Morning Report – June 12th – Draft Assessment, Daniel Murphy, Matt Harvey

                                                                               

Coming Later Today –       

                                                      

        9 30 am – Herb G – Minor League Report

        11 00 am –

        12:30 pm – Pick #18 – CF Raphael Ramirez – Pace Academy (GA)

         2:00 pm – Pick #19 – RHP Bryce Beeler – Univ. of Memphis

         3:30 pm – Pick #20 – RHP James Duff – Stonehill College (MA)

        6 00 pm - 2015 Draft Profile  - OF  -  Ryan Johnson  -  College Station (TX) HS




The Brooklyn Cyclone roster is up on their web site. I'm sure it will continue to update as more draft picks are signed.


A rare day game gives me the opportunity to talk about the Las Vegas 51s. 

     I know that C Travis d'Arnaud said that he needed a trip to Vegas to help 'find his swing' but it sure looks like he found it in a heartbeat. Yesterday, he went 3-5, with two home runs, and is now batting .600.

    Something must have happened to SP Darin Gorski. He only pitched 0.2 innings, giving up two earned runs. I can't get anyone in Vegas to talk directly with me regarding injuries so we'll have to wait until someone likes Adam Rubin gets through.

    OF Cory Vaughn continues to make the case that he should stick at the AAA level. Vaughn went 2-3, with two walks, and is hitting .269.

I asked Todd Gold of Perfect Game what he thought of the Mets draft:

        Todd Gold ‏@TGold_PG  - @JohnMackinAde solid class. Doesn't have the wow factor of some other orgs, but 1st two picks are high chance guys & good base for the class

Response to my wishing Chase Bradford well at AAA -

Chase Bradford - Thanks Mack. Rough start but I'll get back to being me. I appreciate the support from you guys.

I heard back from Charley Thurber who has retired and moved on the gen-pop:               

        Charley Thurber        9:16am Jun 11 - Thanks Mack. Wish you the best too. Awesome following all of your coverage thru the years

Patrick Ebert of Perfect Game write a column on his first impressions of the teams that took part in the draft last week. He named six teams with ‘great first impressions’, six more with ‘good first impressions’ and lastly, six more with ‘the jury’s still out’.

I assume that this means that the Mets are ranked with the other 11 teams as being ‘meh’.

Let me tell you… all you need is two, maybe three ballplayers to emerge from a draft and become a start and all the so-called experts jump on the bandwagon.

There is only one thing that all 30 teams have in common right now. Nobody knows what the outcome of their picks will be until 3-4 years from now.

I’m now done taking a close look at the first 20 rounds… I’ve got 20 more to go. The one thing I’m walking away is the fact that Mets successfully picked players that were ranked much higher on their prospect list than when the Mets picked them. Sometimes this screams out as a player that has told people he was going to attend college, or wanted round 1^st or 2^nd money, and they fall in the draft. Others have other stories. But the one thing I’m seeing here is the fact that the Mets pick represent some very talents kids.

Many we never heard of many of them and we have no idea where their schools were, but when you dig into the numbers, there’s a lot of power added with high ceiling high school pitchers.

I’m going to leave it where it is right now and observe how they play the rest of this season for the rookie teams.

My guess is we’re going to see a lot of home runs.

One thing I did want to talk about was 2B Daniel Murphy.

I read some rant on Facebook about a story that said the Mets were not going to offer Murphy arbitration at the end of this year. Is this true? Did I miss this story?

How could you possibly consider not working out a deal with the best, consistent hitter (yes, even more consistent than David Wright) on the team.

Sure, it would cost you around $8mil. You paid $7mil for Chris Young. Can we really compare the return here?

Look, there’s very little we go to sleep every night and feel comfortable with. Let’s not add second base to all the other positions that are in flux.

Please send me a link to that story if it exists.  Thank you.

It was interesting to see Terry Collins’ pre-game comments to the mob (beat press) that the only way Matt Harvey will see mound time this season is if the Mets are ‘in it’. Sandy Alderson also needed to throw his two cents in about the future of TC in the organization.

Using the excuse that the only reason the Mets would pitch Harvey would be if they were a couple of games out of the second wildcard slot is a safe way to go. I’m not trying to be Debbie Downer here, but this team isn’t going anywhere this year. I only home they don’t drag on the knowledge of this and use the time in a valuable way to rid themselves of some contracts and play some questions marks.

For example:

        1B – Keep Eric Campbell up splitting time with Lucas Duda. It’s not a perfect situation but, the more at bats Campbell gets, the more comfortable he will get as a major league.

        2B – Would you just leave Murphy alone… please?

        SS – I’ll keep saying this no matter how much better Ruben Tejada looks. Give the job the rest of the year to Wilmer Flores and let’s see what he can do when he doesn’t have to worry about being taken out of the lineup the next day.

        3B – Play David Wright with some occasional rest.

        RF – It looks like Curtis Granderson is beginning to earn his contract. Play him.

        CF – Play Matt den Dekker until Juan Lagares comes back

        LF – Play Chris Young until the trading deadline in hopes of generating some interest. Then, release him, release Bobby Abreu with him, and play any combination of Campbell, den Dekker, Andrew Brown, and (one last time) Kirk Nieuwenhuis (giving maximum playing time in AAA to Cesar Puello).

        C – I would play Juan Centeno until Travis d’Arnaud comes back.

Don’t get me wrong. This isn’t enough talent to get things done, but it does represent the best the Mets have right now for the future.

Team desires at trade deadline:

        Giants – second base

        Athletics – second base

        Florida – pitching

        Braves – bullpen pitchers

        Dodgers – moving an outfielder

        Tigers - bullpen