St. Lucie, Binghamton Making Playoff Pushes

As the New York Mets Major League team is making a real push towards the postseason, each one of the Mets minor league affiliates are alive in their respective postseason races. The chances for each of these teams will largely hinge on the development of their players as well as players being moved between levels. Here is how things stand for each affiliate as of August 13.

The Syracuse Mets have a 59-61 record. Currently, they are in fourth place in the North Division 6.0 games behind the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Railriders. As of the moment, they are better poised to win the division than the Wild Card as they are 9.0 games behind the Durham Bulls for the Wild Card with five teams ahead of them.

One of the big factors for Syracuse going forward is the promotion of players to the Major League level. With the recent promotion of Luis Guillorme, Syracuse lost one of their better players. Depending on how the Mets proceed, they may also call up players like Ruben Tejada, Dilson Herrera, or Arismendy Alcantara. The Mets may also continue to cycle through pitchers like Drew Gagnon, Corey Oswalt, or Brooks Pounders to help the Major League team. Each promotion could negatively impact Syracuse’s chances of winning the division.

At face value, the Binghamton Rumble Ponies are not in a good position to make the Eastern League playoffs. Right now, they are 25-30 putting them in fourth place in the Eastern Division 8.0 games behind the Reading Fightin Phils. However, this is the first year of the split season playoff format for the Eastern League, and Reading won the first half meaning the team with the second best overall record will face Reading in the playoffs.

Binghamton had a strong 35-29 first half, and are 60-59 overall. This puts them 4.0 games behind the Trenton Thunder for the last playoff spot. If Binghamton is going to make that push, they need to start playing better baseball than the team who has lost seven of their last ten. They need Patrick Mazeika to once again be the big bat in their lineup while hoping David Peterson and Tony Dibrell match what Kevin Smith has been doing in the rotation.

Unlike their sub .500 first half, the St. Lucie Mets have been one of the best teams in the Florida State League South Division with a  35-19 second half record. This puts them in second place 4.0 games back of Charlotte Stone Crabs. St. Lucie has been hot of late winning seven of their last 10. Unfortunately, they have not been able to make headway over this hot stretch with Charlotte also going 8-2 in their last 10.

For St. Lucie to make the postseason, they will need Wagner Lagrange and Carlos Cortes to continue their hot hitting. On the pitching front, Luc Rennie and Thomas Szapucki have the ability to get the team over the finish line. With respect to Szapucki, he has been limited in his return from Tommy John, but he has been effective in six of his eight starts.

Finally, the Columbia Fireflies are 23-28 in second half in fifth place of the South Altantic League Southern Division 5.0 games back of the Asheville Tourists. Columbia has been making a real push towards the playoffs having won seven of their last 10 games. This is not that much of a surprise given how much of this team is the same core of the Kingsport Mets team who made a second half push to make the playoffs last year.

The team is being powered by Mark Vientos right now, and Hayden Senger is having a great start to August mirroring his terrific June. There are many talented players on this roster including Ronny Mauricio and Shervyen Newton.

With the minor league regular seasons ending on September 2, the full season affiliates are running out of time to make a real push to make it to the postseason. Overall, it would appear St. Lucie has the best chance out of all the affiliates to make the playoffs. However, as we have seen with the Mets recent run, it may still be too soon to count any of these affiliates out right now.