Rafael Montero Is Heading To AAA (Photo by MMO Contributor Gordon Donovan)

The Mets have promoted RHP Rafael Montero to Triple-A Las Vegas, according Adam Rubin of ESPN New York.

Lynn Worthy of Press and Sun Bulletin, later reported that this was likely just a spot-start situation, as the B-Mets expect to have Montero back in their rotation for the end of next week. He did note, in a later tweet however, that nothing is set in stone – and referenced Collin McHugh’s performance in AA in the past when he was only supposed to be up for one start.

Well, we’ve been calling for some movement in the field of Rafael Montero for a little while now as he has dominated in Binghamton for the most part. The Mets organization has responded to Montero’s excellent performance so far this year with a promotion to AAA, where he will join the Las Vegas rotation as he perhaps progresses to an MLB call-up later this year.

Montero was one of my favorite prospects to cover last year because he had such amazing command and what I described as a bulldog mentality on the mound. He is intimidating when he pitches with great stuff, mixing in a slider, change-up, and occasional curve in with his fastball that has exceptional late movement.

I am part of the camp that believes Montero should have had some work in AA and then skipped Las Vegas, but regardless, he will get some time to fine tune himself before making a major league appearance. He’s knocking on the door…

So far in 2013, Montero is 4-3 with a 3.47 ERA through 46.2 innings, where he has allowed 40 hits – and only two home runs. He has walked just six batters, in contrast to his 54 punchouts. Those Las Vegas fans are lucky – Zack Wheeler and Rafael Montero in the same rotation!

In last weekend’s edition of 3&3, I cautioned to watch out for a Dodger’s team that was struggling. That warning should have been extended to this weekend’s series with the Phillies as well. Against two teams that have been struggling, our Mets finished 1-5. Looks like our team is fast becoming a cure to another team’s slump.

3 UP

• Kyle’s Complete Game: We don’t like giving and “Ups” to the opposition, especially the Phillies, but let’s be fair, Kyle Kendrick pitched a heck of a game on Friday night (complete game, three hitter). Kendrick was so good, every Met at-bat looked as if the Mets had 10PM dinner reservations.
• Jon & Gee Deserved Better: Dillon Gee looked pretty good on Friday until he hit a bump in the road in the sixth inning. Aside from that he pitched well. That’s two consecutive good outings for Gee. On Sunday, Jon Niese also deserved a better fate, but sloppy play and a lack of offense did him in. That’s too bad, both Niese and Gee pitched good enough to win.
• We Lost Our Edge: Josh Edgin, who in my opinion needed to go, was sent to Binghamton. Mets’ brass say they wanted to keep him close, but I’m betting they wanted him to avoid the heavy hitting in the PCL. Terry Collins was quoted as saying he wants Edgin to be able to get here fast. Okay. I can’t think of a good reason the Mets would need a pitcher so quickly that they couldn’t wait for him to fly in from Vegas. Then again, it’s kind of messed up to have your AAA team on the other side of the country.

3 Down

• Diddley From Davis: Seems like a series doesn’t go by that we don’t mention the lack of productivity from Ike Davis. We gave him a break last year, what with the broken ankle, and the Rocky Mountain Fever, but come on, through the first month of the season Davis has done nothing. The Mets tell us 2014 err 2015 is supposed to be the year, but will, or should Davis still be here? The Mets may not be saying anything in public, but privately, they have to be worried. You can’t have your first baseman sleepwalking through April and May year after year.
• Busted Bullpen: In Metland they talk about how the Mets lead the league in runs scored. Then they say how bad the bullpen has been, which is why we are now three games under .500. Is it expecting too much for a guy to come into the game for one inning, or one batter, and be effective?! This bullpen is beyond a joke, and a complete disaster. It’s a reality horror show.
• Two Games, Six Hits: This weekend series featured two games in which the Mets mustered only three hits. In all fairness, the Phillies have some good pitching, but come on already. The Mets need to amp it up and stop relying on John Buck every night. Ike has been horrible, Murph’s bat has cooled off, Wright has just two home runs, and there has been terrible production from the outfield save Jordany Valdespin. The Mets need to produce every day, and everyone needs to start contributing.

The Mets now head south to visit fellow doormats, the Miami Marlins. Matt Harvey will pitch the opener tonight, but after that who know’s what to expect.

