Baseball America released a brief minor league roster analysis for each team’s Top 10 Prospects. Here is Matt Eddy’s lowdown on the Mets.
Things they said:
- The top two starters from the 2012 short-season Brooklyn club will skip a level and proceed directly to high Class A St. Lucie.
- RHP Luis Mateo’s wicked fastball-slider combo enabled him to lead the New York-Penn League with 85 strikeouts a year ago, but he’s already 23, having missed three years while sorting through various injury and identity issues.
- RHP Hansel Robles signed at age 18 and spent four years in short-season ball, but his Brooklyn breakout included an ERA title (1.11) and streak of 45 straight innings sans an earned run, two signs that the 22-year-old is ready to be challenged.
- Mateo and Robles highlight a St. Lucie rotation that also includes power righties Noah Syndergaard, Jacob deGrom and Domingo Tapia.
- Shortstop Gavin Cecchini, last year’s first-rounder, begins the year in extended spring training, much like center fielder Brandon Nimmo (first round) and shortstop Phillip Evans (15th), a pair of 2011 draft picks who kicked off their careers with Brooklyn in 2012.
- RHP Michael Fulmer had surgery to repair the meniscus in his right knee during spring training and will join the St. Lucie rotation later this spring.
- They also predict that the Mets’ top two prospects, starter Zack Wheeler and catcher Travis d’Arnaud, will probably not spend more than half a season in the Pacific Coast League.
Good stuff…
