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10/19/21

Tom Brennan - A Closer Look at Mets' Righty Prospect JT Ginn



JT Ginn was considered to be an upcoming super prospect while in college.

At the time of the draft in 2020, Mack wrote:

Ginn was a real bonus here. 

I had him 1.4 in my first mock, prior to his arm injury. 

The good news here?

The Mets medical and coaching staff have a lot of experience with TJS recovery. 

Separately, Mack wrote this just prior to Ginn being selected:

JT Ginn – Mississippi State – Ginn went out for the season after only one start with ‘arm soreness’. It resulted in TJS and calls into play whether he will be picked at all this draft. Shame. He was a pre-season Top 10 pick.

It wasn't, as it turns out, a complete "shame" - it may have been a shame for JT Ginn, but it was a blessing for the NY Mets.

Mack, as noted, had Ginn pegged as high as the FOURTH overall pick for 2020, before his arm injury.  

Who wouldn't want a 4th overall pick?  

The Mets haven't had one that high in a mighty long time.  

Because, while they are lousy most years, they are never quite lousy enough.

It was a risky move to even TRY to draft and sign him.

Most other teams passed on JT, thinking he'd not sign at a discount.  

But sign he did, at 52nd overall.  At an over-slot $2.9 million.

JT did need TJ surgery, right around the same time as Thor. 

Surgery in March of 2020, 3 months prior to the draft.   Good for the Mets.  It made JT Ginn's return timetable mid-2021.

DDanny Abriano of SNY in a mid-2020 article wrote this:

After the draft ended on Thursday night, Mets brass -- including GM Van Wagenen and director of amateur scouting Tommy Tanous -- were ecstatic over landing Ginn.

"This is a rare combination of turbo-sink as we call it, with strikeout ability," Tanous said, noting that the Mets had their eye on him for a while. 

"He's anywhere from 91 (mph) to 99. (He has) an out pitch curveball he throws at will for strikes. It's a plus changeup. ... He's got all the qualities of being a top of the rotation guy."

He healed a lot quicker than Syndergaard, and returned to the mound on June 3 for the first of his 18 starts this year.   So, it appears he lost almost no actual playing time and development due to the surgery, unlike, say, Thor, who is essentially missing 2 full years.

92 JT innings amassed for St Lucie and Brooklyn. 

3.03 ERA. 1.05 WHIP.  Sweet. 

I heard anecdotally that Ginn was hitting 95 on the gun late this season.

Presumably, he will be no-holds-barred in 2022.  There is no reason to not promote him to AA to start the season, after having 10 of his 18 starts in Brooklyn, where his ERA was 3.38. (If it were me, though, I'd protect his arm and start him for a few games in warm, sunny St Lucie, then bump him to AA).

Drop out one 2021 start where he gave up 5 earned in 3 innings, and his Brooklyn ERA in the other 17 starts was in the mid 2's.  And he got better as the season progressed - just 4 earned runs in his last 5 outings, spanning 29 innings.

Just 3 HRs allowed in 92 innings - that sure tells you something.  And only 22 walks as compared to 81 Ks.

Just based on what the numbers speak to me, I see no reason why Ginn cannot get up to 150 innings or so in 2022, in AA and AAA, and be ready to join the Mets' rotation in 2023.  Hopefully, the now-rehabbing former high draft pick Matt Allan will heal quickly like Mr. Ginn and be ready to join Ginn in the Mets' rotation by 2024.

Perhaps Ginn debuts sooner than 2023, although that seems a bit unlikely.  But the Mets used a slew of starters in 2021, so you never know when a dire need would warrant perhaps a midseason call up for JT. 

Also, Megill threw just 45 innings above A ball before coming up. Maybe that is in Ginn's future.  

Ginn could throw 60 innings in 2022 by Memorial Day, assuming minor league seasons go back to commencing in April.  

Might that be all he needs? If he is elite, maybe so.

In his case, though, most likely the intent would be this: 

Once called up, he stays up.  Because he ought to be a successful Mets rotation starter.  For years.  

His ceiling seems very high.

Great draft pick gamble by Brodie Volkswagen.  

Credit where credit is due.  BVW really did draft well, if one considers “Impact Players” to be the key grading factor.

JT Ginn is living proof of that.

Like Tanous and BVW were, I am ecstatic we got JT Ginn.  

You, too? A future “top of the rotation guy”, if you ask me.

AND...SOMETIMES SMALL SAMPLE SIZES ARE INDICATIVE:

Brett Baty started out getting on base 13 out of 19 times in his first 4 games in the AFL.  Wow.

