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2013
Sickels’ Features Five Mets In Top 150 Prospects
An article by Craig Lerner
Here is a list of Top 150 Prospects for 2013 by Minor League Ball’s John Sickels.
Sickels explains that the rankings presents a balance between long-term upside and present ability, and that he tends to favor players who are closer to the majors than those who are far away.
“My background is sabermetric, but my approach is to blend sabermetrics and traditional scouting,” he writes. “I may lean one way or another on a particular player. There is also some room for instincts and gut feelings.”
The lower in the list you go, the more fluid it becomes, and the ETAs are a best-guess on when a player should first see significant major league action as opposed to just a brief cup-of-coffee.
1. Jurickson Profar, SS, Texas Rangers, ETA 2013
2. Oscar Taveras , OF, St. Louis Cardinals, ETA 2013
3. Dylan Bundy, RHP, Baltimore Orioles, 2013
4. Xander Bogaerts , SS, Boston Red Sox, 2014
5. Gerrit Cole, RHP, Pittsburgh Pirates, 2013
6. Shelby Miller, RHP, St. Louis Cardinals, 2013
7. Wil Myers, OF, Tampa Bay Rays, 2013
8. Jose Fernandez, RHP, Miami Marlins, 2014
9. Mike Zunino, C, Seattle Mariners, 2014
10. Miguel Sano, 3B, Minnesota Twins, 2015
11. Trevor Bauer, RHP, Cleveland Indians, 2013
12. Christian Yelich, OF, Miami Marlins, 2014
13. Travis D’Arnaud, C, New York Mets, 2013
14. Billy Hamilton, OF, Cincinnati Reds, 2014
15. Zack Wheeler, RHP, New York Mets, 2013
22. Noah Syndergaard, RHP, New York Mets, 2015
86. Michael Fulmer, RHP New York Mets, 2015
118. Wilmer Flores, INF, New York Mets, 2014
Read the complete list here.
About the Author: Craig Lerner
I'm a data analyst and researcher for a leading news agency who loves life and is hooked on the Mets. I love following the Amateur Draft and have a particular fondness for the Mets Minor Leagues who I follow each day. Give me a cold beer, a summer day, and a Mets game, and I'm good to go.
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assuming his D is good enough, I think Flores is going to really blow these rankings out of the water this season. he looks tantilizingly close, and IMO this will be the year it all comes together in the thin Vegas air!
if he had a solid defensive home most likely he would be ranked a lot higher already. But for the mets, better hope the 2B training works out, because there is not other place for him, and I would hate to seem him sold off cheap because they did not have a spot for him.
The issue with Flores is that he’s ridiculously slow. Plus his natural position of 3B is blocked by David Wright, his speed in the outfield would be a hinderance, and he doesn’t have the foot speed to play 2B. His bat is tremendous but it’s his speed that is the big knock on him.
Well, they either give him the keys to 2B in AAA and see if he can hack it and if not, slot him back to 3B and be primed to include him in a package that nets an actual OF prospect. Cubs, among many others, could use a competent 3B.
He will go through playing 2B and then OF before they move him back to 3rd and consider him only trade bait.
Could be. I can’t see him ever lumbering around in the OF. I can see him manning 1B if they traded Ike. I can see him maybe or hopefully holding down 2B as well as Murph. And I can totally see him packaged up for an OF.
Hell he can’t be a worse OF than Duda.
I think this is a testament to Sandy. He took what was once a weakness an made it a source of strength. There are also a lot of players that aren’t even on this list that have a bright future with this team. That includes, Brandon Nimmo, Jeurys Familia, Jenry Mejia, Raphael Montero, and hopefully Matt den Dekker as well. If all of these players turn out like they are projected to, then this team will contend for a championship for a LOOOOOONNNGGGG time I believe.
There could not be a more false statement that’s made here time after time. Again, the farm system was NOT WEAK when Alderson took over so there is no testament to him. His contributions to the farm are mainly getting rid of star players that were inherited for prospects.
The farm was in good shape before he arrived.
Any way to break down who has how many in the top 150? Meaning, the Mets have 5, but how many to the rest of the teams have. Based on simple math, i would think 150 spots / 30 teams gives you 5 per team, no?
The farm system wasn’t that bad when Alderson took over. A list of players sigend by Minaya(Mlb and Milb): Harvey, Niese, Gee, Parnell, Edgin, Mejia, Familia, Tejeda, Murphy, Davis, Flores, Tapia, Vaughn, den Dekker. Not to mention Thole & Dickey who Minaya signed that Alderson flipped for d’Arnaud & Syndergaard. Minaya’s positive influence will be felt for a while yet. Not that he didn’t make mistakes (Bay, Castillo, Rodriguez), but the farm was far from barren when he left.
