Mets Merized Online

A couple of key prospects rankings were released this week and the Mets are prominently featured in both.

First, here is the 2010 Top 100 Prospects from Project Prospect, which features five Mets.

10 Fernando Martinez  – LF/RF Plus power/good contact skills may allow him to ascend to stardom. some day.

48 Jon Niese – LHP Commands a sinking FB; CB and SL both get swing-throughs; Likely no. 3 starter.

57 Ike Davis – 1B Strong pro debut; contact is a concern; potential to hit 35+ bombs a season.

92 Reese Havens – 2B/SS Began shift to 2B at AFL; patient fly-ball hitter with make outs but solid power.

100 Jenrry Mejia – RHP Filthy 94-98 FB w/ hard, cutting action; CH has excellent movement; may be a RP.

Finally, the one prospect list that everyone anxiously awaits for each February, Baseball America. The leading authority on baseballs best prospects doesn’t rank the Mets as highly as Project Prospect, but they did manage to squeeze four of them in although none were in the Top 50.

56 Jenrry Mejia RHP – ETA 2012

62 Ike Davis 1B – ETA 2011

77 Fernando Martinez OF – ETA 2011

88 Wilmer Flores SS – ETA 2013

In December, BA had Flores ranked second in the Mets Top 10. Two months later and he has been passed up by F-Mart and Ike Davis. There seems to be a widening gap between those who see Mejia as a reliever in the Major Leagues or a top of the rotation starter.

In 2009, the Mets farm system seemed to get a bad rap from sites like ESPN, FOX Sports and SI.com. It’s been a little different this winter and there seems to be a shift in opinion as the stocks of Josh Thole, Ike Davis and Jenrry Mejia continue to rise.

Kevin Goldstein revealed his Top 11 Mets Prospects on Thursday for Baseball Prospectus. Like some of the prospects lists we’ve seen already, the top pick is once again Jenrry Mejia. Here is what Kevin had to say about the 20-year old uber-prospect.

“It’s rare to find a fastball with plus-plus velocity and movement, but Mejia has just that… he needs to find a consistent breaking ball.  He gets around on his slider too often, leading it to sweep across the plate on a single plane. His pitches have so much movement that at times he has trouble controlling them in the strike zone.”

Maybe it’s just the many years of disappointment and the never-ending parade of failed Mets pitching phenoms, but I’m finding it hard to fully embrace all the buzz and hype surrounding Mejia just yet. Especially after he was lit up like a Jack-O-Lantern on Halloween in the Arizona Fall League. What I’ve learned in my evolution as a Mets fan is that just because you have great stuff, it doesn’t mean you’ll be a great pitcher.

Jeesh… It’s been over 25 years since Dwight Gooden met all those expectations, won the Rookie of the Year, and followed it up with a Cy Young award. We haven’t had a Met win either award ever since, so pardon if I’m a little pessimistic when it comes to Mets phenoms.

Here is Goldstein’s full list:

5 STARS
1. Jenrry Mejia – His heater sits at 93-95 mph, touches 98, and features heavy, hard sink.

4 STARS
2. Fernando Martinez – Has star-level offensive potential. A good outfielder with above-average arm.
3. Wilmer Flores – Flores has big offensive potential. His bat speed ranks with anyone in the system.
4. Ike Davis – Has classic 1B tools, with a good feel of strike zone and plus to plus-plus raw power.

3 STARS
5. Jon Niese – The most advanced pitching prospect in the system.
6. Brad Holt – He fills the strike zone with a 91-94 heater that touches 96 mph when he reaches back.
7. Kirk Nieuwenhuis – Nieuwenhuis is a big athlete with solid tools across the board.
8. Josh Thole – Thole is a pure contact hitter who slaps balls to all fields, is difficult to strike out.
9. Kyle Allen – He’s long and projectable, and he flashed a solid slider and changeup last year.
10. Ruben Tejada – Tejada could be a second-division starting infielder or a nice utility player.
11. Reese Havens – He could be a low-average 2B who makes up for it with walks and power.

Jeurys Familia, Cesar Puello, Jefry Marte and Juan Urbina rounded out the Top 15.

Mets.com has reported that one of the most beloved Mets in history is back with the organization in a full-time capacity.

The Mets announced Monday that Mookie Wilson has accepted a position as the organization’s Minor League outfield and baserunning coordinator. Wilson was last with the club as manager of Class A Brooklyn in 2005.

“It’s good to be back,” Wilson said in a statement. ”This is where I started, and I’m anxious to do whatever I can for the young kids in our system.”

The Mets also announced agreements with Bob Melvin, Guy Conti and Bob Fultz.

Wilson, 53, is best known for hitting the ball that rolled through Bill Buckner’s legs in Game 6 of the 1986 World Series. Earlier in that at-bat, he avoided being hit by a wild pitch that allowed the tying run to score.