Zack Wheeler (Photographed by Michael G. Baron)

It all started to unravel in the fifth, however, when Wheeler allowed a lead-off home run to Carlos Triunfel. He was able to get to the next two outs, but then the real trouble began. He walked a batter, allowed a single, and walked Eric Thames to load the bases. Tacoma’s Alex Liddi drove home two with a ripped double off Wheeler, who turned it around and stuck out Mike Zunino (again) to end the inning. He went ahead to allow another lead-off home run in the sixth to Stefen Romero, and drilled the next batter on an 0-2 fastball…which to be honest, looked painful. He was lifted after that.

Wheeler still has some work to do in the minors but tonight was an interesting look at how most people feel about Wheeler – and I’ll explain why. He was pretty strong over the first four innings, which was an indicator of all the good things to like about him. A healthy amount of strikeouts, a dominant fastball and overall ace-like presence on the mound. However, the later part of the game showed his potential susceptibility to home runs, his control issues, and how quickly a game can unravel on him.

This is a sign of growth for Wheeler, and although a couple of bad innings derailed this start, he is moving towards becoming major league ready. I have to say, however, it really does look like a good decision by the front office to have kept him in AAA to begin the 2013 season.

Tommy K. asks…

When do you think we’ll see Rafael Montero in Citi Field?

Joe D. replies…

Good question. The organization is very high on Montero and not too many 22-year old pitching prospects from A-Ball get invited to spring training and stick around as long as he did.

Montero needs a little work mechanically and was already working on a few things at the minor league side of camp before he was assigned to Binghamton and debuted with a dominating performance. His fastball sat at the 92-93 mph range last season, but he picked up some velocity and is now predominantly at 93-94 and can hit 95. Most likely because he’s bulked up a bit over the winter.

I would expect Montero to get bumped to Vegas once the Mets decide to promote Zack Wheeler to the majors. However, Wheeler had a rough first start on Thursday. He continues to struggle with command and his pitch count (86 pitches, 51 strikes, 3 1/3 innings) was alarming to say the least. He clearly isn’t ready just yet and needs to improve in a few areas before the Mets even consider the thought of bringing him up.

That said, Montero can still make his way to Triple-A with more performances like this past one (5.2 innings, 2 H, 0 BB, 8 K) regardless of Wheeler’s fate. I don’t think it’s out of the question to see Montero promoted to Vegas by mid-May, and he’ll certainly get a call-up in September this season if not sooner.

The domino effect to Montero getting bumped would mean a promotion to Double-A for Jake deGrom or possibly even Noah Syndergaard if he’s outperforming deGrom. One of them will be in Bingo by Memorial Day at the latest.

At this point, I think everyone knows that I am a Matt den Dekker fan. I’ve argued in his favor since early spring training, when he leaped through the St. Lucie night and pulled a would-be home run from beyond the left-centerfield wall. Many Mets fans never knew who den Dekker was until that moment. That catch brought him into the limelight.

But maybe it was just one catch, people thought. If you’ve read the scouting reports on den Dekker, you would see that most will agree that he has gold glove potential. If den Dekker were to win a gold glove in a Mets uniform someday, he would only be the third outfielder in the team’s history to ever do so. The other two gold glove winner recipients in the outfield were Tommie Agee (1970), and Carlos Beltran (2006-08).

Den Dekker continued to make highlight reel catches through the spring right up until he fractured his wrist on what would have been another catch featured on ESPN’s Top Ten. The fan base has been torn on den Dekker and can basically separated into two categories—one group of fans said his offense was not good enough to be considered for the major league roster, and the other group said his defense more than makes up for his offensive woes, and he will figure it out eventually if you keep giving him at-bats.

I was really hoping that den Dekker would make the opening day roster. I felt that he could help the team win ball games with stellar defense, speed on the base paths, and pop the occasional home run. I felt the fans would rally around a player of his type—young, exciting, and balls to the wall. I recommended hitting him down in the eight hole until he figures it out, which I was convinced he would. There hasn’t been a player that I checked the box scores every time he played to see how he did in awhile. It was a feel-good story, and I was rooting for den Dekker.

I know people are down on den Dekker’s offense, but Toby Hyde’s recent evaluation of den Dekker seems a bit harsh. Here is what he had to say about den Dekker in case you missed it:

He was not a realistic candidate to make the Opening Day roster. Again, he hit .220/.256/.373 in 77 games in AAA last year with 90 strikeouts – a 28% strikeout rate. In 45 PA this spring, he was no better: .205/.222/.364 with one walk and 16 strikeouts – a 36% strikeout rate. I have lowered my offensive expectations for den Dekker from poor in the big leagues, to poor in AAA.

