From The Desk – Tony Dibrell, Andres Gimenez, 5 Best Off-Seasons, Free Agency, Tim Tebow

Good morning.

MLB Pipeline  Top Mets Prospects –

          

PC - Ed Delany

  Tony Dibrell | Rank: 27 (Preseason: NR)  Team: Columbia Fireflies (A) ETA: 2021

Position: RHP Age: 23 DOB: 11/08/1995   Bats: R Throws: R        Height: 6' 3" Weight: 190 lb.

Drafted: 2017, 4th (127) - NYM

Scouting grades:

Fastball: 60 | Slider: 55 | Curveball: 50 | Changeup: 55 | Control: 45 | Overall: 45

After two nondescript years at Kennesaw State, Dibrell jumped on the radar with a strong junior season, building off an All-Star campaign in the Cape Cod League the previous summer. The top college prospect in Georgia in the 2017 Draft class, he was taken by the Mets in the fourth round and given a slightly above-pick value bonus to sign. Pitching in relief in the short-season New York-Penn League during his debut, Dibrell struck out 12.8 per nine innings, then followed it up with a solid first full year in the South Atlantic League, once again striking out better than 10 per nine.

With a quick arm and a strong frame, Dibrell can run his fastball up to 96 mph and sit at 93-94 and while his velocity had dipped after heavy use in his last college season, he proved durable and effective over his first full season, finishing with 131 innings pitched. He's fiddled with different versions of a breaking ball in the past, but now features a hard slider/cutter that has good, late life.

Dibrell can spin a curveball with good depth and has aptitude for throwing a changeup. His fastball, slider and changeup all can be plus pitches at their best, so he has the ingredients to start. In order to succeed in that role as he moves up the Mets' ladder, he will have to continue to refine his overall control and command (3.7 BB/9 through 2018).

Fangraphs  top 100 prospects -

         

PC - Ed Delany 

   # 52 – SS Andres Gimenez - More skilled and polished than he is toolsy, Gimenez has been pushed up the minor league ladder aggressively and performed. He perceived ceiling is not that high.

While evaluations of his defense are universally strong, assessments of Gimenez’s bat vary significantly depending on when he was seen. He looked like a well-rounded, first-division player while he was hitting with pleasantly surprising power (.282/.343/.432 with 30 extra-base hits in 85 games) at Hi-A St. Lucie during the season’s first half, but like much less of one during a rough six weeks in the Arizona Fall League. In Fall League, Gimenez looked physically overmatched at the plate, likely due to exhaustion. He was still 19 when the Mets promoted him to Double-A for the season’s final six weeks, and his sophomoric body had endured a 122-game season against older, more physically developed athletes before he had even set foot in Arizona.

It’s fair to project Gimenez to add strength, but because his frame is small, it’ll probably be just the kind of strength that gives him season-long stamina, not huge raw power. But while big raw power is unlikely, if his feel for contact is refined in a way that prioritizes lift, it’s possible that Gimenez will end up hitting for more power than we project in the same way Ozzie Albies has. Gimenez has excellent natural bat control and can pull his hands in to get the barrel on pitches that would jam other hitters, and he has feel for fully extending on balls away from him and roping them into the opposite-field gap. If he does, he might end up hitting a ton of doubles and out-slug our projections without hitting a lot of home runs, or he may naturally start lifting the ball like Albies did.

In general, we like Gimenez as an above-average defensive middle infielder with advanced contact skills. We think he’ll be a solid-average everyday player, and while we think it’s unlikely, we can see a developmental path that leads to better production than that.

Ranking the   five best   off-seasons –

         

  2. New York Mets - We're putting the Mets here because it was nice to see them act like a big-market team for a bit.

The Mets added plenty of star power this winter, in Robinson Cano, Jed Lowrie, Wilson Ramos, Edwin Diaz, and Jeurys Familia. But they also addressed some of their depth concerns through small trades and signings. Justin Wilson came cheaper than his late-inning experience and high velocity and spin rate suggested he would, while J.D. Davis and Keon Broxton both have hit-tool concerns but could provide some utility off the bench -- Broxton with his speed and glove, and Davis with his pop (he's essentially the Matt Davidson starter kit, down to his pitching past).

Could this winter go wrong in typical Mets fashion? Absolutely. Lord knows Ramos hasn't been a bastion of good health; Lowrie looked done as recently as 2016; Cano has been outstanding forever, but he's coming off a season in which he was popped for a masking agent; and so on. Even Diaz could stumble, the way so many great closers seem to at random.

Still, give the Mets credit for making the offseason fun. That's more than most teams did.

Baseball’s Shifting Financial Equation:  Long-Term Security Over Free Agency –

            Proof that baseball’s financial equation has fundamentally changed isn’t in the number of free agents still available, or Bryce Harper and Manny Machado’s continuing unemployment. The most telling sign is in the behavior of the young talent that isn’t yet on the market.

Tim Tebow  was asked about people not liking him –

       

    

         "You’re always going to have critics and naysayers and people that are going to tell you that you won’t, that you can’t, that you shouldn’t. Most of those people are the people that didn’t, that wouldn’t, that couldn’t."