Mack’s Morning Report – 2-9-14 – Matt Harvey, Scouts & Colleges, Affiliate Parks

51s and Mets Pitcher Giancarlo Alvarado pitched six scoreless innings and allowed two hits in Puerto Rico 2-0 win over Venezuela In Semifinal of playoff game.

It scares me to read that Matt Harvey has plans to start ‘throwing’ around two weeks from now. Now, throwing may be ten feet with a pensy pinky (do they still make those?), but it’s still throwing and, in my opinion, far to early for Mr. Macho Man. There’s probably very little the Mets can do about this and Harvey can do what he wants in the privacy of his own home. He definitely has too much time on his time (future Russian bride no longer by his side) and my hopes are that he at least flies to St. Lucie for this silliness so he can be monitored by Mets medical people… err… wait a minute… after thinking how they have handled things in the past that might not be the best approach to take. Right now he has February 22^nd as the date that doctors could give him the okay to come out of the weight room and start the slow process of building up arm strength by throwing. I have true mixed feelings here. In one sense, we need guys that have this kind of winning desire and moxie. On the other, it could turn out to be a disaster.

Conor Glassey –

It doesn’t need to be this way, and the best examples on both sides work hard to create solid working relationships, but there can be bad blood between scouts and college baseball programs. Some college coaches think scouts steal their players. Scouts believe some college programs abuse their pitchers. There are disagreements about the value of a scholarship offered by a college program compared to what MLB teams offer through their college scholarship plan. Most of those arguments are for another day. For now, let’s look at the e-mail that was sent out, with the restrictions in bold and my thoughts below each one . http://conorglassey.com/college-baseball-program-institutes-ridiculous-rules-scouts/

Mack – Read this stupid article. Colleges are ‘cracking down’ on scouts making it close to impossible for them to do an effective job. Just stupid bullshit.

Christopher Soto passed on a great article (http://www.milb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20140207&content_id=66989152&fext=.jsp&vkey=news_milb&sid=milb) on the ‘X-Factors: Short-Season park effects’.

Below are some stats from MCU park and three of Brooklyn’s rival team’s home field:

Home Field

MCU Park - Brooklyn Cyclones -  Runs 0.917          HRs 0.873   Hits 0.963

Divisional Opponents

Falcon Park Auburn Doubledays -  Runs 0.991  HRs 0.844    Hits1.014

Dutchess Stadium Hudson Valley Renegades - Runs 1.048  HRs 0.835  Hits 1.014

Richmond County Bank Ballpark - Staten Island Yankees          Runs 1.008 HRs 1.205   Hits 0.988

As Chris points out:

“These park factors are important tools to evaluators because it shows just how difficult it is to hit with certain clubs. The Short Season A Brooklyn Cyclones is the second hardest level within the organization, outside of Single A Savannah, to hit. Knowing this we need to curb our criticism if a player fails to hit there while at the same time we need to take stock of the player who do mash at this level.”

You gotta love this team’s affiliates…  you first have to discount what goes on in Brooklyn and Savannah because of the stadium/field conditions… then, you have to reverse everything and factor down what goes on in Vegas.

Collette Chat –

            Comment From pr - pls rank for 2014: Niese, Smyly, Haren. thx

             Jason Collette: Haren, Niese, Smyly. This will be the year Haren’s back stays healthy all year.

Bernie Pleskoff -

            Noah Syndergaard is the real deal, but he likely won’t make the Mets rotation out of Spring Training. However, Bartolo Colon is their ace, and that’s not bad. With the exception of Zack Wheeler, I’m not too excited.

For example, will Jon Niese find consistency in his release point? How about Dillon Gee? Can he be a big winner? Jenrry Mejia has an electric arm, but some of that has been lost in his elbow injury. Lots of questions on this staff. http://berniepleskoff.mlblogs.com/

Mack – Pleskoff is one of the more intelligent baseball writers, so when he talks, baseball people listen.

His analysis of the Mets rotation was interesting. Obviously, everything would be different if Matt Harvey wasn’t hurt.

I am surprised at the meh comments regarding Gee. I’m used to everyone saying he has been putting up some workman stats these past few years.

I share his disappointment with Niese and I’m not sure which direction he’s going. We all expect Colon to be traded when either Rafael Montero or Syndergaard come up, but Niese might be moved first because of his relatively cheap contract.

No one is going to write much about Mejia until he goes around the rotation around 10 times without an injury.

Overall, I agree. Lots of questions, including Syndergaard. I did expect a mention of Montero, but we’ll wait for that next year at this time.