BLAZING BATS:
Jeff McNeil and Peter Alonso have justifiably gotten the lion's share of my minor league hitters' comments and those of other writers on this site - please scroll down our article list to see articles on both of these sluggers from yesterday by myself and Macks Mets expert Reese Kaplan.
Who else is hot?
KEVIN KACZMARSKI - KK was out due to injury until May 12, but he has since gone 17 for 44 with 8 walks and just 5 Ks. Now, if this contact hitter can keep it up, and add some Brandon Nimmo power, Kevin could be a Brandon Nimmo clone.
MATT DEN DEKKER - the now-30 year old veteran has had a fine May, and is hitting an even .300 with a .342 OBP and a .512 slugging %. Not scorching, but quite good.
ANDRES GIMINEZ - despite 2 recent o-fers, AG II is hitting .281/.351/.425, with 15 of 19 steals for the Lucie Mets. What will he do when he's twenty next year? Plenty.
DASH WINNINGHAM - Dash is trying to crash the first baseman hitting party - hitting just .188 10 games ago, the Lucie 1B has gone 12 for 27 since to climb to .242. Power is down, though, with a .344 slugging % so far.
RAFAEL GLADU of Columbia was slumming at .224 on May 7, and thought to himself, "wouldn't it be nice to go on a 15 game hitting streak?" So naturally he did, climbing to .272 in 42 games, with 5 doubles, 3 triples, and 8 of 10 steals. When you ask me if I am happy that the lefty hitting RF is a Mets prospect, I reply, "GLAD. U?"
JEREMY VASQUEZ, Gladu's 1B teammate, has cooled but is still at .303/.413/.461, with 26 RBIs in 48 games.
Switching to the pen - who are the BLAZING BULLS?
First, a hearty congratulations to Tim Peterson for a long-awaited and successful major league Mets debut in Wednesday, pitching 2 solid innings after Jason Vargas departed in a Mets win. I saw a Tim Peterson tweet after the game, and trust me, he was THRILLED!
JOE ZANGHI, pitching really well this year for St Lucie, had the thrill of filling in for Las Vegas this week and tossing 3 scoreless innings in his appearance. Way to go, Big Joe!
Other hot relievers include lefty Kyle Regnault in AAA, who started turbulently but is back to getting it done; lefty Dave Roseboom in AA, superb with oodles of strikeouts of late; Ryder Ryan has been tremendous in A and AA in all but one of his 17 outings; Joshua Torres has been even better in 15 AA games and is 4-0; lefty AA reliever Daniel Zamora has been great in his last 10 games (1 earned run, 16 Ks; Matt Blackham, Matt Pobereyko, and Steve Nogosek have (along with Joe Zanghi) been part of a great bullpen; and Steve Villines, Trey Cobb, and Connor O'Neil have been snorting coming out of the Columbia Fireflies pen this year.
Brennan favorite Tyler Bashlor has hit the DL with an undisclosed and hopefully not too serious malady.
Until next week, this is a quick summary on Mets Minors Bats and Pens heroes.
Matt Pobereyko got to go 3 innings for Vegas last night and it was not great, allowing 6 runs (4 earned0 in 3 innings. Catcher Jeff Glenn also allowed 6 runs in one inning in a 20-3 loss. Flexen allowed 4 runs in his 1 inning. Most of the damage was done by former Mets Cesar Puello and Anthony Recker, who combined to go 5 for 8, 3 walks, 8 runs scored and 7 RBIs.
ReplyDeleteRecker is tearing it up in 28 games, .337/.431/.686, while Dom Smith is .270/.364/.388. Draw your own conclusions.
Morning -
ReplyDeleteA few things this morning.
1. It is my understanding that we should have a bat shipped to Queens for a couple of days. Speculation is that it will be Dom Smith. My money is on The Pounder.
2. We watch or follow this team, game after game, and we watch them win a handful, followed by losing a handful, and so on and so on. This is the team we root for. It is basically a .500 team... it was in the past a .500 team... and without radical change, it will remain a .500 team in the future. We address this question in this week's Q and A, but the answer is becoming more evident as the young season drags on... new... young... progressive leadership is needed.