Everyone looks at the strikeouts as a major concern. Don’t get me wrong, I understand that you don’t want a player striking out a lot. An out is an out, but putting the ball in play puts the pressure on the defense to make the play and potentially make a mistake. If you strike out a ton, you are not doing that. But for a young player I would rather see him striking out and taking pitchers deep into the count versus hitting weak grounders after swinging at the first or second pitch. And I would be more likely to accept a player with a high strikeout rate if he provides gold glove defense in a premiere position, has proven to be a decent situational hitter and maybe knock the ball out of the park every now and then. Den Dekker has nine hits this spring and seven RBI. That means the hits were productive. Just bat him towards the back of the lineup until he adjusts.

I pretty much accepted the fact that he would not be on the Opening Day roster, after I read time after time about how his offense and not being on the 40-man roster hurt his chances. Then he fractured his wrist and the reality set in that he definitely won’t be on the roster.

I say I accepted it, instead of say I supported that would-be decision, because I never truly believed that den Dekker should be sent down. Now in full acceptance, I am going through Adam Rubin’s latest roster projection and see that Kirk Nieuwenhuis is not only on his projected opening day roster, but the starting centerfielder and leadoff hitter? Did I miss something? He is 2-26 so far this spring. Two hits all spring and may be our starting centerfielder, but there was no chance den Dekker was making this team? I’m not buying it.

Then I scroll down Rubin’s page a little more and read that “concerned about their defensive capability in center field, the Mets are mulling carrying Kirk Nieuwenhuis on the Opening Day roster over a bona fide backup shortstop (Omar Quintanilla).” Well slap me sideways. Defense does matter after all.

After putting all those pieces together, I don’t think I am reading into this too much by saying that I believe that den Dekker did have a very good shot at making the opening day roster. Den Dekker had outplayed Nieuwenhuis in every way, shape and form this spring. Den Dekker’s bat still needs to develop, but there are three positions on that baseball field where a coach will take defense into account when making decisions—shortstop, catcher, and of course, center field. And you won’t find too many centerfielders with better defense than Matt den Dekker. Let’s hope Matt has a speedy recovery from his wrist injury, so we can see this rare talent roaming the green pastures at Citi Field soon.

This was the same player that had a .298 avg. a .908 OPS and a .403 OBP in AAA as a 23 year old, but major league pitchers figured him out. They’d pour in a couple of early strikes, some breaking pitches to mess up his line of sight, and would finish him off with a fastball up and in.

Early on Kirk was swinging at everything — including that first strike or two. With a 0 – 0 count, Kirk hit .364. He was clobbering get-me-over strikes. With an 0 – 1 count his average dropped to .250, still, not bad. Now all hitters do poorly with 2 strikes, but not quite as poorly as Kirk. With an 0 – 2 count Kirk hit .172, with a 1 – 2 count he hit .175, with a 2 – 2 count he hit .145 (!). Given a relatively neutral “start from scratch” 3 – 2 count, Kirk hit .129!  Why would Kirk hit worse with a 3 – 2 or a 2 – 2 count than he would with a 0 – 2 count? Your guess is as good as mine, but maybe he was trying too hard to work walks on those counts. The take away here is that the more pitches Kirk sees the more his average drops.

The drop-off from the first part of his season (his first 6 weeks) to his 2nd half was unbelievable (he ended the season on a 9 for 73 skid), and while he did strike out a lot in the minors, he also put up some pretty decent numbers — especially in 2011 at AAA with a .408 obp. Sure the league adjusted to him, but 9 for 73?

Strangely, Kirk’s K-rates month to month don’t really tell us much – they’re fairly flat, but Kirk sure did make out more as the year progressed. He went from a 26.7% K-rate in AAA in 2011 (he was actually at 21.5% in 94 games in 2010 at AA) to a 31.2% rate in the majors which is a hefty jump, but lets chalk that up to the higher level of competition. 63 of Kirks K’s came after a first pitch strike and my sense is than an inordinate number of them were called strikes (Kirk needs to be swinging at that first pitch).

But here’s the kicker — again, forget about K-rates for a moment — Kirk hit .125 after working the count to 3 – 2 (for the season), he hit .138 on 2 – 2 counts, and on the ultimate hitter’s count, 3 – 1, he hit a measly .231. On the other hand, he hit .417 on 0 – 0 counts, .611 on 1 – 0 counts, and .522 on 1 – 1 counts. This is a kid who does not do well deep in counts.

Here’s another tidbit, of his 3 full months, his highest drop in avg (from .323 down to .263) coincided with his highest walk total (10) for a single month. Obviously after a torrid April it was impressed upon Kirk to try and walk more. This sent his avg into a tailspin from which it never recovered. In what universe would you preach patience to a player who seems to be at his best when he is most aggressive? A good development program tailors adjustments to talented players even when they aren’t perfect fits … this obviously did not happen for Kirk, in fact they defied convention and tried to make a high OBP lead-off type hitter out of him. Naturally, his performance tanked because his particular skill-set was disinclined to that particular role.

