22
2012
Will Reese Havens Ever Put It Together For The Mets?
An article by 
In 2008, the Mets had one of their better drafts in recent years. That year they selected five players who have since made their major league debuts. With the 18th overall pick, the Mets took Ike Davis, who rewarded them with a 32 HR, 90 RBI campaign in 2012. They also selected Kirk Nieuwenhuis (3rd round), Josh Satin (6th round), Collin McHugh (18th round) and Chris Schwinden (22nd round).
Nieuwenhuis and McHugh contributed to the team this year and are expected to continue to be a part of the team’s future, while Satin and Schwinden may be able to fill in for injured players in 2013. There was another player who was drafted by the Mets in that year’s draft who was expected to be a regular on the major league team by now. Instead, he’s become a regular on the disabled list and has not advanced past AA-Binghamton. That player is Reese Havens.
Will Reese Havens ever wear this uniform at Citi Field?
David Reese Havens was selected by the Mets in the first round of the 2008 draft, four picks after the team yanked Ike Davis from the amateur pot. After a stellar final year at the University of South Carolina (.359, 76 runs, 18 HR, 57 RBI in 63 games), Havens was projected to be a power-hitting middle infielder. But once the Mets drafted Havens, the injuries soon followed.
Havens missed nearly two months of his first professional baseball season with injuries to his elbow and groin. As a result, he only played in 23 games for the Brooklyn Cyclones in 2008. The following season, Havens collected 430 plate appearance for the St. Lucie Mets, showing some of his power potential with 19 doubles and 14 homers. Although he hit .247, he showed great plate discipline with a .361 on-base percentage and only 73 strikeouts. But over the next two seasons, the injury bug came back to haunt Havens and stunted his development.
In 2010, Havens played in only 32 games for St. Lucie and AA-Binghamton, followed by a 61-game effort for the same two teams in 2011. When Havens was healthy, he played well, combining to hit .297 with 21 doubles, 15 HR and 47 RBI in those 93 games. But Havens was rarely healthy, losing time with oblique and back problems.
The 2012 season began with Havens once again on the disabled list with back problems, but he returned to Binghamton in April and played 94 games for the B-Mets. Despite playing most of the season, he had a poor year at the plate, batting .215 and struck out an alarming 113 times in 325 at-bats.
Reese Havens has been in the Mets’ minor league system for five seasons now, but has only appeared in 307 games. His .253 batting average in the minors has not been impressive, but he has shown outstanding extra-base hit potential (60 doubles, six triples, 42 HR) in what amounts to two major league seasons’ worth of games. He also draws a lot of walks, as evidenced by his .358 career on-base percentage. But all of this has been accomplished with Havens not having played a single game above the Double-A level.
This past Saturday was Reese Havens’ 26th birthday. He will probably play at AAA-Las Vegas in 2013, reaching the top rung of the minor league level for the first time in his sixth professional baseball season. He is no longer considered a top minor league prospect. But he is still on the Mets’ radar, especially since the team has still not fully committed to Daniel Murphy as their second baseman of the future.
It’s quite possible that last year’s poor performance at AA-Binghamton could have been because Havens was concealing an injury. After all, the former first round draft pick was already 25 and wanted to prove to the organization that he could stay on the field for an entire season. But what if Havens stays healthy in 2013 and continues to hit under .250 while striking out every three at-bats?
The Mets have already given Ike Davis, Kirk Nieuwenhuis, Josh Satin, Collin McHugh and Chris Schwinden a shot at the majors. They’ve also given Reese Havens every opportunity to become the sixth player from the draft class of 2008 to advance to the big show. It’s up to Havens to stay on the field and produce on it if he wants to show the team that they were right in drafting him alongside a handful of other future major leaguers. 2013 may be his final chance to do so.
About the Author: Ed Leyro
Ed Leyro was hatched in the Bronx, but spent most of his youth in Queens at Shea Stadium. Apparently, all that time spent at Mets games paid off as Ed met his wife (The Coop) for the first time at Citi Field during its inaugural season. Guess the 2009 season was good for something after all. In addition to his work at Mets Merized Online, Ed also owns, operates and is head janitor at Studious Metsimus, where he shares blogging duties with Joey Beartran. For those not in the know, Joey is a teddy bear dressed in a Mets hoodie. Clearly, Studious Metsimus is not your typical Mets blog.
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NL East Standings
| Team | W | L | Pct. | GB |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Braves | 42 | 28 | .600 | - |
| Nationals | 34 | 35 | .493 | 7.5 |
| Phillies | 34 | 37 | .479 | 8.5 |
| Mets | 25 | 40 | .385 | 14.5 |
| Marlins | 22 | 47 | .319 | 19.5 |
Last updated: 06/18/2013
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Why do I have this feeling that if the Mets protect Havens from the Rule 5 Draft that he will have another disappointing injury-filled season, but if they don’t, some team will draft him and he’ll be a solid contributor in the big leagues next year with a bright future as a regular ?
Because Murphy’s Law seems to work overtime on the Mets.
I suspect that when a player misses key developmental time, something essential gets lost. It’s almost counter-intuitive — you’d figure he just catches up. But something else that I can’t pinpoint gets shaken. Confidence? I don’t know. But that said, I still have some crazy hope for Reese Havens. He has plate discipline and he has pop and he’s a real second baseman. I think if things break right (ugh, maybe the wrong turn of phrase), he could come quickly. Not ready to write him off.