^This! This! This!
The farm system was ranked anywhere from 20th-25th when Alderson took over. That is terrible.
As for the players you mentioned, how many are all stars. Dont forget, most think the Mets are destined for an abysmal season. The OF that everyone likes to bash means that there are no OFs worthy from the Omar era. Plus, catching was a problem until this season.
Omar had 6 years worth of drafts plus the same for international signings. That is a lot of players and, the system, being what it is, means that much of it is a crapshoot. But, overall, Omar didnt produce a high powered farm system. Now the case can be made he was following orders from ownership which could be completely true. We do know that money wasnt allocated to the draft (and probably not to the IFA pool) like it should have been. Wilpon has a track record of only concerning himself with the next season so I believe Omar was directed how to proceed. Nevertheless, to make like the farm was worth much when Alderson walked in is a misstatement.
Farm system rankings that are already a few years old aren’t going to be very accurate. Projecting how minor league players will fare in the big leagues is extremely difficult, so often times, these ranking are going to be wrong. Just think about how many top rated prospects busted, and how many non- top prospects have succeeded.
That’s not to say not to use these rankings, but the point is that they aren’t hard cold facts.
Also, players like Ike Davis, Jon Niese, and Murphy weren’t in the Mets farm system when Alderson took over. So the Mets farm system ranking doesn’t tell you the whole story.
Hey t agee (and you ARE HIM) the biggest flat out lie that is repeated constantly on this web site is that the farm system was weak or terrible when Alderson took over.
It’s simply not true
It’s simply false
It’s simply WRONG to keep saying it when time and time and time and time again the evidence shows that the farm system was not bad when he took over
Knock it off! you damn well know the farm was not bad. But coming from t agee who thinks every team should have a complete roster of all all stars under 30 with a slew of all star prospects all ready to move up at every single damned level of the Mets farm system!
That will never happen.
That’s the point I have made with others. They bash the current team, the current OF and say Sandy has surrounded Ike with crap while also praising the players Omar brought in. Which is it?
That’s because the draft picks/IFA’s Omar brought in aren’t good enough to carry a team by themselves. Other than Wright (and Santana, if healthy), most of the key players on the team came from the 2005-2010 drafts/ IFA’s.
However, that does not mean the drafts were terrible. For example, if almost all the Tigers key players were drafted/signed from 2005-2010, they would likely be projected to be a poor team as well. Without Verlander, Caberera, Fielder, Jackson, and Scherzer, it would be unlikely that they would have any success either.
The Mets problem is that they have not surrounded their young talent with quality players.
That’s not the point I am making. I agree that eventually we have to step outside these guys and hit FA. My point is that you can’t call the Mets OF crap and then champion the players in it as good players developed by Omar.
The point is that these players aren’t good enough to carry a team by themselves, but these players compared to other teams drafts/Ifa’s during this time aren’t that bad.
That’s it. The OF isn’t very good, but most of teams’s OF wouldn’t be very good either if they just relied solely on the backs of the players drafted/signed from 05-10.
I agree that the OF isn’t that good and they need to bring in new players. The point I am trying to make is that you can’t say that the OF is full of crappy players and then champion the players that were developed. Well I guess you can because we see it all the time.
like I keep saying, the main reason reason why the OF is bad is because we have not added any OFers from outside the organization.
If the Blue Jays, Rangers, and Dodgers for example just relied on the players they developed from 05-10 to be in their starting OF, they would likely have a awful OF as well.
The Jays OF would be poor without Bautista, Rasmus, and Melky.
The Dodgers OF would be poor without Kemp, Either, and Crawford.
The Rangers OF would be week without Hamilton, Cruz, and Murphy.
One of the main reasons why the Mets OF is poor is because they are only counting on players that were drafted from 05-10 and players they picked up off the scrap heap.
And because those players that are in the OF aren’t that great?
Right, that was the original point that 86 Met made. He said it “wasn’t that bad”, so I’m glad you agree.
Huh? I think I said the opposite that the players in the OF aren’t that great and that’s the number one reason that the OF stinks?
Followed by they didn’t add enough players
Followed by Omar did a poor job in drafting and developing OF?
I agree that the OF prospects aren’t that great and the Mets didn’t add enough players. That’s the reasons why the OF isn’t good.
But the point your missing is that nobody has ever said the OF prospects are great. And, the OF is just one part of the team. You can’t have homegrown studs at every position. How about we also talk about the infield where we have Ike, or the pitching staff where we have Harvey and Niese?