Did Kirk strike out more as he took more pitches? Not really, but he did make out more — his BABIP went from .453 in April, to .396 in May, to .283 in June, to .200 in July. Kirk, while not necessarily striking out more, had a ton of soft grounders mixed in with a healthy dose of pop ups and fly balls because he was too tentative and had completely lost his confidence.
Here’s the breakdown again:

HIGH pitch count

3 – 2  .125
2 – 2  .138
3 – 1  .231

LOW pitch count

0 – 0  .417
1 – 0  .611
1 – 1 . 522

Kirk hit .231 on 3 – 1 counts and .200 on 3 – 0 counts. These are hitters counts for crying out loud! David Wright hit .333 on 3 – 2 counts and .413 on 3 – 1 counts! Ruben Tejada hit .444 on 3 – 1 counts. Good lord even Mike Nickeas hit .333 on 3 – 1 counts!  I think Kirk might simply be prone to getting his line of sight messed up when he see’s a lot of pitches and he swings at pitches out of the zone resulting in weak contact.

Another thing to consider with Kirk is that while batting eye rarely improves very much, power almost always does for young players. So here we have this kid who strikes out 31% of the time (Ryan Howard struck out over 30% of the time too), maybe he improves to 26% or 27% (closer to what he was in the minors). I’ll take that any day from a solid fielding Center fielder if it comes with an 800 ops and 20 – 25 homers … sort of a Mark Reynolds / Mark Cameron hybrid, but a lead-off hitter? No.

The premise is essentially pedagogical. I think there was a conflict of program and skill set that confounded Kirk’s progress. Teachers who tailor their instruction to their students’ strengths rather than focusing exclusively on the remediation of weaknesses tend see more improvement. You don’t try and teach a 350 lb. lineman how to play Safety. Nelson Cruz had a .319. OBP last year, did the Rangers bat him in the lead-off spot? Of course not, the vast majority of Cruz’ at bats were in the #5 and #6 spots. Sure, maybe Cruz has a lot more redeeming traits than Kirk, but Kirk was a pretty good player in the minors, who is to say he might not have shown a less gradual drop-off in his production in 2012 if he hadn’t been overwhelmed by having to bat lead-off?

Would Kirk benefit from being more patient in the here and now? I’m willing to entertain that (especially as his BB rate was almost twice what it was in AAA than it was in 2012), but putting him in the lead-off spot can not possibly help him in that regard — he wasn’t ready for it. What happens when you overburden learners before they are ready? Well, not only do they almost always fail, but you destroy their confidence, which is perhaps the worst thing that can happen to a young player.

If you’re going to make a more patient hitter out of Kirk Nieuwenhuis, you don’t do it by moving him from pre-algebra to particle physics in the same quarter. You do it gradually, and in the meantime, you’d hope there is room on the Mets for players who don’t fit organizational tenets but provide value in other ways. Kirk was a success story who’d shown improvement at every level and was coming off a stint in AAA where he’d put up a +15% walk rate and a +.400 OBP. He has the tools (speed, some gap power, good defense) to become a valuable player. The Mets need to recognize his strengths and talents and build a player based on them rather than trying to reinvent a Kirk Nieuwenhuis that bears no resemblance to the one who was brought up from AAA last year.

Did Kirk try to be more patient when he was put in the lead-off spot? Who knows, maybe he didn’t, maybe he thought screw you Collins you ancient white haired little gremlin, I’m going to do what got me here, I’m going to swing at every frigging thing they throw at me. That’s possible. Or, more likely, he was a good soldier, did what he and every baseball player and coach knows a lead-off hitter is supposed to do and tried to get on base at a higher clip.

Initially he was successful walking 10 times in May, but at what price? He sacrificed the aggressiveness that was at the core of his success, he became tentative and uncertain, his attempts to make contact resulted in an extraordinary number of soft grounders to go along with his already high strike outs and dwindling walks. Things went from bad to worse as he became ever more desperate to make contact and pitchers more and more pitched him outside the zone.

Putting Nieuwinhuis in the lead-off role is asking for trouble given his history. Will he fail? Well, if Collins is determined to bat him lead-off I would still root for him hoping against the odds that the succeeds, and if he does I’ll be the fist to acknowledge that perhaps he’s a better student of the game than I’d given him credit for, but it’s asking an awful lot from a rookie whose got some valuable redeeming qualities independent of his ability to work walks.