Mack - 2015 Prospect List - #22 - 1B - Jayce Boyd

2015 Prospect List - #22 – 1B – Jayce Boyd

My rankings is solely subjective and based on nothing more than what is in my head at time I’m writing this. I’ve followed the Mets minor league players for many years and I feel I can recognize talent at various levels of their development. What I have failed at is how to determine when this talent seems to diminish. It’s amazing how many first round picks never make it in this game.

I’m old school, so you won’t seem much SABR-discussion here, I do research and, when I find a good quote or two, I’ll add them to my analysis, but, like I said in the beginning of this post, most of this us subjective.

Let’s get started

#22 – 1B/OF/C – Jayce Boyd

            6-3, 185, R/R - 6^th round pick – 2012 – Florida State

                        2012 – 1 team – 201/AB, .239/.320/.368/688, 5-HR, 19-RBI, 30-K

2013 – 2 teams – 458-AB, .330/.410/.461/871, 9-HR, 83-RBI, 61-K

2014 – 1 team – 413-AB, .293/.382/.414/796, 8-HR, 59-RBI, 67-K

Boyd had an incredible year in 2013, splitting time between Savannah and St. Lucie, but wound up diagnosed with thoracic outlet syndrome, a condition where the collarbone slips down and forward, where it puts pressure on the nerves and blood vessels in the space between the collarbone and the first rib. They’ve removed that first rib. They also removed the scalene muscles around the affected nerves and cut his pectoral minor muscle in half so that when it healed, everything was set back in place.

Amazingly, Boyd was able to DH for a good portion of 2014 and wound up hitting .293 in 293 at bats.

Outlook –

Look, Boyd is a professional hitter, but he was never a candidate for the home run title and now, after they have rebuilt his shoulder, he has a very strange and awkward delivery that, in my opinion, will prevent him from being a Keith Hernandez-type backup first baseman and a potentially a pretty good DH candidate.