Morning Report – September 1 – Klaw-Chat, Mack’s Prospect List, Struggling Mets, Rafael Montero

  

Jerry (Rapid City) - Dilson Herrera is being promoted. How well do you expect him to play?

Klaw   - I think he's their second baseman of the future. I couldn't tell you how he or anyone else will do in the next 50-100 at bats, though.

Kevin (STL) - Can d'Arnaud really be a LF option? I keep seeing shades of Todd Hundley flipping his shades down and missing fly balls.

Klaw  - I don't get this at all. His bat doesn't profile out there. If the concussions mean he can't catch every day, then I'm not sure he has a regular role.

Ryan (NY) - What's the ceiling on this Herrera kid the Mets just called up?

Klaw  - Above average regular.

  

A bunch of us here do prospect lists.

Christopher Soto posts up the official Mack’s Mets list, whose time breakers seem to be the level one has played on.

Stephen Guillbert has his favorites on the right side bar.

Thomas Brennan handles the three short season teams and he’s basing everything on tools, smoke, mirrors, and gut opinion.

Me? Well, I’m not writing a list with a specific amount of ranked players. I don’t think I have ever seen a professional baseball team with 25 legitimate prospects at the same time. Baseball just doesn’t work that way.

First thing first… I’m really tough at this. I practice the belief that every decent team replaces only five or less of their 25-man squad every year from within their system. Oh, they may sign a free agent or do a trade, but internally, five additions is a lot.

Secondly, even after drafting 50 players every year and fielding two more DSL teams, having 10 players in your minor league system that someday become viable major league ‘starting players’ is an amazing feat.

I’m always wrong on the conservative side. I was wrong about Jacob deGrom and Juan Lagares, but I’m seldom wrong by predicting someone is going to super duper great and he turns out a dud. In my case, I just don’t project a lot of super duper shit in projecting players.

I have three categories… the ‘Gold List’ are ‘bet the bank on these guys… the ‘Silver List’ have a future in major league baseball though it is still undetermined if they will star, sub, star, relieve, etc., and for what team.

Lastly, there is the Futures List, which means nothing. These are the few guppies that are beginning to wiggle themselves to the top of the developmental pond.

The ‘Gold’ List –

            Starters – Noah Syndergaard, Rafael Montero, Steven Matz, Robert Whalen

            Bullpen – None

            Everyday – Kevin Plawecki, Dominic Smith, Dilson Herrera, Brandon Nimmo

The ‘Silver List’ –

Starters – Corey Mazzoni, Logan Verrett, Matt Bowman, Tyler Pill, John Gant, Robert Gsellman, Michael Fulmer

Bullpen – Dario Alvarez, Akeel Morris

Everyday – Matt Reynolds

The Futures List –

            Starters – Marcos Molina

            Bullpen – none

            Everyday – Amed Rosario, Michael Conforto, Jhoan Garcia

I lust listed 22 players, 12 of which are starting pitchers. It’s three short of the impossible 25 players I just mentioned that I have never seen on one team’s prospect list. I have never seen the Mets this deep in quality future major league players.

Now… a couple of warnings… a couple of these will burn out before they go through the affiliates while a couple more will wind up on the DL with a major injury. Lastly, expect a couple of more to be traded in some future package.

But… in my opinion (please all you ‘anonymous’ guys out there… don’t beat a guy up just for an opinion), this is the future of your team for the remainder of this decade.

5 struggling MLB teams that could contend in 2015 –

#3 – New York Mets - A laughingstock since they missed the playoffs by one game in 2007 and 2008 then collapsed under the weight of massive contracts and suddenly limited finances, the Mets have collected a stable of impressive young arms in the hopes of building a perennial contender. Zack Wheeler and Jacob deGrom have performed well in the team’s starting rotation this season, and Jeurys Familia, Vic Black, Josh Edgin and Jenrry Mejia have looked great out of the bullpen. Ace Matt Harvey should recover from Tommy John surgery in plenty of time to start 2015, and a series of less-heralded young arms like Rafael Montero and lefty Steven Matz could soon be ready to perform in the bigs.

What they need: A bat. With David Wright struggling all season — perhaps due to an injured shoulder — the Mets have only Lucas Duda and Daniel Murphy carrying their lineup. Wright should be better in 2015, but the club will likely still need at least one more legitimate offensive component to crawl out of the doldrums next season. http://ftw.usatoday.com/2014/08/mlb-teams-2015-improvement-red-sox-white-sox-cubs-mets-mlb

Mack – You’re going to read a lot of these kind of articles in the off-season, but the fact will still remain that the loss of offense this season by both David Wright and Curtis Granderson, and the complete failure of Chris Young, cost this team dearly in any attempt to make the playoffs.

The 2014 Mets would have conservatively won 20-25 more games with a normal offense backing the kind of pitching they have.

Basically, the team went into the 2014 off-season  with bat problems in two positions, and shortstop. Now, that seems to remain, added with burden of what’s not going on over at third.

Young is gone, but Granderson and Wright have to turn this around or we’ll just be back for more of this .230 BA shit all over the lineup.

Bernie Pleskoff on Rafael Montero -

Major League hitters walked more often than in Montero's past and were making more frequent and fairly loud contact off him in his brief stint with the big league club. That's to be expected. He will ultimately become familiar with the difference between Major League and Minor League hitters. The difference is huge. Combined in his seven starts, Montero yielded more home runs in his short time at the Major League level than he had in any entire Minor League season in the past. As has been the case in his career so far, Montero was hit harder by left-handed hitters than righties.

Montero's return to the Minor League system for further development should especially help his secondary pitches. He has a strong arm and good enough pitching mechanics to work out any issues uncovered in his initial exposure to the Major Leagues. If Montero keeps the ball down and trusts his stuff, I believe he will emerge as a long-term back-end-of-the-rotation starter. http://newyork.mets.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20140829&content_id=92065924&vkey=news_nym&c_id=nym&tcid=tw_article_92065924