Over 12 seasons with the Mets and Blue Jays, Wilson hit .284 with 327 stolen bases.

The Mets on Monday also officially announced Melvin’s appointment as a professional scout, an agreement first reported in December. Melvin, manager of the D-backs for four and a half seasons at the end of last decade, was named the NL Manager of the Year in 2007.

Conti, the Mets’ bullpen coach through the 2008 season, was named the club’s senior adviser in the Minor League department. Fultz, the longtime Braves strength and conditioning coach, was named the Mets’ rehabilitation pitching coordinator.

ESPN’s Enrique Rojas reported via Twitter that Mets prospect Fernando Martinez was named the MVP of the Caribbean Series last night.

Martinez went 2-4 with a walk and an RBI to lead the Dominican Republic to a 7-4 victory over Venezuela. Overall, Martinez had a great series, batting .348 (8-for-23) with a double and two home runs.

It looks like F-Mart is in prime mid-season form, and it would be great to see him carry this over and have a great spring training. While Angel Pagan and Gary Matthews Jr. are virtual locks to make the team, there is one spot left open at least until Carlos Beltran returns from injury, and the kid could force the Mets hands with a solid spring.

As I wrote here a couple of weeks ago, I still believe we have a future All Star with tremendous power potential in F-Mart. If he could just stay healthy and string together a few hundred at-bats in AAA, we may see him sooner than you think, and I predict that his second cup of coffee in the Majors will be much better than the first.

Keith Law, of ESPN.com, has released his annual Top 100 Prospects. The following are his scouting reports for the four Mets prospects who cracked his list.

Jenrry Mejia #23 - Mejia entered 2009 with no experience above short-season leagues, but finished it in Double-A despite missing time in the middle of the year with a strained finger on his pitching hand. He has top-of-the-rotation stuff, but is just 20 with the command you’d expect to see in a live-armed teenager with barely 200 innings in pro ball. His fastball sits at 93-96 and will tick higher, and the ball sometimes shows natural cutting action toward left-handed hitters. His changeup is his best off-speed pitch and, at 85-87 mph with good tail, looks like a soft two-seamer. His curveball is very inconsistent, but at its best, it’s plus with good two-plane break and depth in the upper 70s. He’s thick but not tall, and his slot is just below 3/4 — so he has to work on staying on top of the ball, and the finger injury reduced his already below-average command. That said, he’s 20 and has shown he can get advanced hitters in Double-A out. If the Mets slow him down a little and let him spend all of 2010 (and maybe some of 2011) in the minors to improve his command and the consistency of his changeup and curve, they have a chance for a No. 1 or No. 2 starter.

Wilmer Flores #41 - Flores, as predicted, broke with a full-season club in 2009 and held his own despite playing most of the year at 17. He has very quick wrists and is short to the ball with good finish. The ball flies off his bat, especially in BP, in which he shows the promise of future plus power, and in games he has already shown that he can square balls up against pitchers two or three years his senior. In fact, of players with at least 400 at-bats in the Sally League in 2009, only one hitter had fewer strikeouts than Flores did. His main deficiency as a player is very slow feet, even though he’s not thickly built, and he has no shot to stay at shortstop and little shot of handling third base, which means he’ll end up at first base or in an outfield corner, although there’s an excellent chance his bat plays in any of those positions.

Ike Davis #64 - Davis’ mediocre debut in 2008 turned out to be a red herring, as he finished his first full season in 2009 in Double-A and isn’t far from reaching the majors. He has raw power, especially dead pull power, and showed that he can murder a fastball and lay off a lot of pitches out of the zone against right-handed pitchers. On the downside, Davis doesn’t hit left-handed pitching at all, and even against right-handers struggles to recognize off-speed stuff. He’s a reasonably good athlete who can handle first base and actually has a plus arm — he was 92-94 mph as a reliever in college — although that’s less relevant at the position. A full year in Double-A/Triple-A to work on pitch recognition and on improving his approach against left-handers is probably critical for his future as an everyday player, but he has a chance to be an above-average one if he can shed the “platoon player” tag with more reps.

Fernando Martinez #73 - Martinez has one of the biggest drops of anyone on this list (from last year’s list), but I’m not down on Martinez’s offensive potential — the ball still comes off his bat incredibly well, comparable to Starlin Castro, who sits in the Top 25 of this list because of that skill — and I could have left Martinez in the Top 25 and justified it. The problems with “F-Mart,” aside from the fact that Mets fans decided to give him a nickname more appropriate for a farm-equipment discount store, aren’t about baseball skills. He continues to have trouble staying healthy, and there’s a real risk of Chris Snelling disease here, with lack of playing time limiting his development; he’s never had more than 400 plate appearances in any season, and even including winter ball this offseason, when he was just back from knee surgery, he had fewer than 300 PAs in ‘09. Martinez has also had his work ethic and conditioning called into question, including a visible lack of effort more than once at the big league level last year. Very few players can coast to major league stardom on talent alone, and Martinez needs to grow up — he’s still just 21 years old — to turn himself into an elite corner-outfield bat. (It looks like Martinez has exactly 45 days on the Mets’ active roster, which would make him eligible for the Rookie of the Year award in 2010, as well as for this list. If he had just one more day on the active roster, he’d no longer be eligible.)