3. But here's the rub. You can bring in 10 new General Managers, but as long as Fred, Jeff, and Saul owns this team, it will be operated as the profitable business it is rather than the failed sporting franchise it has become. They don't care what the end result of their investment is folks, as long as they have more ching come in than goes out.
4. I'll say it one more time... reduce the revenues (ticket sales, parking, vendor sales, merchandising) by 20% and The Board Of Directors will eventually force a sale of this team. It won't happen overnight, but, if the stands go empty, and stay empty, for at least the remainder of this season, it could happen before next season starts.
5. Great business people do not hold on to losing investments for long. Even the Wilpons have their limits.
6. Until the, it will be a player here and a player there, but that is it.
Mack out
After Flexen's latest meltdown, unless he is pitching hurt, one has to start to wonder if he has what it takes.
ReplyDeleteFlexen sat for twelve days before he was used, that’s kind of difficult.
DeleteI’ll say again today, I try to post everyday and every day the system will kick it out. What’s up?
Mack, I planned to go to some games after the 11-1 start - those plans are indefinitely on hold.
ReplyDeleteI will say, not to be contrary, that if they get Cespedes, Frazier, Swarzak, Thor and Matz back healthy within the next week, that could be a real boost.
But, as I have said before, a 3 game series with the mighty Yanks comes up in a week - these dumb owners schedule the Yanks each year, not realizing they could well be shooting their season in the foot doing so. If interleague is not dropped, 1 series with the yanks per year, while still one too many, would be better than 2 three game series.
I hope Alonso is called up and not Smith, even if just for a short taste.
Texas -
ReplyDeleteBad teams makes for good writings.
Tom -
ReplyDeleteI agree about the players coming back... and they would probably make this team into a, what, a.530 team?
The fact would remain that Sandy and Company has only one solution for this team... patch the leaks with aging players.
There are just too many great teams still left on out schedule this season.
81-81
Stock up on bandaids
ReplyDeleteTexas -
ReplyDeleteI'm sorry about that.
It is an old site that breaks down.
I contacted Chris Soto, our old tech guy, to help here. Hopefully, he can find the time to.
Hang in there and keep trying.
Mack
Gladu is interesting. He was a 2017 draftee, I believe. Gimenez’ SB totals make me think he’s faster than i realized. It’d be great to see him finish the year where he is, and start at Binghamton next year. We clearly need to trade Cabrera by the deadline (before he stops hitting or ends up on the DL) to clear room for McNeil at 2B. Maybe we can get someone to take Bruce’s contract in that deal if we pick up around 2/3 of it and don’t actually ask for a player in return. The Bruce signing, in fact, tells me all I need to know about this FO’s talent evaluation. Not only was Bruce not worth the $ and years, but they blocked Nimmo, their own former 1st rounder for three years. Clearly indicating that they didn’t see his value or true potential. This after having him under their watch for his entire career.
ReplyDeleteAdam, I was reasonably happy with the Bruce trade, also assuming that they had seen enough of Nimmo to convince themselves he was not an everyday player. That certainly appears wrong, and the OF certainly is overcrowded with starters.
ReplyDeleteMoving Bruce to 1B is not an answer, because Alonso may turn out to be the far better hitter very soon.
So, it certainly appears they blew it.
I wonder if Bruce would have taken 1 year, $16 million instead.
Mack, my friends and I have never spent a penny at citifield. We cross into the iron triangle an hour before the game and load up on dollar empanadas, dollar negra modelo and 25 cent jukebox plays in one of a few quaint cafe shacks. We sit with the indigenous of the mad max steel wastes, and come out fortified for the travail of the wilpon-run game. Tocqueville, I believe, said, the people always get the govt they deserve. Met fans, there are superior options to swilling and ruminating the very crap at mets games that guarantees the current regime! I'm sure many of us have done similar, we should unite in the effortless effort to better spend our cash.
ReplyDelete