With the Mets reportedly near a deal with OF Curtis Granderson the front office has now turned their attention to filling other positional needs. One of these needs is an improvement over Ruben Tejada at the SS position. As a possible solution, the team has sent scouts to the Dominican Republic to scout recent Cuban defector SS Erisbel Arruebarruena.
According to Andy Martino of the NY Daily News, Arruebarruena will conduct a 2 day showcase for major league teams this weekend at the New York Yankees complex in the Dominican Republic in hopes of landing an MLB contract. He has drawn numerous comparisons to Detriot's SS Jose Iglesias for his wizard like defensive skills.
Below is the scouting report done by Ben Badler of Baseball America on the world's10th rank prospect of 2013.
"Arruebarruena has clean hands, quick actions and good body control. His quick first step and instincts give him good range. He has a quick transfer and a plus-plus arm with accuracy, which allows him to make throws from deep in the hole and turn 4-6-3 double plays with ease. His awareness in the field is advanced and he’s shown the ability to make the barehanded play look routine and make strong throws from different angles."
Sounds like a dream possibility and a guy the Mets should swoop in an get. However, there are major concerns about his bat. He has a long swing, poor pitch recognition skills, and is pull happy which has many scouts thinking he won't hit more than .220 at the MLB level right now. The same reports were made of Iglesias as well though and he just hit .303 for the Tigers in his rookie season.
Arruebarruena sounds like he will probably need some time in the minor leagues, most likely Double A, to fine tune his game. Despite that though, since he is a 6 year veteran of the Cuban Serie Nacional( even though he's 23 years old) any bonus he receives for signing with a club will not go against a team's newly minted international draft pool which could draw numerous suitors to him.
I will leave you with his stats from the Serie Nacional over the past 3 seasons. The Serie Nacional is widely considered to be equal in talent to MLB Double A teams.
'10/'11 279 PA, .280/.314/.484, 8 HR, 11 BB, 57 K
'11/'12 306 PA, .320/.367/.520, 8 HR, 19 BB, 39 K
'12/'13 270 PA, .296/.370/.431, 6 HR, 24 BB, 31 K