Law also lists his version of the top ten prospects in the Mets organization, which he ranked #15 overall last week.

1.Jenrry Mejia
2.Wilmer Flores
3.Ike Davis
4.Fernando Martinez
5.Brad Holt
6.Jon Niese
7.Josh Thole
8.Reese Havens
9.Jefry Marte
10.Juan Urbina

Unlike the recently released MLB Top 50 Prospects which featured no Mets prospects, Law has both Mejia and Flores among in his first fifty picks. I’m a bit surprised though, that both Jeurys Familia and Ruben Tejada were left off his organizational top ten.

Check out the Mets Top 10 Prospects as compiled by Marc Hulet of FanGraphs, who did an excellent job of providing a detailed analysis on each player complete with statistical data as well.

Fernando Martinez tops his list and he writes the following about him,

Although some have already, it is far too early to give up on Martinez. Just 21 years old, the Dominican outfielder just needs to have a healthy season. When he did get on the field in ‘09, he hit .290/.337/.540 with an ISO of .250 as a 20 year old in triple-A. That is pretty darn impressive. He reached his ‘08 total in home runs in about half the at-bats. Martinez actually had a career-high OPS of .877 in ‘09. He also kept his strikeout rate below 20% at 18.8%, but it would be nice to see more patience at the plate (5.9% walk rate). At the MLB level, he was over-matched and hit just .176/.242/.275 in 95 at-bats. With a career line against southpaws of .237/.308/.392, he has some work to do against lefties. Despite that, he still has a chance to be a very good player.

I’ve soured on F-Mart a little this past season, but mostly because of my frustration with his constant trips to the disabled list. Hulet is right of course, and we should all be more patient with someone so young and so gifted. Maybe everything will break right for Martinez in 2010, and we can finally see his tremendous talent applied over a full season.

Check out FanGraphs for more analysis on the rest of the top ten that includes 1B Ike Davis, RHP Jenrry Mejia, SS Wilmer Flores, LHP Jonathan Niese, RHP Brad Holt, IF Ruben Tejada, C Josh Thole, OF Kirk Nieuwenhuis and RHP Jeurys Familia in that order.

Baseball America has just released its Top 10 Mets Prospects list and right-handed pitcher Jenrry Mejia has claimed the top spot.

1. Jenrry Mejia, RHP (ETA 2012)
2. Wilmer Flores, SS (ETA 2013)
3. Fernando Martinez, OF (ETA 2011)
4. Ike Davis, 1B (ETA 2011)
5. Brad Holt, RHP (ETA 2012)
6. Jon Niese, LHP (ETA 2010)
7. Reese Havens, 2B/SS (ETA 2012)
8. Josh Thole, C (ETA 2011)
9. Ruben Tejada, 2B/SS (ETA 2011)
10. Juan Urbina, LHP (ETA 2013)

I’m a little surprised that CF Kirk Nieuwenhuis and SP Jeurys Familia didn’t make the grade. I’m also concerned that our top prospect is getting hammered in the Arizona Fall League. There has even been talk that Mejia might even be better suited in relief than as a starter. Mejia has a 12.91 ERA and in 7.2 innings pitched he has allowed 14 hits, 9 walks and 11 earned runs. While many scouts have loved his stuff, the knock on him is that he’s more of a thrower than a pitcher.

Thanks to Adam Rubin for providing the information on his blog Surfing the Mets.

Mets first base prospect Ike Davis kicked off the AFL season in grand fashion as Surprise Rafters routed Peo Javelinas Peo Javelinas 17-4.

Davis impressed a host of Mets brass that were all on hand to watch the Arizona native go 4-6 at the plate including two doubles and a mammoth grand slam homerun. Davis has six RBI’s in the game.

According to Adam Rubin, among the Mets in attendance were GM Omar Minaya, assistant GM John Ricco, top deputies Sandy Johnson and Bryan Lambe, Adam Fisher and virtually every professional scout from the organization.

I would have to believe that they were all their to see what they had in Ike Davis as they decide whether they need a one-year stop gap at first base or something more. As I’ve said before, Daniel Murphy is trade fodder and not the solution the Mets are looking for at first base. The Mets may keep him in a role similar to the one Dave Magadan used to have with the team, but I continue to believe he will be included in some sort of trade this off season to help fill another area of concern on the team.

