MAJORING ON THE
MINORS: TOP 30 PROSPECTS – #18 MILLER DIAZ - VOL.18 – Tom Brennan
I’m doing my Top 30 Prospects articles
a bit differently – in 2 lists:
·
A
top 10 list of lower minors guys who likely won’t show up until 2017 or later. Already done. See list at end of this
article.
·
Followed
by my top 20 list of guys who are closing in on the big leagues. Guys who could help in the near future or be
trade bait.
Here is the list so
far:
20.
Daniel Muno
|
19.
Michael Fulmer
|
Lots of fine arms in the Mets minors. Very hard to choose which ones make the top 20 and which do not, frankly.
I added Miller Diaz at #18 because he put together
26 games over 2 years (2013 and 2014) with consistent excellence, in Brooklyn
and Savannah, going 13-4, 2.14, 88 hits and 166 Ks in 145 innings.
His walks improved in 2014 to about 3.5 per 9 innings,
and the 6’1″ 210 righty reaches the mid 90s. He won’t be 23 until late June 2015, so he has
time; so far, so good, but this is a pivotal upcoming season for him.
Diaz seems to have the goods to be a major league
reliever, perhaps a mid-to-back end starter.
I’d like to see him get up to 110 – 120 innings in 2015 and show he
deserves a continued high ranking.
For this pitching-rich franchise, I’d be surprised
to see a debut before early 2017, but maybe it will be “Miller Time” sooner
than that. He certainly did nothing bad in 2013 or 2014 to make one think that
he’ll be a project. He could move up
quickly.
As a final note on Diaz, he (along with Matt
Bowman, Cory Mazzoni, Gabe Ynoa, and Rob Whelan – all in my Top 20 - keep
reading future articles to see where I slotted them) are a combined career
118-59. You want winners in your
organization, and that is a whole lot of winning, including Diaz, who is 22-13
for his career so far.
Maybe one of you readers can chime in as to when
Diaz could be in Rule 5 jeopardy. And
what you think of Diaz’ potential.
MY
TOP 10 LOWER MINORS LIST:
# 1 - Marcos Molina
#2 – Michael Conforto
#3 – Amed Rosario
#4 – Dominic Smith
#5 - Jhoan Urena
#6 – Vicente Lupo
#7 – Wuilmer Becerra
#8 – Luis Guillorme
#9
- Casey Meisner
#10 - Milton Ramos
2 comments:
I will start to add my overall ranking for these guys in blog posts on the day my articles post, just to be clear where they fall on my overall list, including upper and lower minors guys.
Miller Diaz I have at #25 overall in the system.
Tom -
I'm taking your 'parent list' and overlap it by posting up the same day as my prospect rankings... thus, we will post, let's say, our 10th pick the same day on the web site.
BTW - Diaz was such a high prospect ceiling on the Mets prior to his injury. I really don't know where to properly slot him right now.
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