Tom Brennan - THE ERROR OF THEIR WAYS: A BALL

Tom Brennan - THE ERROR OF THEIR WAYS: A BALL

This is about key Mets' minor league FIELDERS in A ball (St Lucie and Columbia).

A few days ago, the AAA and AA players were covered.

We focus constantly on how a guy hits, how a guy pitches...but fielding is critical, too.  It can be make-or-break.

Of the minors guys who to me appear to have a legitimate shot at the bigs, who is fielding like Rey Ordonez and who like Iron Hands Chuck Hiller?

I wrote about AAA and AA key guys the other day.  Those who are excelling with the glove are Tyler Pill, Dominic Smith, Tim Peterson, Kevin McGowan, Corey Oswalt, Luis Guillorme, PJ Conlon and Alberto "Big Al" Baldonado.  Amed Rosario, though, has made a lot of errors in 2016 and 2017 for a reputed glove man, and Phil Evans is error-prone his whole career.  Tomas Nido had a lot of errors early in his career, but has improved a lot. 

Enough blathering.  Let's move on to our A Ball key players:

HIGH A ST LUCIE:

3B Jhoan Urena: wow, he is hitting like the dickens this year (.365/.471/.504) after two bad offensive years.  The glove, however, remains very substandard, with 104 career errors at 3B in 278 games started and 349 games overall, and 11 in roughly 30 games in 2017.  David Wright made 190 big league errors, but in over 1,500 games.  Compare Urena to pitcher Tyler Pill's NO errors in 113 games.  Two extremes.

Iron Hands Chuck Hiller, who in 475 games at 2B made 84 errors, was a Gold Glover compared to Urena, sorry to say.

My suggestion?  Move Urena to 1B, where he has decently played a few games defensively, or to the OF.  He's stolen 32 of 47 in his career, so he must not be slow, and as a 3B, he must have an arm, so the outfield for a .365 hitter could work.

C Pat Mazeika: top tier hitting (.368/.430/.613) with pop and averaging an RBI per game, he's a .338 career hitter (might be the best career average for a guy with his # of at bats in all of the minors). 

Defensively, he has been very solid error-wise, with just 2 miscues, but less so with base runners, cutting down 29% in 2017 and 48 of 168 in his career.  That said, maybe Pat will become a lefty hitting version of Mike Piazza.

C/1B Anthony Dimino - just headed (good grief) to the 7 day DL, get well soon, son. Hitting 408/.488/.435, and in limited catching time has thrown out 7 of 13....sweet.  Only 3 career errors.  Anthony does it all, except hit with power (and, right now, staying healthy).

RP Tyler (Morris) Bashlor - he emulates another former Mets Morris (Akeel), with high Ks and kinda high walks; he's 5-4, 3.44 in 62 career games with 109 Is in 83 IP, with just a single error.  Nice defensive job by the hard thrower. 

FULL SEASON A BALL - COLUMBIA

2B/ SS Luis Carpio - the 19 year old is hitting .250, but has made only one error in 28 games (22 at 2B, 6 at SS). That defensive acumen is impressive for a teenager.

IF Andres Giminez - the 18 year old budding star has hit .280 with good on base skills in his 9 games since his promotion, and just one error.  Nice.  He's 18 and I like it.

IF Michael Paez - the Flies' best hitter, at .269/.342/.510, with 21 RBIs, but has 8 errors in 26 games started at 2nd, SS, and 3rd. Plenty of time for the glove to improve.

Tim Tebow - inquiring minds always want to know about Tim Terrific....he is hitting .250, and .330 in his last 55 at bats, thank you for asking.  He has played the outfield in 18 of his 28 games, with just one error and one outfield assist. Competent season so far, I'd say.

SP Jordan Humphreys - not only brilliant as a pitcher so far, but no errors in 26 career games, too.  All good here, nothing to see here, ma'am.  Let's move on...

SP Merandy Gonzalez - almost as good pitching as Humphreys in 2017, and no errors in 19 starts spanning 2016 and 2017.  Keep moving, people, we're good here, too.

SP Gabriel Llanes - not a high K guy (19 in 38 IP), he is 1-2, 2.33 in 6 starts, and impressively has allowed just 2 earned runs in his last 4 starts. His 5 errors in 39 pro games is not bad for a guy who just turned 21.  Reminds me of another Gabriel, Gabe Ynoa.

RP Max Kuhns and RP Matt Blackman have both been outstanding out of the pen in 2017, and each only has one career error.  The fact these relievers can field is quite a relief to me, let me tell you, quite a relief, OK, so great.

Lastly, I couldn't pass on commenting on

two sub .200 Columbia prospect hopefuls: 

OF Desmond Lindsay (.172) and C Ali Sanchez (.184) have both hit poorly in 2017, but diverged offensively in one very key area...Lindsay has fanned a very high 36 times, while Sanchez has whiffed just 6 times.  Defensively, both have made just one error in 2017.

Sanchez continues to excel against base stealers, cutting down 9 of 17.  Kid may have Gold Glove chops.  Just that tool alone makes him big-league-viable someday, but hitting would certainly help.

As I sign off, let me note that Columbia, the youngest team, has the lowest error rate of any of the 4 Mets Minors squads.  I asked them why, and naturally, they got defensive.

Speaking of errors, I tried hard to have 0 spelling errors.

Have a great day, without any miscues, people.

 That's up.  Now, I'm ready to field your questions.