Before I get started on today's main topic, two lads are reveling in a month named August:
Michael Conforto is 20 for 35 since his re-demotion (.571/.605/.943) - wow.
Phil Evans raised his AA average to .339 by going 32 for 67 this month (.478)
Congrats, gents.
Now to the article:
2014 and 2015 were big years for Mets' minors in terms of wins and losses - I believe in both years, the Mets had the best collective win - loss record of any organization (excluding the DSL).
The Mets unloaded a ton of pitchers and that certainly would have impacted performance this year. But the 7 teams (AAA thru GCL) are 42 games below .500, pretty poor. And most of that is due to a lack of hitting, the Met organization's trademark since 1962.
Here goes:
AAA
Vegas is always a different animal due to its extreme hitter-friendliness. The team is 2nd in average (.288), first in runs (734) and second in HRs (127), but is still just 60-69 due to a team ERA of 5.55 and many unearned runs.
Getting away from hitting frenzied Vegas, a familiar pattern sets in for the teams below AAA - low scoring, and a dearth of homers due to the Mets being an organization that historically puts very little value on the long ball, although its fans love long balls. It instead drafts contact hitters who don't make enough contact.
220 homers in 538 contests below AAA - you draw your own conclusions.
AA
Binghamton has sputtered to a 58-68 mark, despite the solid hitting (thanks to Evans, Smith, Rosario and Oberste) is 3rd best at .262. However, the team has only 62 homers and 521 runs, compared to power-laden Reading (Phils), which has 165 homers and 200 more runs. 103 homers less than the league leading Phils. Not good.
HIGH A
St Lucie has the Mets' best minors record at 65-57, also hitting .262, but has popped a mere 43 homers compared to the 116 by the league leading team. A nifty 3.37 ERA has this team"s head above water.
A
Columbia is 58-68 due to its poor offense - .238 (13th of 14) and 66 HRs (league leader at 99) and 535 runs scored. A 3.61 ERA (largely courtesy of PJ Conlon) is decent.
NY PENN
Brooklyn hit crappy last year, and is keeping pace in the crap department this year, at just .216 (13th out of 14), only 239 runs, and a mere 23 homers, 5 of which were contributed by Pete Alonso before his season-ending broken finger. They are at 31-30 mostly due to solid pitching (3,41 team ERA).
APPALACHIAN LEAGUE
Kingsport's Mets are not playing like kings. Hitting a decent .252, but a mere 19 homers (league-leading team has 55). They are 19-37 due to a team 4.71 ERA and a ghastly 78 unearned runs, leading them to have allowed the most runs in the league.
GCL
The GCL boys have collaborated on compiling 7 team home runs in 47 games, another pathetic mark, even for a league where the leading team has only 28. They are also hitting a mere .238 and their 175 runs ranks them 15th of 17 teams. They are 21-26 largely due to a team ERA of 3.61.
Sounding a recurrent Brennan theme of late, Mets ownership, please draft power hitters. Other teams do, and they don't have to go outside to sign or trade for a bushel of power guys like Cespedes, Bruce, Walker, Cabrera and Grandy to get their power fix at the big league level.
16 comments:
You write:
>> 2014 and 2015 were big years for Mets' minors in terms of wins and losses - I believe in both years, the Mets had the best collective win - loss record of any organization. <<
Why do you "believe" this?
This should be something entirely outside of belief. It's either factually true or not true. And my strong suspicion is that it's false.
Respectfully, you have to crunch the numbers before you can make such an extraordinary claim -- that you "believe" the Mets have the best organizational W-L in all of baseball in both 2014 and 2015. As a reader, I'm left wondering if it's remotely true.
Sorry, but.
You're right, James, but I am sticking to my 20 minute rule. If I can do an article in 20 minutes or so, I do it, unlike the past two years when I delved in more - just don't have the time.
So for that reason, I am not doing a lot of "research". However, as I recall when I wrote my articles the past two years, in both years these teams collectively were more than 100 games over .500, and I believe that at the time, I had researched it and that it was in fact true.
Of course, if readers want to read writers' stuff that only adhere to higher standards of journalism, they can read elsewhere.
That said, these teams collectively, below AAA, cannot hit the ball out of a little league park. The roughly 0.40 homers per game by our below AAA squads compare very unfavorably to My Verrett, whose career minor league homers allowed ratio was 1 per game, or 2.5 times as high. It showed Verrett to be very homer prone, and a major league failure waiting to happen, but these minors guys, regardless of ballpark dimension-related homer hitting difficulty, stink at hitting homers, simply put.
And they traded Herrera, one of the few who showed any long ball pop.
Their draft this year, save for Alonso, brought in another bumper crop of guys whose nicknames are Punch and Judy. And an organization that does not like to spend $$$ is forced to spend big outside for homer pop. They need to change course.
honestly I do not care about the records of the Minor league teams except for 1 thing... It seems to matter to the owners of these teams... thus if we want to right the wrong of being in LAS VEGAS we need the teams to show a good product... seems like Rochester is not a option any more but we need to get out las vegas... Period ...
