Tom Brennan - OUR PROSPECTS, AND THEIR PROSPECTS

Tom Brennan - OUR PROSPECTS, AND THEIR PROSPECTS

Ew! What's that diaper smell?  Well, the prospects are stinky.

Why are our hitting prospects almost never like the other guys' prospects?

All along I had heard Amed Rosario was the best thing since sliced bread - you know the organic kind, multi-grain, toasted, fresh butter - yeah.  We were salivating over our prospect like I was salivating over that toast.

OK, I am just back from the kitchen - let me continue.

Amed Rosario did start playing in the minors as an international signing dude really young, so although he got called up by the Mets last year at the age of 21, he already had 1,926 plate appearances. 

A hot shot prospect (i.e., Jonathan Mayo had him as his # 5 prospect in all of baseball prior to the start of 2017) should be ready to blaze into major league stardom with playing that much, right? 

After all, Bryce Harper only had 569 minor league plate appearances. He adjusted nicely.

Amed should be really ready if he had 1,357 more, right?

Wrong. 

So far, Amed has (typically Met) not been all that good - Mets' prospects almost always have to go through painful, long adjustments with their hitting prospect call ups, so why should it surprise that Rosario in his MLB career spanning 249 official at bats and a few other plate appearances is a substandard .241/.270/.365? 

Seven walks, 74 Ks in 71 games?  A pitcher with a 10.6 K/BB ratio you'd love.  A hitter with that ratio?  Come on. 

Despite blazing speed, just 7 steals in 12 tries?  18 career RBIs and 27 runs scored? 

Kind of reads like, I don't know, Reese Kaplan, like what??? 

Oh it is coming to me now, a RUBEN TEJADA stat line, whaddya think?  A stat line only a Mets fan could love.  Except Ruben's on base % was better.

Then there's Dominic Smith - best natural hitter in the 2013 draft, they said, and we got him! (Roll out that toast imagery again, will you?) 

The Mets of course passed on the best supernatural hitter in the draft (Aaron Judge) to take Smith. 

John Sterling no doubt said, "Holy Moses!  The Yanks picked Aaron.  Yankees...WIN!"

And the rest is history.

Unlike Bryce Harper's meteoric rise from the minors, Smith steadily and un-meteorically plodded upwards in 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, and 2017 - 4.5 seasons - be satisfied and excited with modest progress, you greedy fans!

Then, Smith showed up a few weeks after Rosario did for his major league interview, wearing a fat suit, and hit  a buck 98. 

Don't call us, we'll call you, big fella.

Skip all the details since then for the slimmed down Smith, other than to say that in hitters' paradise Las Vegas, Smith is currently hitting .270 with a .393 slug %.  (That slugging % is low due to just 5 doubles and 2 homers!!!  Not Freddie Frickin' Freeman stuff).

My rough rule of thumb is knock a hundred points off of PCL Vegas batting and slugging stats to make them major-league-comparable and, doing so, it is as if Smith is hitting the major league equivalent right now of .170/.293.  Yep, one of our best and brightest.  And...

Yep, that makes him one of: OUR PROSPECTS.

And between last year's prospects everyone was dying to see (Smith and Rosario) in the majors, the sample size is no longer small.  447 major league plate appearances between them, a low .224, just 21 walks, 123 strikeouts. Mets quality. 

With Mets hitting prospects' performance like that, why ever get excited over another Mets hitting prospect again, one might ask.  I certainly am.

ON TO "THEIR PROSPECTS:"

Atlanta - Acuna and Albies: the two super-young Braves super starting position players combined have done this in the majors in 2018: .326 in 135 at bats, 17 doubles, 10 HRs, and 24 RBIs.  No one is confusing that with Ruben Tejada - or Amed Rosario.

Yankees - besides Judge, let's focus on the new kids - Andujar and Torres - 121 at bats, .291, 15 doubles, a triple, 3 HRs, and 14 RBIs.  Rosario again suffers by comparison.

Phillies - Rhys Hoskins: MLB career stats - in slightly more at bats than Rosario, 263 at bats, he has 16 doubles, 22 homers, and 68 RBIs (.274/.417/.586).  Not suffering an Amed-like (or Smith-like, or for that matter, Conforto-like) soph jinx, Hoskins is hitting .301 in 2018, with a Harper-or-Judge-like .455 OBP.

Someone could say, "Tom, why are you cherry-picking, you left someone out, what about Brandon Nimmo?" 

The former high first rounder in 2012 has happily done surprisingly well, but unfortunately he is a 4th/5th outfielder on this Mets team - if he played everyday, he might be able to show if his early very solid career results understate, or overstate, his potential. 

And if he had earned a "can't miss" label by the end of 2017, the Mets never would have re-signed Jay Bruce and instead targeted Brandon to start.  So our hope is he is blossoming into an outstanding late bloomer, which sometimes happens.

But I do highly commend him on his .269/.382/.410 career Mets stats in about 340 MLB plate appearances.  Seems there is a lot to love about Brandon Nimmo.

I also, to swing the pendulum back from successful Brandon, left out Kevin Plawecki (555 MLB PA's, .219/.309/.305) and Tommy Nido (just 39 PAs, but .216/.256/.270, and that's after over 1,500 minor league plate appearances with a weak .261/.305/.372, light years from someone like a different organization's graduated prospect, Gary Sanchez).

All I can say is:

I sure hope that Peter Alonso (currently dismantling, decimating, and destroying AA pitching) will soon be our Harper, Judge, Torres, Andujar, Albies, Acuna, or Hoskins. 

Because we never seem to get the caliber of Other Teams' Hitting Prospects like those fine fellas from other franchises.

We mostly just get Mets Prospects. 

Like Ruben, like, Smitty, like Amed.