Getting back to Davis, the former first-round pick that came to the Mets as a compensation pick, via the Atlanta Braves when they signed Tom Glavine, has shown an explosive bat and could have overtaken Fernando Martinez as the Mets best hitting prospect.

“It was a blast,” Davis said of his AFL debut. “We have all these different teammates, different jerseys. It felt like kind of an All Star Game.”

Technically for Davis, it was the 24th homer of the season as he belted 20 homeruns between Single-A and Double-A, three more while playing for Team USA in the World Cup last month, and then of course the grand slam in his AFL debut.

Most of you who read this site know of my skepticism regarding many of the prospects the Mets have hyped in the last three years. I questioned all of the Eddie Kunz, Fernando Martinez and Wilmer Flores hype, and couldn’t understand why such mediocre numbers in the minors translated into top prospect status. Sure they have great tools and thus the enthusiasm, but why the lofty expectations?

Ike Davis on the other hand looks polished. He looks real. He looks legit.  

Other Mets who played included left fielder Lucas Duda who went 2-5 with a double, two RBI and a walk, and shortstop Ruben Tejada who also went 2-for-5 with a stolen base and an RBI double.

Mets top pitching prospect Jenrry Mejia is due to start today’s game, with Scott Moviel, Eric Niesen and Josh Stinson assigned to the bullpen.

One other note, shortstop Reese Havens, will be getting experience at second base during the Arizona Fall League.

The word around baseball is that Chris Carter, whom the Mets were allegedly going to receive as the player-to-be-named-later in the Billy Wagner trade has been designated for assignment. This is significant because if you can recall, Carter was previously placed on waivers over the summer with the intent of shipping him to the Mets.

However, the Yankees claimed him in an effort to cause roster management issues for the division-rival Red Sox. Being that this is the second time, the Red Sox only have two options.

They can either release him, which would make him a free agent or they can put him on waivers.

If the Red Sox took the first route then the Mets would have just as good of a chance of acquiring him as the other 28 MLB teams, potentially vying for his services.

If Sox were to take the latter route, which involves placing Carter on waivers. The Mets would have to wait for every team in the American League, as well as National League teams with a worse record then theirs to pass on a waiver claim.

Either way there is no guarantee that the Mets will be able to get him.

This seems to indicate one of two things to me. Either Carter was never actually involved in this trade or Omar Minaya made yet another roster management blunder. More details regarding the situation should be made available within the coming days.

To be honest, while I do not endorse making poor trades, the truth of the matter is that this trade was done solely to shed Wagner’s remaining salary.

No offense intended to Carter, but the career minor leaguer is not all that great of a player and probably wouldn’t have fit into the Mets’ 2010 plans anyways. However, it certainly wouldn’t have hurt such a depleted organization to have some depth at the Triple-A level.

Now that the Mets have accepted the fact that their 2009 season is all but over they are looking to rebuild their roster with hopes of returning to the post season. Over the past year we have seen them add names such as Pat Misch and Lance Broadway to help bring some youth to their beleaguered farm system.

Today the Mets continued this trend by picking up pitcher Jack Egbert off of waivers from the Chicago White Sox.

Egbert was a top pitcher for Rutgers University from 2002 to 2004 before being drafted in the 13th round by the White Sox. Egbert joins David DeJesus and Jason Bergmann as byproducts of Rutgers to make it to the big leagues.

Egbert’s career in affiliated baseball started rather promising. In 2006, he was solid with both the White Sox’s Class A and Class AA affiliates, posting a combined ERA of only 2.67 in 161.2 innings.

In 2007, he followed up with another solid season this time exclusively in Class AA. In 28 games started, he pitched to a 12-8 record and an ERA just a hair over 3 (3.06).

Upon being promoted to the Class AAA Charlotte Knights in 2008, Egbert could not find the same success he had in his previous two seasons in the lower levels of the farm system. His earned run average nearly doubled to 4.65 and he had a disappointing record of 4-12.

Not wanting to give up to quickly on their young pitcher, the White Sox opted to give Egbert a second season in Class AAA to work out the kinks. However, he soon found himself in the majors pitching out of the bullpen. Unfortunately for him he gave up eight earned runs in only two appearances before finding himself back in Charlotte.

He did not fare much better throughout the rest of the season and ended up with a 6-11 record and a ERA over 5.

The numbers suggest that Egbert’s chances of becoming a major league caliber pitcher are relatively low. However, it is important to recognize the fact that prior to the 2008 season, he was ranked the #3 prospect in the White Sox farm system.

The Mets have found themselves relying on players like Egbert to sure up their bullpen over the past few seasons. Guys like Pedro Feliciano and Brian Stokes were both acquired in low profile moves and now both players play a large part in the bullpen.

This is an intriguing pickup for the Mets, and it should be interesting to see how Egbert fares in Buffalo next season.