What about the IF and pitching? I never said Omar was all bad. That was never my point. In fact when he was here I said the minors were most likely not as bad as they were rated. My issue is with saying that the OF is crap and Sandy has surrounded Ike with crap and then coming back and saying those players aren’t so bad…
lol, I forgot Hamilton is no longer in Texas. But the point still stands because their OF is now a lot weaker without him, and there OF would have been a lot of weaker if they never had him, obviously.
And it’s not just the Tigers. The same thing could be said about every team except for the Braves and Nationals.
It’s both — for them! As I’ve been saying for awhile, some want it both ways. If the team tanks this season it will be all Sandy’s fault, but if the team does well it will be because of Omar’s peeps! lol
Omar left Sandy with a mediocre at best farm system. And the roster was junked up with many big underperforming contracts and/or contracts with awful vesting options and buyouts. The financial crunch due to Madoff made things even worse. And then there were the poor Citi Field dimensions that Sandy had to address almost immediately as well. Bottom line — Sandy took over a big mess.
Getting out from all that and building up the farm system to more respectable levels took time, but it may all be ready to pay off starting very soon. Even if it doesn’t, it certainly was worth it trying things this way as the route Omar took didn’t pay off and was too short-sighted and costly.
And in two months or more will be 25th ranked again because all the guys who ranked us that high will all be promoted out of the Minors….
MAYBE if your lucky the addition of Snydergaard will only drop our ranking to 22nd then….
Yeah he did a real NUMBER on improving that Ranking didn’t he?
I’m surprised Montero didn’t slip in to the top 150 for Sickels. Also, Nimmo obviously dropped out big, he was 96 on the list last year, and Familia dropped out as well he was right there.
And I don’t think Sickels is much impressed with the younger Cecchini so far, so no surprise that he didn’t crack the list. The guy taken right before Cecchini last year, Addison Russell is ranked 30. And the when Nimmo was drafted the guy taken after him, Jose Fernandez has already cracked the top 10. Alderson has not done a very good job of drafting.
Could the reason Familia is not on this list be because he already made his ML debut?
Just wondering….
No, that’s not the restricting reason. Could be that he’s just not that good.
The issue with Nimmo is that he played in Brooklyn which is basically a hitter’s nightmare. Ike I think hit .170 there with 2 HR’s. So taking that into account, Nimmo should be fine. Now lets see how he does this season. If he does even worse then perhaps it’s time to reconsider him. But if he does improve look for him to grab some attention.
Ike actually had 0 HRs that season.
I shudder to think of the reception to that if he had been drafted in the last 2 years and had that debut.
That’s a great point. IF the Mets drafted Ike last year and he put up those numbers he would be considered the biggest flop of all time and we would never hear the end of it.
A lot of fans usually write of young players that don’t put up desirable numbers. It’s not something that started only because of Alderson. It’s been going on forever. A few examples:
Many people last year were calling Flores a bust.
In 2010, many people were saying Tejada could never be a starter.
Prior to spring training this year, many people were also saying V-Spin could never be a starter.
Not many fans considered Faimilia a valuable prospect after his poor statistical season in 2010.
None of those players were acquired by Alderson, yet fans quickly wrote them off.
Fans are just very fickle. Think about how last spring training Duda was the toast of the town, and now he’s a worthless bum who should be cut. This is just how fans are; it has nothing to do with the GM. The reaction fans have towards Nimmo and Cecchini are ordinary.
Off Topic: Viola in a nice interview praises Harvey saying he reminds him of Clemens as far as how he conducts himself on the mound.
http://www.nypost.com/p/sports/mets/roger_that_NLyLhEdp8VluvDG5CE6oBP
Oh god! Hide all the broken bats then!
Players like Niese, Ike Davis, Murphy or Parnell weren’t in the farm system anymore when Alderson took over but were already – more or less established- major leaguers.
Overall, the system left behind by Minaya & Co. certainly wasn’t as barren as some ” experts ” claimed to be. It was sort of ” middle of the roadish” featuring pretty solid depth but lacking high upside Top 50ish overall caliber type prospects. Almost every player on the projected 2013 opening day roster that is age 27 or younger figures to come from what Minaya left behind – except for Hefner and Cowgill. The first “Alderson” wave, i.e. Wheeler & d’ Arnaud and later Mazzoni, Leathersich or Montero for example will start arriving from mid 2013 on. Hopefully, combined with the solid pieces Omar left behind, especially Harvey, Niese and Ike, it’ll give the Mets a good, mostly young nucleus going forward….