And so it begins…
Five members of the A+ - St.
Lucie Mets were promoted last night to the AA – Binghamton Mets.
CF Brandon
Nimmo, IF T.J. Rivera, 2B-SS Dilson Herrera, RP Randy
Fontanez, and SP Steven Matz are technically
the first in what we expect to be many player promotions that will help define
the future of this team. All five were All-Stars for St. Lucie and their
mid-season promotion puts them directly in line for a major league ETA of
opening day 2016.
Whether we like it or not,
the majority of the future of this team will be built from within. There is
more speculation every day that the Mets will be ‘sellers’ come the all-star
break selling season, and beat reporters like Joel
Sherman are predicting that veterans like Bartolo
Collon, Dillon Gee, Jon Niese, and Daniel Murphy could
all be traded for younger, high level positional talent. Sherman speculates
that players like St. Louis 1B C.J. Cron or
Texas’ 2B Rougned Odor could find themselves
wearing a Mets uniform sometime this season. The Mets also seem headed to a
protected first round pick in the next draft which would prevent them from
losing a first round pick if they signed another protected free agent. If they
do, and that person is an outfielder, pull off the kind of top prospect trades as
outlined above, keep their core rotation talent (Harvey, Wheeler, Syndergaard)
intact, and continue to elevate their top talent in the system at the proper
pace, we could see a very young, competitive team by opening day 2016.
(1B Cron, 2B Odor, SS
Herrera, 3B Wright, C d’Arnaud/Plawecki, OF Granderson, Lagares, Conforto,
Nimmo, Peterson… rotation: Harvey, Wheeler, Syndergaard, Matz, Montero… pen:
Parnell, Mejia, Black, Familia, Leathersich, Elgin, Thornton)
Anyway, back to the
promotions…
Look for more both above and
below these two levels. Room will have to be made in Binghamton and I expect SP
Greg Peavey will get another shot at AAA. I
expect him to be joined by RP Jack Leathersich,
C Kevin Plawecki (the day after Travis d’Arnaud returns to the Mets), and IF Matt Reynolds.
On the other end, promotions
from Savannah to St. Lucie could be SP John Gant,
RP Akeel Morris, 2B LJ
Mazzilli, and 3B Jeff McNeil.
Also, I especially am
interested to see if St. Lucie’s Gabriel Ynoa is
the next to be moved to Binghamton, especially if the system is depleted of a
couple of members of the Queens rotation. There is still far too much pitching
talent on the DL (Harvey, Montero, Hefner, Whalen, Mateo, Lara, Diaz) and none
of this can make total sense unless all the top pitching is in place and
healthy. Hefner will probably be the first to come off the DL and could
eventually be one of this year’s Mets rotation pitchers
Lost in the shuffle was Matt Reynolds making his way up to Las Vegas where hopefully Wally Backman doesn't pull a Terry Collins and have him watch Omar Quintanilla bat in the .220s and play every day. Nah, no one else is that obstinate and stupid!
ReplyDeleteYeah, Reese - go Matty Reynolds.
ReplyDeleteOmar needs to be "no-more" in Mets organization. Poster Boy of the "almost good enough to perform at the major league level if you are happy with a 60 win team" type of player. He plays hard. Let him latch on with another organization. We need max at bats for our kids.
If Seratelli sticks around in Vegas, I'd like to see Mets not go skinflint with him, but give him a cup of coffee in Flushing in September to be able to say to his grand kids that he made the bigs, and then thank him for his service. No room for guys like him in the minors next year, with the surge of middle infield talent working its way up the minor league chain.
He has not played much, but he always seems to have an on base % in AAA in the high 3's, so he is a solid fighter.
Yes it might cost them $30,000 in extra salary but it would be the type of a good sign to non-Met players that Mets are a team that will do the right thing.
I don't think minor league mangers have the final say in who plays. Reynolds will be playing in Vegas. He is a true prospect. They would not promote him to sit.
ReplyDeleteC.J. Cron doesn't make sense. He is not an upgrade to Duda. He would replace Campbell and I don't think he is an upgrade there either.
I have been saying for a while that the Mets and Rangers could be good trade partners. The Mets need a short stop and the Rangers need pitching. Gee for Profar. I don't like the Odor suggestion. He wouldn't be able to handle Short Stop. If Profar's health is an issue for 2015 then Sardinas should be the target.
Brian Berness · Seton Hall Law School
ReplyDeleteOh what I would give to see a Mets uniform with the name "Odor" on it.
Richard -
ReplyDeleteYou are correct.
Minor league managers have NO SAY who plays.
Tim Tuefel and I used to call his phone the 'bat phone'... no one gets their name on the lineup card until it's approved from Queens
I see no reason to send Palwecki to Vegas. Catchers need to work on things and take longer to develop. its not like most teams send there top players to AAA anymore. especially when it would be more important to develop a rapor w the higher end pitching prospects.
ReplyDeleteand getting the walk rate up want really be helpful in a hitters environment. id keep him in bing for the whole season.
Richard,
ReplyDeleteCron is Duda if Duda plays to his potential. Cron is a below average fielder, but tolerable for his hitting. He projects to 15-20 Hr, 80-100RBI. Of course, the Angels are letting him play every day, even if it's at DH.
I still think the Dbacks are our best trade partners for a SS. They are playing Gregorius at 2b now, and they've got another prospect at AAA that is looking good right now, Nick Ahmed. His slash line is .312/.384/.404. Even adjusted for the PCL, that's pretty good. If we traded them Gee or Niese, we might be able to get Owings. He's already got a 2.8 WAR this year. DeGrom, maybe Gregorius. Gregorius would be a defensive improvement over Tejada, but not so much offensive. To tell you the truth, if Tejada can keep hitting, he'll be fine for us. With him, though, you have to keep him in fear for his job.
You may well be right about Odor. Herrera comes up in 2016, coinciding with Murph's free agency. I'd much rather keep Murph, but do you really the Won'tpons will pay him enough to keep him? I worry they may trade him this year and we end up with a middle infield of EY Jr. and Tejada. That would just about guarantee us the #1 draft pick. The way things are going, that may be Fred's goal.
@Robb
ReplyDeletePlawecki has nothing further to work on in AA.
He's hitting .332 on a reasonable .350 BABIP, his K rate is an astoundingly low 11.2% and the SLG% is near .500. The low K rate and the high avg on a reasonable BABIP tells me that AA pitchers just aren't challenging for him anymore.
Defensively. he's throwing out 33% of would be base stealers which is league average so no work needed there and in terms of game calling the Binghamton Mets staff has a 3.84 ERA which is not too bad. Plawecki can only learn more by facing tougher competition.
He's conquered AA, its time to move
The promotions are great news. Hopefully Nimmo, Matz, and Herrera can move quickly and get up here late 2015 or OD 2016. I'm looking forward to watching Conforto move quickly as well.
ReplyDeleteI have no issues trading Colon, Gee, Murphy, and Montero for the right value. Moving Niese is lunacy.
I'll bet D. Wright is thrilled to be reading about the possibility of a sell-off. Duda, Tejada and all the LF's should be gone for next year.
ReplyDeleteThe only way Duda, Tejada and the various misfit outfielders are gone next year is if there is at minimum a change in manager and ideally a change in GM, too. (Well, the cherry on top would be new owners, but beggars can't be choosers!)
ReplyDelete