders.

First , let’s look at the 2011 line on these three guys:



Flores: 19/yrs. old – A+: .271/.313/.382/.695, 8-HR, 65-RBI… 17 errors

Marte: 20/yrs. old – A+: .258/.320/.358/.677, 5-HR, 47-RBI… 22 errors

Rodriguez: 19/yrs. old – A: .218/.272/.362/.633, 12-HR, 61-RBI… 34 errors

The good news… we’re a long way from body maturation here, but both Flores and Rodriguez’s home runs totals are very exciting. All three of these guys are serious gap hitters and you could spend hours debating which one is potentially better than the others (my money is on A-Rod).



The bad news… they can’t catch a cold and Flores runs like an aardvark. Marte has actually gotten better, but 22 errors is 22 errors. All three of these guys need to be targeted this winter to either first base or various outfield positions.


Here’s the rub.

The Mets are still trying to figure out a position for Daniel Murphy. Rumors are that he’s going to work his ass off this off-season to learn right field, but I think they should work him at second. First, he came up an infielder and a conversion to a different position on the diamond works a lot more mentally. I played third and can’t imagine trying to become an outfielder. It’s an entire different line of sight position with a different arm. Converting to second isn’t easy, but I have a natural understanding regarding what goes on in the infield. You wouldn’t have to re-teach me that.


The future Mets outfield is in flux with only Matt den Dekker and Cory Vaughn showing potential to play every day there. My guess is that Jason Bay, Angel Pagan, and Lucas Duda will be the starting 2012, but all bets are off from there. Bay has one more year on his deal past 2012  and, unless, he hits his ass off, he’s unmovable.



I’m going to go under the assumption that Kirk Nieuwenhuis returns to AAA in 2012 and a Buffalo outfield of Kirk, Fernando Martinez, Mike Baxter, and Juan Lagares is a great insurance policy for Queens.

Den Dekker might restart the B-Mets, with Vaughn, Cesar Puello, and Pedro Zapata. That leaves Darrell Ceciliani playing St. Lucie with two slots basically still open.



I wouldn’t move teams for any of the three kids. Let Flores and Marte repeat St. Lucie while playing the outfield and move A-Rod to right field in Savannah.

One other option… you might consider packaging some or all of these guys, especially if their winter ball work in the outfield doesn’t look promising. Right now, they have trade bait potential.


Really strange situation.