Mack’s Morning Report – 7-17-15 – Casey Meisner, Anibal Sanchez, Relief Pitching, Dash Willingham

20-year old RHP Casey Meisner continues to impress at the mid-range of A+ - St. Lucie. Meisner pitched six more scoreless innings this past Monday, lowering his A+ ERA to 2.16, but that’s the least of his professional career.

The 3^rd round draft pick in 2013 straight out of Cypress Woods High School(TX) has now pitched 192.2 professional innings for the four Mets teams he has been assigned to and his overall stat line… at 20 years old… is: 15-8, 2.90, 1.18, 192.2-IP, 172-K, 54-BB.

Meisner will cut his bones in AA-Binghamton next year where you will begin to read much more about this budding star. Good pick, Sandy.

I found a story that was originally published on 7-11-15 by Ryan Divish in The Seattle Times    about Detroit Tigers Anibal Sanchez, playing across the diamond from Seattle Mariners Rich Donnelly. The story had nothing to do with baseball. It was about how two men on opposite teams were coping with the loss of their child.

Go read it please. You’ll stop worrying about who’s going to play in the Mets infield for a half an hour.

We’re now in the second half of the season and went into it with the following win-loss record

          Washington -       48-39          87 games played

          Mets  -                  47-42           89 games played

The Mets have played two more games than Washington has… and has three more loses. There is nothing they can do about that and this can become a very important fact once the season moves into September.

In essence, Washington is in a much stronger position to win the division.

There was a great roundtable discussion show on MLB-TV the day of the all-star game. One of the subjects they talked about is the future of pitching, in general, and relief pitching, in specific. We all know that the past decade has seen a huge decline in offensive baseball and teams continue to build their future around young arms (I’ve written extensively on how this starts well before high school with coaches of youngster teams placing their best, and tallest, athlete on the mound).

The discussion on this show, that included Mad Dog and John Smoltz, warned that more and more teams will be cutting back on the innings their starters throw and you will see teams, like Kansas City, that have four 95+ mph power arms to handle the last three to four innings.

I don’t agree with them, but (staying with 2015) we are going to enter into the period soon where pitchers like Matt Harvey, Jacob deGrom, and Noah Syndergaard, will have to have their innings limited. The roles of pitchers like Jenrry Mejia, Bobby Parnell, and Jeurys Familia could become even more important… and… determine whether this team makes the playoff this season.

Does 19-year old 1B Dash Winningham have the chance to someday replace Lucas Duda on first base? I mean the Kingsport first baseman seems to be having a much easier time hitting the long ball than Dominic Smith did at that level, or even hitting at his current level of St. Lucie.

Winningham is a 8^th round in 2014 – Trinity Catholic HS FL) – combined 2014 GCL/current 2015 Kingsport: 243-AB, 58-K, 23-BB, 9-HR, 51-RBI, .243/.320/.420/740

Dom Smith 20-yrs old – 1^st Rd 2013 – Junipero Serra (CA) HS – 3 yrs: 937-AB, 169-K, 98-BB, 8-HR, 123-RBI, .286/.356/.386/742

Interesting HR/OBP/OPS comparisons.

Here’s what Chris Soto said about him earlier this week:

He has some outstanding power, especially to his pull side, and his swing has outstanding hip rotation and a good weight transfer, allowing him to use all of that strength. In terms of RAW POWER, he could push a 65-70 grade here.

That said his Game Power is another story. His hands are pretty slow through the zone and he doesn't have good bat speed. He can get beat on inside pitches pretty regularly. He also has some moving parts in his stance which can make him vurnable to good off-speed stuff. He's not exactly your typical "athlete".

However, if he can shorten that swing up, while still maintaining that brute strength of his....you could have yourself another Lucas Duda here.

Hmm…