From The Desk – Ronny Mauricio, Andres Gimenez, Baseball is Broken, Roy Halladay, Jacob deGrom

Good morning.

           

Fangraphs  Top 25 Mets Prospects –

           

3. Ronny Mauricio, SS Video

Signed: July 2nd Period, 2017 from Dominican Republic (NYM)

Age     17.8    Height 6′ 3″    Weight            166     Bat / Thr         S / R    FV       50

Tool Grades (Present/Future)

Hit       Raw Power     Game Power  Run     Fielding          Throw

20/50        45/55               20/50         45/50      40/50              55/60

Much of scouting teenage prospects has to do with identifying good athletes and good frames, and like many of this century’s All-Star, power-hitting shortstops, Ronny Mauricio is both. A broad-shouldered but lean 6-foot-3, Mauricio looks like Manny Machado, and Hanley Ramirez, and Carlos Correa, and a host of other super talents all did at age 17: long-limbed, with surprising grace, flexibility, and coordination for someone this age and size, and possessed of physical gifts that might enable them to stay at shortstop while also growing into huge power. The Goldilocks Zone. But Mauricio is also more than just a frame/athleticism/projection bet. He has relatively advanced feel to hit for a teenage switch-hitter, his timing is fine, and he hasn’t exhibited any confidence-altering, contact-related red flags, like lever length or poor plate discipline. He may outgrow shortstop but if he does, it means big power on a plus-gloved third baseman. We were surprised by Mauricio’s GCL assignment, and then surprised further by both his admirable statistical performance there and his late-season promotion to Kingsport. He might be ushered through the system more quickly than we anticipated when he signed. Regardless of where he’s playing, once Mauricio turns a physical corner, he’s likely to rocket up this list.

MLB Pipeline's   2019 All-Defense Team –

       

PC - Ed Delany

    Shortstop: Andres Gimenez, Mets

Gimenez reached Double-A as a teenager, partially because of an advanced approach at the plate, but also because of his glovework at the premium position. He has the hands, arms, range and internal clock to play the position long-term, even if he has to slide over to second in deference to Amed Rosario.




Baseball Is Broken.  Can Anything Short of a Strike Fix It? –

        

   After a glacially slow free-agent season in the winter of 2017-18, a troubling number of clubs have decided to place economic considerations ahead of fielding a competitive team. The tepid interest in Grandal is merely the latest data point in what can now be described only as a trend: In 2018, the average major league salary went down, and, as of January 14, 2019, Andrew McCutchen’s three-year, $50 million deal with the Phillies is both the richest and joint-longest contract given to a free-agent position player this offseason. The doldrums of last offseason, it turns out, weren’t an aberration. Free agents are signing later, and for less.

Baseball Hall of Fame countdown: A year after his death, Roy Halladay  should get in easily –

       

    A year after his death in a tragic airplane accident, Halladay debuts on the Hall of Fame ballot. The two-time Cy Young winner should easily secure enough votes to be inducted on his first try, but his candidacy has an undeniable gravity in the wake of his passing.

He was truly a master of his craft. While Randy Johnson intimidated hitters with an upper-90s fastball and Greg Maddux frustrated opponents with his surgeon-like precision, Halladay found the perfect middle ground to become one of the best pitchers of his generation.

The nastiest pitches to face, as voted by players -

         

  Jacob deGrom's fastball, 4 votes

Another complicated (and that's a compliment) arsenal in a poll like this. deGrom (who, win total aside, had one of the best pitching seasons in history in 2018) got a vote for his slider and, from Twins reliever Trevor Hildenberger, a vote for his "everything," a la Treinen, above.

But when in doubt, go with the heater. deGrom promised before 2018 that his new short haircut would lead to an increase in velocity, and, sure enough, he was right. It went from an average of 95.2 mph to 96 mph. And the spin deGrom gets on the pitch (a 2,362 rpm average in 2018) makes it all the more unhittable.

"It's something that you don't see with guys, that illusion of rising," his Mets teammate Michael Conforto said. "Not a lot of guys can do that, and he's throwing [up to] 99 mph."

One-third of plate appearances that ended on deGrom's fastball were strikeouts.