Noah Syndergaard strikes out eight for St. Lucie on Saturday. (Photo: Michael Baron, SNY)

Last Night’s Quick Scores

Prospect Pipeline

  • I just learned that we have some exciting phone interviews lined up with T.J. Rivera, Travis d’Arnaud, Cory Mazzoni, Brandon Nimmo and Cam Maron coming up. April will be fun around here as we continue to bring you as much information as we can on our incredibly improving system. Yesterday, Mets GM Sandy Alderson glowed when our Senior Writer Matt Balasis asked him about how far the Mets farm system and organizational depth has come in such a short time. (Joe D.)
  • In FanGraph’s weekly prospect chat, Mike Newman said that he expects Zack Wheeler to replicate what we saw from Matt Harvey last season – about ten starts with similar production. Wheeler’s curveball is also improved from the inconsistent breaking pitch he scouted in 2010 and that so far this season he has “frequently popped 96 MPH on the radar gun with ease.”  (Joe D.)
  • Mets power hitting prospects Wilmer Flores, Travis d’Arnaud, Aderlin Rodriguez and Brandon Nimmo have combined to hit zero homers, 11 games into the season. Meanwhile, underrated Josh Satin hit his fourth home run last night and is batting .474. Am I the only one who thinks he has nothing left to prove in the minors? If I’m Ike Davis, I’d be concerned. (Joe D.)
  • First baseman Jayce Boyd hit his first home run of the season after some near misses. It was a three-run jack and it was a no-doubter. Boyd, 22, is one of our top ten sleepers, and is batting .412/.512/.618 with a great eye at the plate (7 walks, 6 strikeouts) in 42 plate appearances. (Joe D.)
  • T.J. Rivera continues to hit. He already leads St. Lucie in hits, RBI, batting average, OBP, and slugging percentage, and added two more hits last night. On a team known for it’s pitching staff, Rivera has been the backbone of the offense. I’m very high on Rivera. He reminds me of another prospect in the Giants organization named Joe Panik. Their games are very similar, except Panik was a first rounder, and Rivera was signed as a free-agent out of college. That’s what you would consider “a steal.”
  • Jack Leathersich is also very high on Rivera. In a recent interview with MMO, this is what he had to say about his former teammate: “Oh yeah, definitely T.J. Rivera – he’s the one. He’s the real deal. I’ve never been around a kid who prepares as well as he does. He just really loves the game and it seems like every time I see him he’s out on the field working on something. Rivera plays hard and is completely balls to the wall – he’ll do anything to make sure we win. He’s a great teammate and obviously a great player and everybody should be real excited about him. If he continues the great things he did last season, and I’m pretty sure that he will, he’ll be a lot of fun to watch.” You can read the Leathersich interview in it’s entirety here.
  • I mentioned in yesterday’s notes that Binghamton manager, Pedro Lopez, stated that he was expecting some tough offensive nights as his team goes through a transition period adjusting to Double-A. It looks as if Saturday was one of those days he was speaking about. After hammering out thirteen hits and fifteen runs on Friday night, the bats were as cold as the Binghamton air temperature on Saturday, as they only managed one run on five hits.
  • Noah Syndergaard, whose fastball routinely sits in the mid-90s and can touch triple digits, reminds St. Lucie pitching coach of Kerry Wood. “He reminds me of Kerry Wood,” St. Lucie pitching coach Phil Regan said. “A lot like him, but a better body. He has that tall Texan style.” St. Lucie manager, Ryan Ellis, also likes what he sees: “He has a nice fastball and seems to get stronger. He only threw four innings but he seemed to get stronger in the third and fourth. His breaking ball is really sharp and he’s pitching it with a lot of depth.” Having a combination of Harvey, Wheeler, Syndergaard at the top of the New York Mets rotation, is starting to become a scary reality.
  • The St. Lucie Mets pitching staff has lived up to lofty expectations so far this spring. They currently lead the Florida State League with a 2.20 ERA, and second in the league 75 strikeouts. The scary thing is, these stats could have even been better, but Domingo Tapia’s hiccup on Thursday night drove the ERA a bit. Tapia didn’t make it out of the first inning that night, allowing three runs on one hit, also giving up four walks and throwing two wild pitches.

Stat Line of the Night

LHP Steven Matz: 5.0 IP, 4 H, 1 R, 0 ER, 7 K, 1 BB

Tweet Of The Day

Binghamton’s left-handed fireballer, Jack Leathersich, is going to give away a glove to one of his followers when he hits 3,250 followers. He is currently at 2,952 followers. I wonder what he would be willing to give away for 10,000 followers?

Probable Starters

Las Vegas sends Zack Wheeler (0-1, 3.15 ERA) to the mound for tonight against Colorado Springs at 10:05 PM.

Rafael Montero (1-0, 1.54 ERA) of the Binghamton Mets takes on the New Hampshire Fisher Cats Sunday afternoon at 1:05 PM.

St. Lucie sends Angel Cuan (1-0, 0.00 ERA) the mound this afternoon against the Bradenton Marauder’s at 1:05 PM. .

Savannah sends Rainy Lara (1-0, 0.00 ERA) to the mound in series finale against Rome at 2:00 PM.