Sometimes, small samples can be misleading, but sometimes, perhaps more often than not, a small sample showing an unexpectedly high negative, or positive, rate of some attribute is indicative that the sampled population (past, or in Baty's case, future) will have a significant rate of the same attribute.

In simpler terms, Baty's incredible 13 of 19 on base start in the AFL may well be an indicator that things have suddenly really clicked for him in baseball, and that he is perhaps just as suddenly major league ready.  Time will tell.

Of course, he won't be getting on base 13 of every 19 times throughout his future career.  But he could be getting on base an awful lot, is what it tells me.  From now on.

And, John from Albany, Wilmer Reyes is getting on a ton, too.

In fact, the team that 8 Mets' prospects are assigned to (the Salt River Rafters in Scottsdale) is 4-1, much to the credit of the Mets' 8 (Baty, Carlos Cortes, Wilmer Reyes and Hayden Senger at the bat, and Conner Grey, Garrison Bryant, Colin Holderman, and Brian Metoyer from the mound).  

No HRs, nor HRs allowed, so far.  But the 4 hitters have gotten on base an amazing 28 of 58 times, with 10 runs scored. And the pitchers have gone 8 total innings, and have allowed 7 hits and 2 runs, while going 1-0.  KEEP IT UP, FELLERS.

SCOTTSDALE MADE ME THINK OF AN OLD SPORTS BUT NOT BASEBALL-RELATED STORY ABOUT STEVE SCOTT.

The great U.S. miler from the early 1980s once ran a sub-3:47 mile (not now the world record....a Moroccan subsequently ran a 3:43 mile, which is pretty mind-boggling).  

Scott also set a golf-related world record in 1981: 

He played 18 holes of golf in a world record 29 minutes, 33.05 seconds, while shooting a creditable 92.

Me?  I can't run to the bathroom in 29:33:05.  I did run a 5:08 first mile during a 5 mile race I ran in that same year of 1981, though.  I clocked in on that one in 29:47, or 5:57 a mile.  But a little slower than it took Scott to shoot 18 holes LOL.


21 comments:

  1. Tom, completely correct about Van Wagenen’s drafts and it’s fair to wonder if he would have kept Rocker. Now, we know Taneous does the draft and makes the calls, but Van Wagenen has to get some credit - we just don’t know how much. But, a Ginn/Allen/Rocker trifecta with Megill, Peterson, and some secondary prospects like Oller and Walker sprinkled in would have made for a great start to the rotation’s future. But…

    Ginn was a good bit of luck as were many prospects taken in those two years. If disappointed to say this, but if not for the Cano trade, BVWas a whole would be more successful than Alderson was as a whole. There was a reason why nobody would hire Alderson and he just sat at the MLB offices for six years, and we can start seeing the reasons: inflexible, unrealistic, aloof. His minor leaguers aren’t well schooled, his major leaguers aren’t well coached, and that’s probably why there still isn’t a Head of Baseball Operations working under him.

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  2. Gus, great points. And first rounders are far from a sure thing, so if Rocker turns out to be an ace, and the guy we draft this year instead does not, it will hurt this team for years to come.

    Perhaps Mack can weigh in on what he sees Calvin Ziegler or Dominic Hamel turning into, in terms of future rotation arms...SP-2, SP-4? Jake is not getting younger. We'll soon need SP-1.

    As good old Mr Wilson from Dennis the Menace might have said, "Great Scott!"

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  3. Morning.

    1. We need to start solving our rotation problems with our graduating kids. Gin and Allen would be a good start here.

    2. I love the Hamel pick and see him as a potential backend starter.

    3. As I have said in the past, I completely missed the boat on Zeigler. Had nothing on him on draft day because no one had wrote any ink on him

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  4. Tom, this was a nice article. Great background info on Ginn and his potential. I understand that you spent time researching this piece and I didn’t mean to hijack it on bitching about Alderson’s drafts.

    On your point on DeGrom, I’ve read about trading him to load up and I’ve read about keeping him to be a #1. If Scherzer won a CyYoung at 37, why are we giving up on JdG so quickly, and easily? Is he that replaceable? And what about as a tutor to the next wave?

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  5. Gus, if there is reasonable confidence that 2021 wasn't the year that Jake deGrom encountered his San Andreas fault, I'd keep him for sure, to be our ace and, yes, a tutor.

    Unless we got absolutely overwhelmed with a trade package that was just too good to refuse.

