Mack’s Apples – Andres Gimenez, Jose Reyes, Baseball Lawsuit, Pace Of Play, Syracuse Chiefs

Fangraphs  Top 18 Mets Prospects -

2. Andres Gimenez, SS

Signed: July 2nd Period, 2015 from Venezuela

Age   18       Height           5’11   Weight          176     Bat/Throw   L/R

Tool Grades (Present/Future)

Hit     Raw Power  Game Power           Run    Fielding        Throw

30/55           30/45 20/45 55/50 45/55 60/60

Gimenez spent 2016 in the DSL and then was pushed three levels to full-season ball as an 18-year old in 2017. He kept his head above water there, slashing .265/.346/.349 in 92 games. Gimenez doesn’t have huge tools or physical projection, but he’s a polished, instinctive teenager who can play a good shortstop and get the bat on the ball. Gimenez has promising bat control and currently makes lots of soft, line-drive contact. He’s projectable enough that he’s expected to grow into more raw strength but not so much that scouts foresee impact game power. Gimenez could move quickly and projects to be a good big-league everyday shortstop for a long time, but his upside is also limited unless some aspect of the profile (the bat has the best chance) develops significantly beyond current projections.

Jose Reyes and his wife thankful to now be US citizens –

photo by Mack Ade 

“I passed the test before I went to spring training and I became a citizen today,’’ a beaming Reyes, 34, told The Post in a quiet corner of the clubhouse. “It means a lot. I love this country. I had the opportunity to spend a little time with the judge [Wednesday].… To see all those people there becoming citizens, there were like 200 people sitting there, it was really something special.

Dad's Baseball Lawsuit Highlights Where School Choice Collides With Sports Rules –

                         

                       A lawsuit in Maine shows, once again, that while parents are told by legislators that may choose any school for their child for any reason, there is one reason that is still not universally accepted: sports.

In Howard Lee's federal lawsuit on behalf of his son, there are two major school-choice issues at the center. One is laws allowing home-schoolers to play sports at a public school, even if they're not full-time students there. The other is laws allowing parents to choose to send their children to a school outside the district in which they live.

Baseball Misses Mark With  Pace-Of-Play Initiative –

                

                   Baseball has initiatives to improve the pace of play. Mound visits, for instance, will be limited to six per team per nine innings. Teams will receive an additional visit for every extra inning played. This might help, but infielders still need action to stay involved.

In addition, the amount of time between innings has been shortened. Sales departments are not trimming commercials — which are necessary to maintain the record levels of revenue — so play-by-play announcers have to get to break seconds after the final out of an inning. The break ends when the first pitch is about to be thrown.

It sounds 'funky,' but Washington Nationals shrug off Mets' partnership on Syracuse Chiefs –

               

                   When the original deal was announced in October, Mets officials held a short news conference in which only a handful of questions were answered. Since then, both Nationals and Mets officials have refused several interview requests to further discuss the logistics of this season and the direction of the franchise.

Nationals management has typically stopped in on the Chiefs' off-season Hot Stove Dinner. But no one from the Washington front office came to that event this year. It was a Mets-themed affair, though visitor from New York's front office refused interview requests from the gathered media.