Morning Report – June 24th – Kirk Nieuwenhuis, Travis d’Arnaud, Brandon Brosher, Draft Anaysis

             

                                         

Coming Later Today –  

                                                                                             

        2 00 pm – 2015 Draft Profile  -  2015 Draft Profile - Thomas Szapucki, LHP, Dwyer HS (FL) - updated 6-5



A 'programming change' - 

       Herb's Minor League Report will now post up at 8am

       Mack's Morning Report (this one) will post up at 9am.

The link to Wednesday’s pod cast with Stephen Keane is: http://www.blogtalkradio.com/wbar/2014/06/25/keane-on-sports--steve-keane

Binghamton will return to a 6-man rotation –

       http://php.pressconnects.com/blogs/bmets/2014/06/23/lara-returns-b-mets-rotation/

Jason Parks ‏@ProfessorParks  -  Conforto wouldn't crack top 50. RT @StrandThatRISP: @ProfessorParks You put Conforto over Syndergaard like Law suggested?

Marc Carig on Travis d’Arnaud –

       http://www.newsday.com/sports/baseball/mets/mets-seriously-looking-at-bringing-travis-d-arnaud-back-to-big-leagues-1.8544240

Andy Martino on Daniel Murphy –

        http://www.nydailynews.com/blogs/baseballinsider/giants-blue-jays-interested-mets-daniel-murphy-sandy-alderson-selling-blog-entry-1.1839862

Bob Nightingale on Jimmy Rollins –

        http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/mlb/2014/06/22/jimmy-rollins-trade-phillies/11246993/

Tyler Drenon on the Giants plans for the playoffs –

        http://www.mlbdailydish.com/2014/6/23/5829246/san-francisco-giants-trade-deadline-preview

Heath Bell has an 11.25 ERA in 4 appearances for the Yankees' Triple-A team.

Keith law ‏@keithlaw  -  No. Topped out at 87 RT @TonyZayas72: @keithlaw Keith, great article, as always. What did you think of Juan Urbina?  Is he still a prospect?

Could this be the beginning of the Kirk Nieuwenhius era?

The Captain hit .272 in 180 at-bats for Las Vegas so far this season, but the important things was the 10 home runs. There still is much concern for the 51 strikeouts, but, there’s nothing wrong with an ,857 OPS.

His return to Queens (three doubles in a row) has been rewarding.

It sure would be nice to have someone come along and clean up all the confusion as to who is going to play in the Mets outfield every night. If Nieuwenhuis turns out to be relatively for real this time, and Juan Lagares comes back next week, the team really would have no reason to keep anyone with the last name of Young.

 If you’re reading this it means that the Mets still haven’t promoted catcher Travis d’Arnaud back to Queens. The Mets will lose an option on him if they don’t do it sometime this week so it will happen no matter how much TC seems to not want it to happen. I believe Taylor Teagarden is out of options so my guess in Anthony Recker will join Las Vegas when all this goes down.

(d'Arnaud was promoted back to Queens during the Vegas game last night...)

What I’m excited about is the projected promotion of Kevin Plawecki from Binghamton to Vegas at the same time. In addition, Cam Maron should be promoted from St. Lucie to the B-Mets roster.

Let the catching competition begin!

Here’s a name you might want to remember… 1B-DH-C Brandon Brosher.

Brosher was a high ceiling 36^th round draft pick in 2013 that the Mets were lucky to over slot and sign for a $167,500 bonus. He came straight out of Springstead (FL) High School where scouts tagged him with ‘raw power and solid bat speed’. He played mostly first base in school and this is where he got his feet wet last season for the GCL Mets (OF-IF, 61-AB, .180, 3-HR).

Well, he already has equals his 2013 home run total with his third on Sunday for Kingsport.

Last thing… yes, he has played mostly at DH so far this season, but he started Saturday at… catcher. I have no record of him playing there is school so we have to assume he has worked at this position in the off season. A power catcher?  Sure, that’s fine with me.

Marlin asked –

Mack, you seem to go back and forth about the players signed last year in the off season. Where are you today?

        Mack – Hey Marlin.

        You are right, but let’s first discuss the real problem here.

The Mets may have shed a lot of money last year, and, yes, they did sign three major players, but this team is still operating at a minimum of $30-40mil per year below where they should be. You tack on that kind of money to quality players like Stephen Drew and Nelson Cruz, and you have a legitimate baseball team.

The problem isn’t Chris Young. Yes, he was a mistake, but Bartolo Colon and Curtis Granderson weren’t. Colon, minus a couple of bad outings, has been the best starter on the team and Granderson has rebounded from a slow start that no one thought he would ever accomplish. Both have earned a spot on this year’s team and, frankly I’m fine having both around next year.

In one sense, some things haven’t changed. The team still needs a legitimate starting shortstop and left fielder and, hopefully, both of these will be addressed during the trading period or through free agency.

So, where do I stand?

IMO. We’re a better team in a weak division but still far away from a playoff team because of the lack of payroll allotted overall to the operation.

It’s not Chris Young. It’s Fred Wilpon.

‘Draft To The Show’ analysis of Mets draft –

The Mets were in a tough position this year, both in terms of their draft “needs” and because of the lack of a second round pick. I think they did just fine with Conforto, although I still believe Bradley Zimmer is the better overall player. I don’t have issues with the Ramos pick, but after that there just isn’t much upside in this class, which is somewhat surprising considering they acquired it in bunches in the past three drafts. Assuming Conforto and Ramos become regulars this draft will likely be remembered as a relatively successful one, but it’s difficult to imagine anything else out of these first two rounds becoming anything more than organizational depth or bullpen arms. You need those things too, of course, but I would have taken a few more risks in the 4th to 10th round.  http://www.drafttotheshow.com/2014-mlb-draft-review-new-york-mets/

Mack – I especially like reading things that non-Mets fan baseball people write about the Mets. My guess there is less emotion, thus, much more projected truth in what they say