Mack - From The Desk...

Morning Folks!

I have returned, though my ‘From The Desk…’ posts have been reduced to once a week. I will feature them on Sunday mornings.

One of the things I am going to do weekly is feature a targeted ballplayer that could make a difference in the first 10 picks of the draft. 

This week’s is Hagerty HS (FL) outfielder, Riley Greene. 

Perfect Game grades him out as a 10:

Riley Greene is a 2019 OF/LHP with a 6-2 190 lb. frame from Oviedo, FL who attends Hagerty HS. Outstanding athletic body, long and strong with plenty of room to continue to fill out. Left handed hitter, has a very fluid and easy swing with outstanding present bat speed, advanced balance and ability to square up the baseball, shows power to all fields, looks effortless doing it, sees the ball extremely well and will put up big walk totals in the future. 6.62 runner, has advanced base running instincts. Clean actions through the ball in the outfield, fields out front and makes accurate throws with mature footwork. Bat is his tool and it could be the best in the class.

It will be interesting to see how the Mets deal with the first base position in the upcoming off season. No one is baseball believes they will be able to push aside what Peter Alonso has accomplished this year in both Binghamton and Las Vegas. Per his interview with Reese Kaplan, he will play winter ball in Arizona which should just keep the fires burning. I know he won defensive player of the month in July, but continued effort to improve in the field can only help (I was there in camp when Daniel Murphy was first taking grounders at second. It was brutal). I hope for Dominic Smith’s sake that they play him at first for this month. He really doesn’t have a shot for the 2019 outfield. The Mets have three existing contracts in the outfield that are not going away in 2019 (Yoenes Cespedes, Jay Bruce, Juan Lagares). They also have a future star in Brandon Nimmo and one of the most exciting young outfielders in the game, Michael Conforto. My hope, for Dom’s sake, that anything he does positive in September can lead to a deal to another team that needs a good, young, defensive first baseman that can also get on base. Bruce (or Wilmer Flores) can backup Alonso here in 2019 and we can move on to the next position.

I’m a big New York Giants fan. No one excited me more that when an undrafted wide receiver from New Jersey changed the way the history of this team was written. Victor Cruz. Cruz retired this year to go into the booth and left this message on Twitter –

Victor Cruz - @TeamVic - The love has been absolutely overwhelming today. Thank you guys. All of you.. thank you so much. This kid from Paterson is still living the dream

We may have a winner winner chicken dinner in 2^nd round draft pick Simeon Woods-Richardson. So far, the 17-year old is ‘perfect’ through 14.1-IP (6 games: GCL, K-Port), 0.00-ERA. 0.91-WHIP. He only was promoted in August to Kingsport to help them during their playoff push and tossing in three scoreless innings on Wednesday night helped the cause. I have ‘SWR’ as one of my top Mets prospects and have him returning to Kingsport for opening day 2019, where he will continue to be stretched into a starter. ETA: too soon to call

There’s a great video of ex-Boston Red Sox infielder Butch Hopson who is now the manager of the Chicago Dogs in the American Association. Check out the video:

SP Jenrry Mejia made his second start for the DSL-2 Mets on Friday: 3-IP, 0-R, 7-K. That’s seven innings, 10 strikeouts, and a seasonal 0.00-ERA. Before you get too exc9ited about this, let’s remember two things… one, he’s a 28-year old pitching in the DSL league to children… and two, he’s a 28-year old scum bag that will just break or bend the rules again down the road. Your call here Jeffy but, if it was me, I would never let him back on the roster again.

In closing, I’ll try to take off the training wheels next week and have a longer, more comprehensive weekly post. One of the things I would like to add back is a weekly question from one of you that I can give my spin to each week. Send them to: macksmets@gmail.com.

In addition, use the same email address if you would like to become a writer here, like both Erica Lay and Tony Bats did lately. We’d love to have you join us.

Mack