Update by Joe D. at 2:20 PM
Well that didn’t take long… The Mets announced that Juan Centeno has been promoted to Triple-A Las Vegas to replace Travis d’Arnaud who was officially placed on the DL moments ago. Centeno will get the majority of the starts while Landon Powell will continue to remain the backup.
Now read about how Mitch just speculated that would likely happen about 30 minutes ago, as well as his other thoughts on the domino effect…
Original Post by Mitch at 1:45 PM
Unless you have been away from your computer, smart phone, or tablet for the past hour or so, you probably have already heard that Travis d’Arnaud will probably miss up to two months with a fracture in his foot.
This is crushing news, as Mets fans were started to get really excited about seeing the top catching prospect make his Flushing debut, especially with the talk of late where Terry Collins stated he would be willing to play both John Buck (1B) and d’Arnaud in the lineup at the same time.
Looks like we will have to wait a few more months before that becomes a reality. The reality is that our best position player prospect is now on the shelf, and someone will have to step up and replace him in Las Vegas for the time being.
The most likely candidate is Juan Centeno. Centeno does enough offensively, and more than enough defensively to make him the prime candidate to be promoted to Triple-A. Centeno also spent the entire 2012 season with Binghamton where he hit .285 on the season, showing that he can make the offensive jump to Triple-A. Blake Forsythe has had an excellent year for Binghamton so far offensively, but seeing as he has logged only five games at the Double-A level, he is probably going to remain in Binghamton. This will allow Forsythe to get more innings, as the B-Mets will only have two catchers on the roster now.
The question is, does this injury also open the door for other catchers to be promoted, like, let’s say, Kevin Plawecki? Could the Mets bump Plawecki up to Binghamton now? It’s not out of the realm of possibilities. He is a polished college hitter who is absolutely dominating Low-A ball. In fact, I thought it was a shocking that Plawecki started where he did and should have started with St. Lucie because of his hitting ability and his age. To make the jump to St. Lucie now wouldn’t be much of a challenge for Plawecki. The added bonus is that Binghamton could use a bat like his in that lineup to give some run support to pitchers like Rafael Montero, Tyler Pill, Logan Verrett and Jacob deGrom.
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By the way, interesting exchange between Joe D. and Will Carroll just now on Twitter:
By the way, when did Carroll leave Baseball Prospectus to join Bleacher Report? Sounds like an odd switch, but also explains his over the top “Second Lost Season.” Sensational titles are Bleacher Report staples as I was a former writer there before joining MMO. They would send us crazy titles and ask us to build stories around them and drilled it into our heads. I couldn’t work that way.
