Mack’s Apples – Justin Dunn, David Peterson, Launch Angles, Ronny Mauricio, Baseball’s Middle Class

John Sickles on –

         

  20) Justin Dunn, RHP, Grade C+: Age 22, first round pick in 2016 from Boston College; very disappointing 2017 season, 5.00 ERA in 95 innings in High-A, 75/48 K/BB in High-A, 100 hits; the numbers were obviously horrid but scouting reports remain positive enough for him to rate a C+; 92-96 fastball, slider, curve, and change-up all flash plus but he had a lot of problems with inning-to-inning consistency in the starting role; could improve rapidly if moved to bullpen; ETA 2021; QUESTION MARK: disparity between stats and scouting. minor league baseball

Mack – It seems to me that 2018 has to be the year that Dunn proves to both the team and the fans that he deserved to be drafted as high as he was.

My guess is this is now a relief pitcher in the making.

Fangraphs  Top 18 Mets Prospects -

1. David Peterson, LHP

Drafted: 1st Round, 2017 from Oregon

Age    22       Height           6’6      Weight          240     Bat/Throw   L/L

Tool Grades (Present/Future)

Fastball        Slider Curveball     Changeup    Command

55/55            50/55    40/45            50/55            45/55

Peterson had a great junior year at Oregon in 2017, showing four good pitches and throwing more strikes than is typical for a pitcher his size. He sits 90-92 with heavy sink, will touch 95, and his fastball plays up because of good extension. He made heavy use of a slider that garners mixed reviews depending on if you’re talking to a scout (who consider it a 50/55) or someone looking at a Trackman readout (40/45), but it missed Pac-12 bats and should be fine even if it doesn’t spin a whole lot.

Peterson also has a curveball and changeup, both of which are potential big-league weapons, but he rarely used them in college. Some scouts thought the changeup could eventually be his best pitch if it’s refined with more pro reps. We have the changeup projected fairly aggressively and think Peterson is a quick-moving league-average starting-pitching prospect. He had some injury trouble as a sophomore at Oregon but otherwise possesses little variance in his profile.

Mack – I also want to see a great year from Peterson. Wouldn’t it be nice to see a first round pitch ace it once more in your life?

In baseball, launch angle just keeps going up, up, up –

In a nation that loves to recycle its pop culture — “Roseanne” is back, with its cryogenically preserved cast — the home run has returned with a bang. If we ever build that wall, it’s a certainty that someone will hit a baseball over it.

In 2017, there were 6,105 home runs in Major League Baseball, 412 more than the previous record in steroid-induced 2000. Seventeen of 30 MLB teams hit at least 200 homers last year. Wow. That’s 200 homers over a 162-game season, which sounds like more than one a game, according to my admittedly rudimentary public-school mathematical training.

Mack – First, there was ‘money ball’… now, there is ‘over the wall’.

Breakout Prospects At Every Position

                 

       

                     Ronny Mauricio (Mets).

Mauricio was Baseball America’s No. 3 international prospect last year when the Mets signed him for $2.1 million out of the Dominican Republic. Since then, Mauricio has grown two inches to 6-foot-4, added much-needed strength to his gangly frame and continues to impress scouts with his ability on both sides of the ball.

The squeezing of baseball’s middle class –

          

             Baseball contracts are typically signed for between one and 10 years, after which veteran players can become free agent, able to sign with any team. Usually, when a season ends and winter rolls around, teams start coming to contract terms with these free agents at a slow-but-steady pace. By February, most big names and even average players are signed; the last contracts for the lower-talent class of free agents are usually inked in February, the month spring training begins.

But this year, in early February there were still dozens of free agents still without a team. These weren’t just bench-fillers, backups, and graybeards ready for retirement; many were high-profile, talented veterans, and even some true stars, like JD Martinez, one of MLB’s top power hitters of the last three years and Jake Arrieta, who won the Cy Young Award just two years ago and remains a top-20 pitcher.