Tom Brennan - PIPELINE PITCHING CANDIDATES
2019-21
While we spend a lot of time thinking of the fragility of the likes of current Mets pitchers Matt Harvey and Zach Wheeler, there are pitching embryos in the lower Mets minors, little lefty and righty zygotes who, when fully gestated, will be real candidates to show up in Citifield in the years 2019-21.
Who might they be?
My last article was on pitchers closer to Queens, vying for a 2018 call up at some point. Among those are Tyler Bashlor, Kyle Regnault, Drew Smith, and Corey Oswalt.
Here is the 2019-21 hopefuls list:
STARTERS
2019:
Corey Oswalt: (if not in 2018) - superb AA 2017 season
PJ Conlon: crafty lefty starts and relieves craftily, and well. Could be a September 2018 call up, even.
PJ Conlon: crafty lefty starts and relieves craftily, and well. Could be a September 2018 call up, even.
Marcos Molina: nice bounce back season - we need to see MORE in 2018. Will he be a future Mets starter or pen guy?
Mickey Jannis (long shot): we had a Cy Young knuckle dragger named Dickey recently, why not go for two?
2020:
David Peterson: a sense he'll be special, and move up fast.
Justin Dunn: 2018 to show if he is to be a starter or reliever. 2019 to refine the craft before the big show.
Nabil Crismatt: solid dude, K per inning in 2017, ready to do some real damage in AA in 2018.
Andrew Church: long shot - former 2nd rounder - he needs to raise his trajectory - fast. Too much mediocrity to date.
2021:
The Tommy John Trio:
Tom Szapucki: back in late 2018 or OD 2019, then I think the fanning machine will move at Matz speed to the bigs.
Jordan Humphreys: see Szapucki.
Anthony Kay: let's hope he hits the ground sprinting in 2018 post-TJS. Maybe another pen switchover candidate.
RELIEVERS
2019:
Matt Blackham: super 2017 season in Full A, great ERA, lots of Ks, two more years to the big league pen IMO.
Tim Peterson: he will have slogged his way up the ladder and hope for a 2019 similar to Paul Sewald's 2017 MLB debut. 1.14 ERA in a bust-out AA season - dude is stingy.
Dave Roseboom: shake off foot issues, get back on track.
Gerson Bautista: he may start to rise as much, and as fast, as his blazing 100+ fastball. If he gets his command down, he might just demand a 2018 ticket to Queens.
Corey Taylor and Ben Griset: lots of competition indeed, but these two are good, too. Get those hats in the ring.
2020:
Austin McGeorge: 1.78 ERA in A and Hi A ball in 51 innings in just his 2nd campaign? Sweet. Totally awesome, Austin Powers, baby!
Steve Nogosek: another hard throwing trade acquisition. Needs to improve, has lots of folks to try to vault over, too.
2021:
Matt Pobereyko: dominated after signing out of Indy ball - High K Machine with no assistance from Russian collusion.
Aaron Ford: a little early to tell how good this lefty might be, but he fanned a lot of guys in his 2017 debut. Mound logjam might push him back to 2022.
Cannon Chadwick, Steve Villines, and Tony Dibrell:
3 nice-to-excellent debuts in Brooklyn in 2017, and 3 more years likely gets all 3 of them them on, or close, to Queens' radar screen in 2021.By my count that is 11 starters and 13 relievers of real quality and potential. Maybe high-velocity position player-to-pitching converts - Ryder Ryan and Jeff Diehl - show they can do it from the hill too in 2018. My guess? At least half make the big leagues, and some will have a real impact.
CONCLUSION:
THE PITCHING PIPELINE IS ALIVE AND WELL, FAR AHEAD OF METS' MINORS HITTING PROSPECTS' PIPELINE DEPTH, IMO.
ONCE AGAIN, LET ME RECOMMEND THIS:
REBALANCE...DRAFT HEAVY ON HITTERS, WITH PLUS-PLUS HITTING ATTRIBUTES, IN 2018. WHY? BECAUSE, ALTHOUGH FOLKS SAY YOU CAN NEVER HAVE TOO MUCH PITCHING, I THINK WE HAVE A STRONG ENOUGH PITCHING PIPELINE RIGHT NOW.
Our hitting pipeline, tho', is almost undoubtedly in the bottom 5 of all of MLB; let's draft many more TOP HITTERS to make it a TOP 5.
14 comments:
Mack
On Kay what do you mean by pen switch over? Do you mean that you expect him to be a pen guy?
Hi Eddie - I do not expect him to switch to the pen - but it will depend on availability of starting slots when he is ready - a long way off from that point.
Tom -
I talked to Ernest Dove who did an extensive interview recently with Mr. Church.
Ernest said that he is working on some new stuff and you just might see him begin to earn his draft pick come this season.
Mack, I certainly hope so - this is the year for Church to show what he can do.
I think I saw something Ernest (hi, Ernest) wrote a while back on Church that said his top velocity was in mid 90's, more than I thought...so maybe Church is a true underdog breakthrough story in 2018.
Adonis Uceta will be in Queens quicker than you can spell "Mazeika."
Hobie, we have a statue of Atlas in Rockefeller Center, maybe someday, we'll have a statue of Adonis at Citifield, too
Hobie, it took me 2 1/2 years to spell Mazeika correctly, so Uceta better hope he gets here a lot faster than that. I still believe Bashlor will get to the bigs faster than Uceta myself.
Bashlor seems to have become the latest Brennan 'Danny Muno kiss of Death' tag.
Mack, anyone with the initials TB I am all behind.
A better Brennan analogy for Bashlor, though, is former Mets fave Jack Leathersich. Jack will be on the attack in 2018, BTW.
I never liked Muno that much - we had such a weak infield back then, I was just hoping he'd get a shot to outshine the other losers like Soup and Dekker, whom I also pulled for, for the same reason. Speaking of getting a shot, I heard Muno got a flu shot the other day, which made me happy :)
Thomas-
Yes, it did take a while to get the 'L' out of Mazelka... Uceta (& Bautista) will be in Queens quicker than that.
Whatever became if the guy we got for Neil Walker? I just remember his minor league numbers were meh.
Reese- we got Eric Hanhold for Walker, which is to say we didn't get much. (maybe all we got was salary relief) But at age 23, for the HiA Carolina Mudcaats, he had a 3.94 ERA, 1.438 WHIP (ugh) 8.4 K/9 and 2.9 BB/9. His numbers have improved in each of his 3 years, and they switched him from starting in '16 to mostly relieving in '17. A ray of hope?
Tom- Great analysis. All we need now is to extend deGrom and Thor and it looks like we will be flooded with rotation options in the coming years. (lol) We just have to hope that those who brave the rapids and survive the upstream migration can perform the way we thought out fabulous five of 2017 would.
Herb G - you say that "We just have to hope that those who brave the rapids and survive the upstream migration can perform the way we thought out fabulous five of 2017 would."
The upcoming batch may not be as talented as those 5, but if they stay healthier, maybe they do as well (or even better). At SOME point, our guys have to get hurt LESS than average, instead of well above average like in 2017.
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