Mack’s Morning Report - 2-14-16 – Full Team Pens, Michael Conforto, Dilson Herrera, Jacob deGrom

 Good morning.

The loss of Dumbo Mejia makes us take a second look at who are current ‘on paper’ in the four full season bullpens in the Mets organization. None of these are the projected guys to open up in Queens.

AAA – Las Vegas  (13) -  Paul Sewald, Akeel Morris, Josh Smoker, Dario Alvarez, Jeff Walters, Zach Thornton, Beck Wheeler   , Chase Huchingson, Chase Bradford, Stolmy Pimentel, Jim Henderson, Duane Below, Buddy Carlyle      

AA – Binghamton (8) - Kyle Regnault, Robert Coles, Mike Hepple, Kelly Secrest, David Roseboom, Jimmy Duff, Tim Peterson, Domingo Tapia    

A+ - St. Lucie (7 ) - Luis Mateo, Paul Paez, Cameron Griffin, Ben Griset, Alberto Baldonado, Christian Montgomery, John Mincone

A – Columbia – (10 ) - PJ Conlon, Alex Palsha, Carlos Valdez, Craig Missigman, Corey Taylor          , John Magliozzi, Brandon Welsh, Nico Black, Ty Williams, Jose Celas  

As usual, 38 are far too many pitchers for four opening day pens but the Mets have always found a way of placing around six of these guys on the DL with some phantom 7-day ailment.

We’ll keep progress on this as spring training progresses.

 Rob Rogan on Michael Conforto –

It will be exciting to see what strides Conforto makes in 2016 considering he had no major trouble as a rookie in getting close to what many deemed his ideal outcome. Does that mean he can, once he gets more experience under his belt, perform at a level higher than even his most positive scouting reports predicted? Possibly, but he’ll need the playing time to do it.

         

Mack – I believe the Mets will begin the 2016 season the same way they ended it… Conforto in left, Yoenes Cespedes in center, and Curtis Grandeson in right. I also expect to see Juan Lagares in the last two innings, replacing Cespedes, in all games are leading at that point. Past that, I have no idea how the outfield at bats play out.

It will be Conforto’s bat that will determine how much play that Alejandro de Aza gets.

It was nice to see that Rotographs had a paragraph on Dilson Herrera in their ‘Rookie Second Baseman’ article –

Dilson Herrera, Mets: Like Jose Peraza, Herrera could be ready to have value at the big league value but he’ll open 2015 blocked by a more veteran player. The organization acquired former Pirate Neil Walker during the offseason and he’ll definitely be given every opportunity to play regularly for the Mets. That will leave Herrera back in Triple-A for a second showing despite producing an .893 OPS there last season. He has the ability to hit for average, steal a couple bases and hit a few home runs over the fence.

Mack – I expect Herrera to come back to Queens when the first infield injury takes place, or in September, whatever comes first.

Herrera will play 2016 as a 22-year old. It’s time.

         

 Frank Pimental on the Top 10 RHP in Baseball –

7. Jacob deGrom – New York Mets - 2015: 14-8, 2.54 ERA, 191 IP, 205 K’s, 0.979 WHIP.

One could say 2015 was the year of Jacob deGrom. Coming off rookie of the year honors in 2014, he picked up right where he left off. He displayed his brilliant strikeout stuff on the national stage where he took over the All-Star Game whiffing all three batters he faced on just ten pitches.

DeGrom relies on his four seam fastball to generate swing and misses, but will mix in his hard sinker, slider and throws a very good changeup to keep the hitters on guard. deGrom, along with the rest of the Mets astute starting rotation, carried the boys from Queens to the Fall Classic, where they fell shy of a ring to the Kansas City Royals. He was 3-1 in 4 postseason starts with a 2.88 ERA and 29 whiffs over 25 innings. Entering his third full season, I expect him to be right in the race for the Cy Young with a very good Mets team looking to get back to the World Series.