Mack’s Morning Report – 1-23-14 – Jacob deGrom, Future Direction, Sully-Chat, Shortstops, #10 Pick

Coming Up Later Today - 

    11am  -  The LTJ Editorial: “Could Ike Davis just have had a bad 2013?”

    2pm  -  D Whit  -  2014 A Break-Out Year For Jenrry Mejia


Adam Rubin –

New Seattle Mariners hitting coach Howard Johnson watched Zack Wheeler and Rafael Montero from the opposing dugout while coaching in Triple-A last season. But the Mets prospect who impressed him most at Triple-A Las Vegas last season? Jacob deGrom, a 6-foot-4 right-hander and ninth-round pick in 2010 out of Stetson University, who went 4-2 with a 4.52 ERA in 14 starts for the 51s. DeGrom had started the season at Class A St. Lucie, then made 10 starts with Double-A Binghamton before the rapid ascent to Las Vegas.

Mack – These are the kind of press that is worth it’s weight in trade-gold. There’s no room in the Mets rotation for deGrom and, frankly, he probably would bring a bigger return to the team in a future trade than to be converted to a reliever in Queens.

Even more important… no one has more ‘cred’ than Rubin, so it’s a perfect promotional piece.

I still see him starting 2014 as part of the Las Vegas rotation and we’ll see how things progress from there.

John Zozo –

            You have to make the turn here and begin from the bottom.

Follow me on this… concentrate your minor league efforts in following the likes of:

DGL/GSL - Jose Medina, Luis Silva, Jose Celas, Darwin Ramos, Scarlyn Reyes, Alfredo Reyes, Yeffry de Aza, Luuis Carpio,     Ali Sancez, Luis Arizurieta, Ricardo Cespedes, Oswald Caraballo

K-Port – Andrew Church, Corey Oswalt, Carlos Gomez, Andrew Masse, Casey Meisner, Luis Guillorme, Adrian Abrue, Jose Garcia, Ivan Wilson, and Michael Bernal could easily produce five legitimate future major league stars some day.             

You need to put your aggression on the shelf and give this team a second (or third) chance.

Do it for me.

Sully Chat –

            Comment From Not Sandy Alderson  - Thanks for doing this Jeff. What would you do regarding the Mets first base logjam (or clogged toilet, in this case)

Jeff Sullivan: Play Davis. Might as well see. He obviously has next to no market value, but he’s more interesting to me than Duda and it’s not like 2014 is going to be a championship season

Comment From Grack Zeinke - Ike Davis hit 26 HRs in the last 4 mos of the 2012 season FTR.

Jeff Sullivan: And had a 1.1 WAR!

Jeff asked –

            Which SS in the Mets system offers the best chance to be an upside play, on at least one side of the ball?

Mack – I assume what you’re asking here is who has the highest ceiling.

For now, you want to follow two players… Gavin Cecchini and Amed Rosario. One will play St. Lucie while the other plays Savannah. The actual decision who goes where is still up in the air.

Cecchini doesn’t bring too many tools to the game but does seem to get it done (when he’s healthy). He needs a breakout year in 2014, both with the bat and on the field. He also needs to keep off the DL.

Rosario comes off with a little more talent on the field and t’s far too early to judge how well he will do with the bat. Like most youngsters, he needs to learn pitch recognition and stop dipping his shoulder.

I can’t honestly put my money on either of these guys yet, but let’s keep track of them through 2014 and watch their progress (decline).

On another note, in the other news that has been beat to death, do you have a prediction on where Tanaka ends up signing? I would love to see the Angels get him and then turn around and trade Aybar to the Mets to clear some payroll.

Mack – Yeah, my guess he goes to the Yankees at around, oh, I don’t know… 7/yrs, $155mil.

Seriously, once again the Yankees throw stupid money at someone and make the Wilpons look like distant cousins. I’ve said a number of times over the years that I really don’t care about all this money shit because it’s not mine. If you want to spend it on someone, fine, knock yourself out.

What bothers me now is that my team doesn’t seem to be part of this process anymore. I really enjoy the challenge of putting together a winner without throwing these kind of contracts around, but it is frustrating that the Mets couldn’t even afford the $20mil that needed to be sent to the Japanese team, no less the contract amount to Tanaka.

Greg b asked -

Mack, when the Mets turn to pick in the draft if your were in charge would you pick a hitter or if there is a pitcher who scouts say can be a top of the rotation pitcher, who would u pick?

            Mack – Greg, it’s always ‘best player available’.

Every organization grades out their top picks and puts them on the board in ranking position. There will be plenty of decent hitters and pitchers available when the 10^th pick comes up. They will make that decision based on their talent evaluators.

That being said, if it was me, I would go power top of the rotation college pitcher (a la Mike Harvey) every time (but that’s just me). A perfect pick this year (and he will be available) would be Vanderbilt’s RHP Tyler Beede. You could start him the day after you sign him in St. Lucie and he could finish the 2014 season in Binghamton.