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  6. Don’t forget. Brooklyn is a pitchers park, just ask Alvarez and Mauricio.

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  7. Brooklyn is indeed a pitchers' park - you are preaching to the choir on that one.

    That said, Ginn gave up just one HR on the road all season, so he so far has amply demonstrated his ability to keep opposing hitters in the park in normal hitting parks.

    I imagine that the "turbo sink" referred to in the article, plus excellent control, account for that stinginess.

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  8. It's good to hear positivity about future Mets. In the past, the Mets farm system was far worse. It's still not good and has MANY problems at the upper levels, but the lower levels are thriving.

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  9. Reese, if Matt Allan had not gone down, they'd have a good pipeline of hitters and pitchers ready soon. Now, pitching seems iffy.

    Boy, though, if they had kept Kelenic, Isaiah Greene, Justin Dunn, Anthony Kay, and Simeon Woods Richardson, it would be a different story.

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  10. Tom, the Stroman trade wasnt too bad. They had him for two more years and those kids arent lighting it up. I do get the premise of we need to give in order to get. The Lindor trade also wasn't terrible, but there are six all-star shortstops available this winter in free agency. I can see both sides, but I did not think the Lindor trade was a bad one especially since I had high hopes for Cookie. The Cano trade... like Mack keeps telling me, 'let it go Gus'.

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  11. Gus, I agree with the Lindor trade…it’s the 10 year contract that followed. Stroman? His Mets W/L record has been lackluster, but it should have been excellent, so I agree there too. He pitches, they hit (or fail to).

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  12. The big Jake problem is we have no idea how he will pitch next year and our season depends on a great Jake. I remember seeing right before he went down a stat about how many more 100 plus FB's he threw than the pitcher that was #2 and we all wonder how many more bullits he has in his arm and can he adjust to throwing 95-97 and be even close to what he was the first half of last year.

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  13. Tom,
    Is Tommy Tenous still the director of amateur scouting for the Mets? He oversaw at least 2 good drafts that gave us several future players we should be able to count upon.
    D J

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    Replies
    1. He is and he has done a good job whether Brodie or Sandy was there

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  14. I think it's mostly forgotten how the draft pick compensation works. If BVW doesn't trade for Diaz (it was about Diaz - not Cano) and signed Kimbrel instead things would be as follows now:

    - Still have Kelenic and Dunn
    - Would not have Baty and Allen (remember Baty was under slot and made room for doing Allen in round 2.
    - Would have not had to pay Cano but would have had to pay the money to Kimbrel, Bruce, and Swarzak. People conveniently forget BVW was able to dump those awful Sandy signings in that deal.

    Are we better off with or without that trade versus that signing? Over the last three years Diaz has arguably been better overall than Kimbrel. But mostly I think so far it's been more ho-hum than the OMG portrayal. And that it will come down to what Baty and Allen do versus Kelenic.

    And sure BVW in theory could have just done nothing. But not really as he was hired to win immediately.

    And if Diaz had just pitched like he did in 2020 or this year instead of being horrendous, doesn't that 2019 team make the playoffs? Sometimes stuff doesn't work out.

    It's always been weird to me that folks don't evaluate that trade based on ALL the players involved and ALL the money implications. It wasn't Kelenic for Cano.

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  15. Adding In

    1. Some "buzz" surrounding the Mets possibly having an interest in Verlander. My response is "do not do it". Justin is 39 and coming off TJ surgery. So he'd be a once very good starter with experience, but with a questionable arm going forward and a nearby shot at Medicare. iT's too much a move this ball club always considers but should not.

    2. The rotation at a quick glance. 1. Jake, 2. Open, 3. Noah 4. Taijuan 5. One from the Megill, Oller, J. Walker (plus others pool). So what's missing? A lefty starter named Rodon, that's basically the type of quality starter this team desperately needs to "add in".

    3. I'd pass on both Baez and Conforto. Why? Simple actually. Lee and Mangum. Pick one with the other being the fourth outfielder guy. Build from within (again). Stick to it this time.

    4. There is no reason in Sam Hill Tarnation not to give Francisco Alvarez a sincere shot at winning the 2022 starting catcher role. Team needs a starter badly behind Mets dish.

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  16. Anonymous - excellent breakdown. I think Alvarez is not yet ready, but unlike many, I think a half season in the minors in 2022 would be enough for him to then be a strong MLB catcher.

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    Replies
    1. I consider Lee to be a left hand version of Almora.

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  17. DJ, yes, and I like Tanous too. Power arms, power bats.

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