Eddie, I 100% agree - get out of Vegas!
One option was Colorado spring... I hope we do not go there either... But since Vegas is such a dump and further I would... Hoping for Leigh or El Paso
Eddie, I do not like El Paso as a AAA home either. El Paso's team is hitting .302 (and a DH is hardly used) so Reese can chime in, but it must be another hitters' paradise. We need to get to a normal location.
For instance, Nimmo is hitting about .375 since late April, but it is Vegas - if they were in Rocheseter, would that be .280? .300? Beats me. Normal is much better to gauge talent.
Each of the past 2 seasons in 2014-2015, the Mets organization was 3rd each year in overall winning percentage of minor league affiliates. In 2014,only Arizona and Texas had better minor league winning percentages and 2015, it was again Arizona, and also Houston. Tom, I have been saying this to other Mets fans for YEARS! The Mets go pitching heavy virtually EVERY draft and pay little attention to power-hitting position players (okay-we know about Nimmo, Cecchini, Conforto and Dom Smith--but these guys are not power hitters, nor are they top 10 prospects).It's worth a discussion on how winning clubs try to build a team that will last.
The Mets approach seems to mirror the SF Giants with a reliance on pitching (with a few hitters sprinkled in), while the Red Sox and the Cubs seem to draft hitters first, and then draft/buy their pitching later or in FA. Also, the Rangers, Cubs and Red Sox have been very involved with international FA signings while the Mets haven't.
However, the bottom line is this: the Mets don't draft power hitters or even high average guys with 15-20 home run power. They have bought or traded for their power hitters and picked up re-treads along the way with some pop. They seem to draft a ton of middle infielders, and pitching. Very few OFers and nobody with real power. Thus, it's no surprise that we've endured a frustrating offensive failure this year with a few exceptions.
Met Fan CT - thanks for doing that research! 3rd or first in the past two years is pretty stellar, but I am glad you agree on the hitting issue I raise. They CAN focus on pitching AND on power hitters, the two need not be mutually exclusive. I was happy they drafted Ivan Wilson but he failed - they tried for a power athlete. I hate when they draft guys like Brandon Kaupe, a 5'7" SS in the Fourth Round of 2012. How high a ceiling could he have had? He is released after hitting. 201 with 4 doubles and 6 triples in nearly 600 plate appearances. How poor was that pick of a small, scrappy non-hitting hitter? I remember thinking, 5'7"? This guy better be something special in the 4th round!" But he wasn't.
Kaupe was a "4th rounder in name only"---- they drafted him and paid well under slot, preserving money for over slotting later picks.
They are operating on the belief that Pitching is a more rare resource than hitting... you can "patch" a lineup. The need for championship level pitching is an absolutely unforgiving need for a Championship team.
eraff--in TOTAL agreement about pitching. The Mets don't get to the WS if not for their pitching and the hitting of Cespedes and Murphy.The old saying is that pitching and defense win championships and the Royals proved that last year with their dominant bullpen. Offensively, KC had a solid lineup that got lengthy at-bats to raise pitch counts, advanced runners, stole bases along with several power threats. My complaint is that I think the Mets have gone overboard stressing the pitching to the detriment to the offense. If you have great starting pitching, the strategy is obviously to outlast the starters and get into the bullpen. And while the Mets have Familia at the end of the game (and Addison Reed has been very good overall this year), you can't count on Robles. Goeddel, Blevins, etc. Thus, if you have no offense and too many easier outs, you lessen your chances for winning. We've seen too many games this year where this team has lost a game in the middle innings when their starter begins to tire and he has to be removed or the offense couldn't execute and get a run home it needed to score (and I won't even get into the lack of fundamentals with players not being able to sacrifice a runner!). I just wish they'd look to try to draft and develop some more bats or make a splash in the international market like Texas, Boston and the Cubs have done...
Agreed, MetsFan CT - draft power hitters AND keep drafting pitchers. And unfortunately, Jennry Mejia's stupidity is catching up to the bullpen...had he been available, presumably this pen would have been much more resilient.
Glad to say that no sooner did I trash Mets' minors lack of homer prowess, Conforto, Smith and Rosario all went deep last night. Keep it up, boys.
MetsFan--- I was speaking only to their Intention..not their results. While team has been massively impacted by Injury, the fact is that the are also impacted by lack of athleticism and age.
Their patches are older players....non-prime cut FA's---Veteran hands with old legs---guys without much dynamic.
Eraff, I agree with that. We need the youth like Conforto to hit to make that a reality. And Rosario and Smith to start strong in 2017.
Eraff, I agree with that. We need the youth like Conforto to hit to make that a reality. And Rosario and Smith to start strong in 2017.
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