Michael Scannell - to me
Good to see them
making noise. You always seem to have a
good idea about how scouts see the Mets' players. What's the buzz on them? I don't think Puello will be ready until 2015
the earliest, but Verrett could be up next year sometime. Could he be a bullpen pitcher for the
Mets? Are these two regarded highly
enough to be bundled in trades if necessary?
We talked yesterday
about Aderlin Rodriguez and Travis Taijeron, two Mets that heatting up at the
beginning of May. Another player we need to keep an eye on is outfielder Cesar Puello. I’ve written a lot on Puello over the
years who is a player I always though was going to be a big time Met outfielder
(had two hits on Wednesday night, raising his AA average to a high of .296).
Puello was another of those Omar bonus babies out of the Dominican Republic
that hit the States running in 2008 (18-years old - .305). He really has hit
well throughout the six years stateside, with a low of .259 in 2011 (St.
Lucie). All the scouts were in love with him in 2010 where he had 45 stolen
bases for Savannah. His progress was slowed down after two years with St. Lucie
(2011: .259/.313/.397/.710 and 2012: .260/.328/.423/.751 and some have
questioned (including me) whether the progress to Queens can be accomplished.
We all know about the PED rumors, which, thankfully so far, are still rumors;
however, for so many reasons, 2013 is the year Puello needs to excel in. AS OF
Late Wednesday night, he’s leading the team in hitting, is ranked 18th in
the league, 12th in the league in stolen bases, and 11th
in OPS (.890). These are very good early stats in the difficult prospect AA
league, but is still far away from showing he can hit at the ex-MLB player AAA
level. That’s a completely different game. ETA: Puello turned 22 last month. He
signed as a 16-year old. Knowing the Mets, and the fact he played two years at
A+, they will hold him back, let him finish this year at AA, project him as
part of the opening day Las Vegas 2014 outfield, but also invite him to big boy
camp and let him compete for a job next spring.
Summation: It looks
like Puello will graduate AA with honors. Still, he won’t be rushed. He will
open 2014 at Las Vegas with Corey Vaughn and Kirk Nieuwenhuis.
Mack Ade to Lynn Worthy @PSBLynn: In your opinon, what does Vaughn and Puello
need to do to elevate game to AAA and Queens?
Lynn Worthy @PSBLynn - @JohnMackinAde IMO they
need to prove they can produce consistently and make adjustments against
high-level pitching.
SP Jenrry Mejia may pitch this weekend for St. Lucie.
Also, we need to keep
one eye open on that ‘almost’ OF prospect, Binghamton’s Cory Vaughn. Far too streaky for me but full of talent. He has the
2013 AA average up to .293, which ranks hi 21st in the AA-prospect
league. His .896 OPB ranks hi 10th, and he’s working hard on his
strikeouts, but frankly will go nowhere until he improves in this area (20.1%
K% 2010 – 21.5% A-ball 2011), 22.0% A+ ball 2011), 21.3% - 2012 A+), so far
25.0% AA 2013). Look, last year Vaughn hit 23-HR and had 73-RBI in 456-AB. We
can live with the K-ratio with those kind of numbers. This year: 79-AB, 4-HR,
17-RBI, 23-K). Don’t need another singles hitting in centerfield with a good arm.
As most of you know,
the majority of my time every May is devoted to draft information both for this
site and other www.bigleagueprospect.com. I still have this morning report every day
at 8am and my five main writers punch out a noon feature. We fill in from
there. This will be an interesting draft. The only thing all the draft experts
agree on is the lack of talent and depth in this one. In my opinion, there is a
huge drop off after the 50th pick comes around and the whole draft
will be basically over by pick #11. Some thoughts:
-there
is only two college catcher (Stuart Turner and Andrew Knapp) in the top 11 ranked prospects
-there is only one prospect
second baseman (Calvan Biggio) period.
-there is only one college
shortstop (Adam Frazier) in the top 18 prospects
-eight of the top ten RHP
prospects are college juniors
-five of the top ten LHP
prospects are college juniors
-depth, if any, in this draft
are catchers and college right handed pitchers
Went out to Savannah
for BP today for their return against Rome. Some highlights:
Catchers
Nelfi Zapata and Jeff
Glenn were in the batting case out near the visiting team’s bullpen
before 2pm, taking swings off the stationary poll. The hitting coach was
working with them on their downward plane. You have to think that Kevin Plawecki is standing near the phone and the Sand
Gnats want to make sure their battery is fresh and ready without him. Glenn was
a pleasant surprise early, but has slumped to a seasonal .213 average, that
included .171 in the past 10 games. Zapata remains on the inactive list (he
sure ttakes an awful lot of BP reps for a guy that isn’t here). The only
possibility for a promotion here would be Tomas Nido out
of extended camp.
No
one will talk about why Brandon Nimmo has been
out of the lineup. We’ve all heard the stories about his hand, but, the
official word (and I have this in writing from the team) is that he has always
been ‘100% healthy’. So far, four team officials, two players, and one coach
have told me today that he’s ‘fine’. They all use the same word to describe his
status. Go figure (note: he did not come out for long/short tossing pre-game).
2:30pm
– Jayce Boyd was next sent out to the bullpen
batting cage. Boyd has been holding his own throughout May after a sparkling
April (.385). He currently is batting .381, which comes in 2nd in
the league behind teammate Kevin Plawecki (.400).His
last 10 games have fell to .278, so the extra BP can’t hurt.
2:40pm
– Phillip Evans (.224) was next up for BP. Evans
has showed some life at the plate lately (.333 in last 10 games), though most
of it is against righties (82-AB) vs. lefties (18-AB). Either way, a .608 OBP
isn’t going to protect his position while Gavin Cechhini sits in extended camp.
2:50pm
– Kevin Plawecki replaced Boyd in the cage. What
do you practice at when you are leading the league in every offensive category
known to man? The only thing he needs to do is enter the GPS coordinates of
Lucy in his ride.
3:10pm
– A side session was thrown by #36 – Robert Gsellman.
A silent G. Nice breaking stuff. Worked mostly out of the stance. Every other
pitcher stood around to see his ‘stuff’. I’d say around a 90-91 fastball but
big 11-6…
3:31pm
– Mathew Koch came next… short seesion, working
mostly on commant, not speed.
3:35pm
– Tim Peterson and Logan
Taylor tossed around a football in centerfield. Guess Taylor s close to
coming off the IR.
3:35pm
– Tyler Vandenheiden was up next and he was
working on the severity of his side-arm delivery. He practiced without throwing
first, and really got into a submarine delivery. Hmm…
3:54pm
– Roster moves came out… Nimmo was finally placed on the DL, retro to 5-7… OF Mailki De La Cruz was called up from Kingsport and C Nelfi Zapata was activated from the Savannah DL
(hmm…).
4:35pm
– Nimmo met with me outside the gate. The Mets sent him up to NYC yesterday for
MRI. Asked him if the results were in… he paused… and said no. He was in
good spirits, but didn’t look happy.
No comments:
Post a Comment