I don’t see how they can leave him unprotected but who knows what the numbers crunch will eventually come down to.
They should package him and trade him for something worth protecting.
I agree with you, but wait until he gets to Vegas and hopefully, he’ll build value seeing that it’s a HR haven there.
Sad but all the talent in the world is not worth much if one cannot get on the field. Havens is one we heard about for 4 or 5 years. Now, he is moving towards his late 20s without an appearance in NYC. Naturally, if he could get it together, he would provide the Mets with 4 or 5 good years. But that is a big IF.
I leave him unprotected if the roster spot is needed. 5 years is long enough to wait for a guy. If he gets chosen by someone else and is successful, so be it. The Mets gave Havens ample opportunity.
Sad to say but he’s the american version of fernando martinez… Hopefully this kid somehow stays healthy and we can see him play for us, but i really doubt it..
I think he still has a chance to be one of the late bloomers that has a productive though short career, but at this point, I would be really surprised if it was here. More likely he bounces around a few organizations, then has one of those WTH did he come from? years at age 30.
that rib issue really seemed to take him down. Horrible timing too, since in 2010 he was red hot in Bingo but had the initial rib/oblique problem just before Castillo went down. I really think if he had not gotten hurt right them, he would have been playing 2B for the rest of 2010 for the Mets.
I’m not ready to give up on him and mostly because when Havens and Davis were drafted, most scouts said Havens would be the one with more homerun power. I say give him one more year. We have nothing to lose and I do believe he’d be scooped up if left unprotected. Nice post, Ed.
Wow, you really have that much faith in him huh joe?? I hope you’re right and he becomes the guy we’d all hope he’d be for us…
I’ agree, I’m not ready to give up on him either, I think the Mets should give him one more chance.
btw, where’s the shoutbox????
Well the way I’m looking at it at best we are losing a guy who is going to have a hard time getting past Murphy especially when you have Valdespin, Flores and the myriad of other middle IFs down on the farm.
Sure he could be a good player if he gets the time and breaks into the lineup but that is a longshot with us.
Better to trade him for some other kid who will have little issue breaking into the lineup in a position like OF.
It’s less of a case of letting something good go and more of a case of if he really has that promise then he is worth enough in trade to get the same promise only at a position where you can actually get it on the field.
And while some may say trade Murphy to make room really your only trading a KNOWN in the hopes of an UNKNOWN actually meeting his promise which may never happen.
Agreed.
The question is are the Mets in a bad position with their 40 man roster. They have a number of FA who will be off by the winter meetings. Judging by the holes that they are looking to fill, most of those positions on the roster dont get signed until Mid January or later. Guys like Cedeno, Acosta, and Torres all will be floating around towards Spring Training. Also, I dont recall the list, but I think the Mets only need to protect 5 or so who arent presently on the 40 man. Thus, a guy like Havens shouldnt be that hard to protect.
Taskmaster, well, in all fairness i think some of the guy who were occupying the roster spots will be gone and no longer wll be on the 40 man roster, given our FO and their small market mentality, i doubt we’d add good players to it and more likely we’d have a 40 roster of same mets we saw last year.. Guys like wheeler maybe havens, and others who might be able to be on the Rule V could be added..
I hope they find somebody who likes this kid enough to trade for him. I’m in the camp of “Havens will never be healthy enough”
He just turned 26 years old and still has 0 MLB AB’s.
It may not be enough all on his own to trade for but we have other kids who also would not garner attention all by themselves that we could package to get something we do like and need.
The values of a player is additive!
Everyday here people seem to suggest that two mediocre players are worth one David Wright!
Well if that’s true then it should work both ways and two of our mediocre kids are worth one good or decent kid as well!
Agreed – if somebody sent the Mets anything straight up for Havens, I’d have doubts about that GM.
It’s rare to see kids traded one for one unless there is trouble with both of them.
Those one for one deals are almost always about kids who are never going to be anything more than a role/bench player.
This is a very good time to make these trades where GMs are considering who they can protect and who they can’t. What might not warrant protecting for them might warrant protecting for us and the same thing goes the other way.
They need to start rejiggering those kids we can’t seem to use for kids we can get onto the MLB roster.
Dang, I had high hopes for Havens reaching the ML and taking over 2nd base for us, at least in the short term.
Time is running out for him though. All those injuries really set him back.
I had to do a quick double take when I saw the first pic. I thought it was Pelfrey holding a bat. I don’t know about this guy Havens but as somebody already mentioned he on the same path as F-Mart.
If the mets trade David Wright, he can be an option at 2B
SideNote:
If the Mets pay David Wright what some of his STANS want him to get paid…his contract will essentially be as unmovable as A-Rod’s…
just sayin
The mets would be best served by telling the public the truth..
they are forced to pay back all that deferred money from glavine, Saberhagen, Pedro, Bobby Bo, Beltran, etc w/o the guarenteed 12-18% they were getting back from Bernie…
this is the money thats really counted against the payroll but they never release to the public
I havent seen that the Mets owe anyone deferred money other than Bonilla who is getting $1M a year for 25 years and Santana has $5M of this years money deferred to 2018.
I would like to see your source on that.
I think I would get sick if Reese turned into someone else’s Dan Uggla.
Really hope it works out for this kid, right here in NYC. He has that potential to make a team giving up on him look really bad. I say keep him on the 40 and give him 1 more year. Similiar to what happened to Ike with last years’ injury and then 2 months of rust, maybe last season’s performance after the injury was rust.