Mack Ade – Morning Report – 6-17-13

I wanted to say one thing about the Sandy Alderson acquisitions of Zack Wheeler, Travis d’Arnaud, and Noah Syndergaard before Wheeler debuts this Tuesday. I will never blame Alderson if any of these three guys don’t pan out. These were two great deals made by Alderson and I would have gladly done the same.

2014 Free Agent Alert – San Francisco Giants outfielder Hunter Pence leads the team in home runs, stolen bases, slugging percentage, and runs scored. His current (2013) salary is $13.8mil.

Kevin S. Anderson to me -

Reading your last couple of morning posts has me thinking about something. Since all of this starting pitching depth has been acquired in every way possible, through trades, the draft, and international free agency, and has been acquired by both recent administrations, who should get the most credit for a system that has both interesting starting and relief arms at every level of the organization? Is it the scouts or the player development people? (I seem to remember you said that there was a lot of turnover in the scouting department.) Clearly the position prospect depth needs to improve for the farm system to be a top tier system - which could happen in a couple of years - but the main question is can this pitching depth be sustained or are we looking at an incredibly lucky couple of years? Also with the success of Montero could we say that mining the Latin American market for kids who didn't sign during the 16 year old feeding frenzy as a market inefficiency that can be used to provide a talent advantage for the Mets? Thanks, Kevin.

                Interesting question.

As of right now, Omar wins hands down. All of your Latin hot shots (Lara, Cessa, Tapia, etc.) were all signed well before the end of the 2010 season which was when Minaya and his crew left. Additionally, Sandy Alderson basically cleaned house of all of the scouts, especially the guys that covered the Dominican and Venezuela. Lastly, there are very few pitching prospects that have come out of the Alderson era so far. Verrett, Fulmer, then who? I can’t think of one Alderson-signed Latin kid pitcher or position player, that has made their mark on this team at any level so far.

I have elevated Savannah Sand Gnats pitcher, Steven Matz, to ‘red status’ on my rosters/prospect list. I color code my players on my Excel sheet (email me at macksmets@gmail.com  and I’ll send you a copy of it). My top prospects are in red (only 10 right now: Montero, Syndergaard, Tapia, Matz, Leathersich, Smith, Flores, Cecchini, Nimmo, d’Arnaud). He’s had some blister and fingernail problems, but 50-Ks in the last 46 innings pitched and a 2.74/10-G, 2.88-season ERA is fine in my book. His last outing was superb, with 10 strikeouts in 5.1-IP. Matz is two years behind in organizational growth, but there’s no reason to rush him other than the fact he’s a lefty starter. I really don’t expect the Mets to move him to St. Lucie, but I’m usually wrong about these things. Either way, he’s a top prospect in my book.

Carlos Torres?  WTF?  Who’s next, Lenny Dykstra? That being said, he did pitch two great inninngs on Sunday. Wouldn't it be something if he forced the Mets hand and they had themselves a decent new member of the pen?

The Mets’ lineup experimentation seems to be working in a reverse way. No one seems to be coming out of the group of minor league players that were all projected to not have the ability to excel at the major league level. No, in fact, it’s working the other way. Jordany Valdespin, Kirk Nieuwenhuis, and Juan Legares are proving they don’t belong at this level, especially as a starter. I don’t think this is any big surprise to anyone in the organization. I know it wasn’t for me. I wouldn’t get too excited about one walk-off home run by the Captain. He has to do much more to show he belongs at this level.

One last thing. The Mets are going to see a lot of lefties this week so Josh Satin will play first base. I first met Josh in Savannah and we have kept in touch through his Mets career. He’s a friend’ of mine on FB and I go out of my way to post up what I write about him on his page. He particularly called me out with a big thank you when I wrote how badly the Mets have treated him over his six year career. Well, he’s finally going to get somewhere between 30-100 at bats and I wanted to wish him well. His commitment to the Mets ends at the end of this season and I don’t expect he or his agent will want to come back here, but he always did what he was asked to do and that was to hit .280+. Good luck Josh. My pen is in my hand



.By the way, what exactly is the level one judges a Met as being successful? I nominate it being what Lucas Duda is doing. Let’s call it the ‘Duda Level’. You hit and field better than Duda, you can stick around.

Binghamton OF Travis Taijeron hit his fourth AA home run on Sunday which raised his combined A+/AA stats this year to: .312/.398/.610/1.008. He also has 13-HRs and 38-RBIs in 218-AB. Convert that to a full 600-AB season and you easily have a 30-110 stat line. THIS is your new top bat, folks (raising him to ‘blue’ prospect status).