An arm like that at 18 can be a lot things, or not depending on so many other factors but don’t sell him short until there is no chance of his having 3 terrific or 4 very good pitches in his tool belt.

Also, Toby Hyde over at MetsMinorLeagueBlog was writing about reasons to be optimistic about Nimmo when he referred to a study by Baseball Prospectus about why drafting younger players is better, or at least has had better results the last few years.

http://www.metsminorleagueblog.com/age-another-reason-to-be-optimistic-about-brandon-nimmo/

Here’s the article he referenced. I’m not sure if it’s available to non-subscribers.

http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=15306

We’ve drafted an extrodinary number of “more developed” pitchers like Traber, Durkin, Heilman, Humber, Pelfrey, Mulvey, Kunz, Rustich, Holt Harvey with 1st, supplemental and 2nd round round picks. Pelfrey has at least made it up here, and pitched well at times and Harvey looks like the real deal but overall the “well developed” pitcher hasn’t panned out very well.

I think the idea is to get the talent and develop it ourselves, before it has 3 years of abuse in college. Humber in particular was part of a a great college pitching staff at Rice in which he and Townsend and Nieman were all drafted in the early first round. A total of four #1 picks all top 10 spent on these three pitchers and only Nieman has had any real success. Humber had his first decent year 7 years after being drafted and Townsend is pitching in a independant league.

Get enough Michael Fulmers coming through your system and and you’ll have 3 spots in the rotation covered and 4 spots in the pen. That’s how every other team does it and that’s why other teams don’t have to sign 4 guys every year for the pen and a couple of starting pitchers as well and who knows, when you start out with the top shelf talent you could very well get a Josh Johnson or Cole Hamels out of the deal too.

Great job with the interview again Pete.

I actually think this kid could be a #2 and I think he’s got a lot of potential. I’m under the impression the Mets farm system could throw out a few good arms in the next few years.

Saying he could be a #3 right after the draft is actually a really good sign. Remember, Jon Niese was projected to be a #5 or long man and he’s likely a #3 now. Only the absolute, can’t miss phenoms out of High School (Dylan Bundy and Archie Bradley for instance in 2011) will be labeled as future #1′s, just because they’re even more advanced but Fulmer is pretty ahead of the curve for a HS kid and he’s got real talent, too.

Thanks Petey.