Mack’s Morning Report – 2-13-14 – Nino Espinosa, Prospects By Age, Minors Lawsuit

Coming Up Later Today -

11 am – Christopher Soto - MM's Top 25- #18 RHSP Logan Verrett

2 pm - Reese Kaplan - A Perspective From the Outside Looking In

Andy Behrens/Yahoo -

This is really an odd team. Unique. Irregular. For one thing, it's almost impossible to say who makes the big decisions for the Mets. Is it a Wilpon? Is it a bank? No idea. Good luck trying to figure out this team's true payroll, because the Mets are still paying everyone who ever put on the uniform. Bobby Bonilla is still getting checks from the Mets, as is Bret Saberhagen. And Jason Bay is still getting paid. Johan Santana's deal included a pile of deferred money, too, so he's not really off the books. If you told me this team still owed $18.5 million to Nino Espinosa in deferred compensation, I might believe you. I don't really understand the inner workings of the Mets, is what I'm saying. Because this is really an odd team. Thankfully, all we really have to do around here is assign value to a few individual players and answer a few pressing questions. Seems doable. Let's get to work... http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/fantasy-roto-arcade/pressing-questions-york-mets-192900032--fantasy.html

Mack – Ya know, it takes a paragraph like this to make a Mets fan step back and view this team from outside the bubble. Behrens is right. This is an odd team and I sometimes ask myself why I spend so much time with them for no money whatsoever (sounds like a good excuse for a new donation drive… err…nah).

-One of the readers asked that we break out the age of each prospect listed on our Top 25 prospect list. I thought I’d take this one step further and make a list of players, categorized by their age, that I consider prospect material.

There are some names missing here that, so far, haven’t played up to their clippings, but this is a good list to go by and see how the current aging process is going on.

Naturally, you will find more college juniors at the end of the list, but I am particularly impressed with the amount of 19-21 year olds (19) on this list.

17-yrs old (1) – LHP Jose Medina – DSL Mets

18-yrs old (3) – 1B Dominic  Smith – GCL Mets, SS Amed Rosario – Kingsport, RHP Casey Meisner – GCL Mets

19-yrs old (8) – SS Gavin Cecchini – Brooklyn, SS Luis Guillorme – GCL Mets, 3B Jhoan Urena – GCL Mets, 3B Pedro Perez – Kingsport, CF Brandon Nimmo – Savannah, RF Wuilmer Beccera – GCL Mets, RHP Chris Flexen – Kingsport, RHP Robert Gsellman - Brooklyn

20-yrs old (5) – 2B Dilson Herrera – Savannah, SS Alfredo Reyes – DSL Mets, CF John Mora – DSL Mets, RHP Robert Whalen – Kingsport, LHP Kevin Canelon – DSL Mets

21-yrs old (6) - RHP John Gant – Brooklyn, RHP Miller Diaz – Brooklyn, RHP Akeel Morris – Brooklyn, RHP Gabriel Ynoa – Savannah, RHP Noah Syndergaard – Binghamton, RHP Michael Fulmer – St. Lucie

22-yrs old (5) – 2B Wilmer Flores – Mets, SS Jeff McNeil – Kingsport, RHP Scarlyn Reyes – DSL Mets, RHP Luis Cessa – Savannah, LHP Steven Matz - Savannah

23-yrs old (7) – 1B Jayce Boyd – St. Lucie, 2B L J Mazzilli – Brooklyn, C Kevin Plawecki – St. Lucie, OF Cesar Puello – Binghamton, RHP Rainy Lara – St. Lucie, RHP Rafael Montero – Las Vegas, LHP Jack Leathersich – Las Vegas

24-yrs old (1) – RHP Cory Mazzoni - Binghamton

25-yrs old (6) – OF Travis Taijeron – Binghamton, OF Cory Vaughn – Binghamton, OF Dustin Lawley – Las Vegas, C Travis d’Arnaud – Mets, RHP Jake deGrom – Las Vegas, LHP T J Chism – St. Lucie

26-yrs old (1) – RHP Jeff Walters - Binghamton

Minor League Lawsuit –

            You might have noticed that I posted yesterday a story about three ex-minor league baseball players that have brought a lawsuit against baseball (http://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/2014/02/11/three-former-minor-leaguers-file-a-class-action-suit-against-major-league-baseball-over-low-wages/ ). I suggest you take another look at this story. There seems to be  very good case here of grown men being paid well below the legal wage in this country.  It could easily become the next Curt Flood-like extravaganza…  okay, maybe that’s too far.