Revisiting Our Predictions For September 1st Promotions

As more and more news begins to surface as to which players will get promoted in September, I thought it would be cool to review how Pete thought it would play out from a September Call-ups predictions piece we posted earlier this month.

In a response to a question from one of our readers, Petey Pete took an interesting look at which players we might see called up to the Mets after rosters expand to 40 on September 1st.

I think we will see Josh Satin, absolutely, he’s a sure thing. As for the rest of the guys? Well, I’m pretty sure Lucas Duda and Captain Kirk will be back. If it were up to me,

I would also bring up Josh Rodriguez for the middle infield, and of course Mike Nickeas. The only other position player I would add would be Zach Lutz for some right-handed pop off the bench.

For pitchers, I would definitely tab two interesting left-handers for bullpen auditions in Justin Hampson and Rob Carson. I would also take a couple of starting/bullpen options in Jenrry Mejia, and Collin McHugh.

McHugh has to be added to the 40-man this year to avoid losing him anyway, so he might as well get his chance to break in during the month of September.

The only other pitcher I could imagine we might see before the year is out is 39-year-old, former big-leaguer, left-hander C.J. Nitkowski.

The last time C.J. pitched in the bigs was in 2005. Since then, he has pitched all over the world during which time he has learned to throw exclusively side-arm.

I met him in New Britain, CT two weeks ago when he was pitching with the B-Mets. We talked for quite a while and during a lull in the conversation I said, “so, C.J., what’s the game plan?”

He knew just what I meant and answered immediately. He said he didn’t want to have any regrets someday. So he was going to try to fire it up one more time and see what happens.

He is getting much closer because he’s already made a few appearances for the Bisons. And you know what? The guy is throwing the ball well, keeping the ball down, and getting outs.

So he might actually get the call sooner rather than later.

One player who Pete dismissed was outfielder Fred Lewis, who he says there is no need for as long as we have Mike Baxter already on the active roster.

So far, everything seems to be pointing to these players in light of some recent reporting by Adam Rubin and Andy Martino in the last 48 hours.

Check out Pete’s exclusive Mets Minors Beat Reports every Monday and Friday. Stay on top of everything you need to know about the Mets minor league system right here at MMO.  We’ve been covering the Mets minors everyday since 2005.