Mack Ade – Morning Report – 11-11-13 – Pitching, New Mets, Winter Ball, Carlos Beltran, Joel Carreno

 

The sport we love continues to evolve.

Jeff Sullivan just published his top 50 2016 high school prospects (http://www.macksmetsreport.com/9-baseball-2016-top-50-high-school-prospects/)   and 27 of them are starting pitchers. That’s 54% of the top 50 for only one of the nine positions on the field.

We’ve written about this before and I’ve seen it firsthand. Today’s high school coaches are turning the majority of their core talented underclassmen into pitchers. This is especially true for players that project out to eventually grow to six feet two or taller.

Players from my generation made their mark by spending as much time as they could inside the batting cage, but this simply isn’t true anymore. Today’s teams, even starting with high school, are being built around the rotation.

Strangely, it’s not like it’s ever been any different. The 10^th leader of home runs in the majors this past season was Evan Longoria… with 32 home runs. Only 13 players in the majors had 100 or more runs batted in.

Twenty years ago (1983), the 10^th leader in home runs had 30 and only seven batters in both leagues had more than 100 RBIs.

Go back 10 more years… 1973… the players ranked 10^th in home runs had 28… and only nine hitters had 100+ RBIs.

Other than the steroid years, it’s always been pitching that produced the winners of this sport. Sure, we talked about the guys we used to watch hit 50+ home runs, but take away years like 2001 and we’re left with a handful of ‘big bats’ we wish were still playing this game.

And sadly, only Chris Davis, Jose Bautista, Alex Rodriguez, Andruw Jones, Ryan Howard, David Ortiz, and Prince Fielder have done so in the past ten years.

We’re going to get some better players this year plus there’s a good chance that players like Wilmer Flores and Travis d’Arnaud will be more productive. The secret is going to keep the threesome of Wheeler-Niese-Gee together while Harvey heals and Syndergaard matures (I leave out Montero because I truly believe he will be part of a trade package this off-season).

But stop dreaming of some 50-home run hitter joining this team. Only Davis is young enough to repeat himself and it may be years before you see another member of the elite group of ‘big bats’.

 

Joel Carrero and Anthony Seratelli aren’t the final solution, but I do find Cerrero a little interesting. He’s an ex-DSL 16-yr old that worked his way up the chain as a starter; however, he has now been converted to a full time reliever and put up some respectable numbers last year both at the AA and AAA level. He’s also only 26… three pitches fastball (sits low-90s), slider, and changeup. He was a victim of the 40-man blues and could be an Alderson-find for the Mets. No harm, no foul.

 

On the winter circuit… 

                CF Juan Lagares is doing the one thing we all hoped he would do this winter… hit.  As of Friday night his stat line was .409/.413/.455/.868. He laso had only six strike outs (one walk) in 44 at-bats… an intriguing name doing well is catcher Xorge Carrillo (51-AB, .294, MXC-LMP), who has spent all of his Mets career as a backup catcher since being drafted out of Arizona State in 2011 (14^th round). He hit .296 (108-AB) for Binghamton last year and you might see him in Vegas come spring… P Chasen Bradford continues his 0.00 ERA, now up to nine games and 10.0-IP…

 

I see that Carlos Beltran, at 36-years old, is looking for a three to four year contract. This one will be interesting to follow and will speak volumes to whether or not the money in this sport is over the top. We’re still waiting for the first salvo after the Giants extended the contract of Hunter Pence (5-yrs, $90mil, no-trade) and, remember… teams may jump a year ahead and overspend knowing that the new network television contract comes into play next year will double the revenue to each team. I think asking for this many years will just slow down any agreement he can work out with a new team. This could play into the hands of the Yankees who will have to wait until December to find out if A-Rod will work against their payroll. 

 

 I reached out to Marc Hulet who has written about Joel Carreno on http://www.bluebirdbanter.com/2011/8/19/2372642/scouting-report-joel-carreno  -

Hey Mack… as requested:

The Mets' off season is just getting started but the organization has already made what could turn out to be a key signing. The organization delved into the minor league free agent market and signed Joel Carreno, formerly of the Toronto Blue Jays, to deal that includes an invitation to spring training.

The right-handed former starter compiled 22 games of big league experience between 2011 and '12 but was inexplicably left to languish in the minors for all of 2013 despite numerous pitching injuries at the big league level for Toronto. Carreno, 26, clearly fell out of favor with the Jays for no apparently good reason. He's always produced solid pro numbers and his stuff is better than average -- which helped him strike out 90 batters in 66.2 relief innings in '13 between Double-A and Triple-A.  

Carreno struggles with the command of both his fastball and his breaking ball, which limits his ceiling to that of a seventh- or eighth-inning reliever at the big league level. His experience as a starter allows him to go multiple innings but he's better in shorter stints. If he can improve his command of the heater, which ranges from 87-94 mph, and gets ahead in the count it will make his low-80s slider all the more potent. He's toyed with a changeup, but it's a below-average offering. Improving the off-speed pitch would help his platoon splits.

Unless New York makes a large number of signings this winter, the state of the club's bullpen suggests a pitcher with Carreno's talent should see significant innings in 2014, barring injury.

Thanks,

Marc 

 

David Wright –

“I don’t think players are concerned about the financial situation. From their perspective, they want to know if we have a chance to win. We haven’t really given ourselves a chance the last few years. It seems like there’s been more action, even just in the last week. I’ve talked to a few players, but I expect I’ll do more of it as we have a better idea of who we’re going after. Players have called me. Sandy [Alderson]’s probably tired of hearing from me, but I told him he can lean on me to do whatever he needs. Guys ask about what the (Matt Harvey) injury means, but they also want to know about Zack Wheeler. and I tell them about guys like Noah Syndergaard and all of our young pitching that could either help us soon or be used in a trade. A lot of them don’t know about anyone besides Wheeler and Harvey.  We have a lot of holes that need to be filled, and it’s going to be tough to fill them all in one offseason. You can’t just go out and sign everybody. So the burden is going to fall on the guys we have here. Boston showed last year you don’t need to sign top-tiered guys to win.” http://espn.go.com/blog/new-york/mets/post/_/id/79395/david-wright-already-recruiting-free-agents

 

Mack – This very cool and confirms what I’ve said a number of times. Playing for the Mets need to be currently sold and who best to do it than your top player. The other thing I found interesting is him mentioning the interest in the pitching. That means he’s talking to ‘bats’, which is great.

 

                Remember… the meetings start today.