MLB Prospect Watch

40-man Roster Additions

40-man rosters were set this weekend in preperation for the upcoming Rule V draft.  The players listed below are now protected by their organizations and can't be selected.  This is not the complete list, but rather the list of notable prospects.  Teams with no players listed still protected players, just not any notable prospects.

 

Baltimore - Oliver Drake

Boston - Will Middlebrooks, Drake Britton, Che-Hsuan Lin

New York (AL) - D.J. Mitchell, Corban Joseph

Tampa Bay - Alex Colome, WIlking Rodriguez, Steven Vogt

Toronto - Travis d'Arnaud

 

Chicago (AL) - Charlie Leesman

Cleveland - 

Detroit - Casey Crosby

Kansas City - 

Minnesota - Oswaldo Arcia, Carlos Gutierrez, David Bromberg

 

Los Angeles (A) - Fabio Martinez, Jean Segura

Oakland - 

Seattle - Francisco Martinez, Carlos Triunfel, Chih-Hsien Chiang

Texas - Martin Perez, Neil Ramirez

 

Atlanta - J.J. Hoover

Miami - Dan Jennings

New York (N) - Robert Carson, Jeurys Familia, Wilmer Flores, Juan Lagares, Cesar Puello, Reese Havens, Kirk Nieuwenhuis

Philadelphia - Phillippe Aumont, Tyson Gillies, Sebastian Valle

Washington - Tyler Moore, Eury Perez, Derek Norris

 

Chicago (N) - Junior Lake, Josh Vitters, Matt Szczur

Cincinnati - Didi Gregorius, Kyle Lotzkar

Houston - Paul Clemens

Milwaukee - Caleb Gindl, Zealous Wheeler

Pittsburgh - Starling Marte, Rudy Owens

St. Louis - 

 

Arizona - 

Colorado - Christian Friedrich

Los Angeles (N) - Mike Antonini, Chris Withrow

San Diego - Rymer Liriano

San Francisco - Angel Villalona, Charlie Culberson

 

 

Dodgers Acquire Antonini from Mets

In a minor move, the Dodgers have acquired left-handed pitcher Mike Antonini from the Mets in exchange for infielder Chin-lung Hu, according to the Dodgers Twitter Feed.  Matthew Cerrone of MetsBlog.com has more on Antonini.

Antonini was a notable prospect after being an 18th round pick by the Mets in 2007 and posting solid numbers in 2007 and 2008.  A promotion to Double-A in 2009 was not as kind, and an expected bounce-back year in 2010 never matriculated.  

 

 

Organizational Update - New York Mets

The Mets' system has bore fruit this year, sending the big league club Ike Davis to help stop a sinking ship.  It's worked so far, but how much more help do the Mets have on the way?

Mike Antonini - Stats

A classic mid-round college pick who dominated lower levels after turning pro simply because of experience, but has struggled at higher levels because of a lack of pure stuff.  Antonini is struggling in Double-A with a 4.66 ERA and a K/9 of 5.1, but does have impeccable control, which means he could be a reliever down the road.

Wilmer Flores - Stats

Flores is the next big hitter the Mets have their hopes pinned to, and he's displayed the ability to barrel-up the ball.  In his second try in the Sally League (no worries, he's only 18), he's hitting .303/.369/.466.  The home runs haven't come yet, but the doubles are there, which is a good indication of future power.

Dillon Gee - Stats

The name most clamored for when the Mets need pitching help, Gee has had an effective but unspectacular career that leads one to believe that he could be an effective back-of-the-rotation starter or fill-in guy.  The best sign for Gee is that his strikeout rate in 2010 has spiked slightly to 8.1 K/9, signaling that perhaps he misses enough bats to be more effective than he's given credit for.

Reese Havens - Stats

Havens was injured for part of the season, but now that he's back in action, he's back to hitting.  Havens always displayed good power for a middle infielder, but he's also making better contact so far this year (.289/.366/.511 in limited time).  He's also switched over to second base, with the Mets clearly lining him up for the future.

Brad Holt - Stats

Until he reached Double-A, Holt at least slightly resembled the first round pick he was back in 2008.  But since a mid-season promotion to Double-A, Holt's ERA is 7.15, including 9.90 this season, and he's pitched only 20 innings despite making 7 starts (averaging less than 3 innings per start).

Eddie Kunz - Stats

A career closer who made his first professional start this season, Kunz is in the Bimghamton rotation just to get as many innings as possible.  It's a good plan, but his sidearm deliver isn't fooling anybody, and his 5.29 ERA and K/BB ratio of close to 1 is signaling that he may never be an effective enough pitcher to pitch in the majors.

Fernando Martinez - Stats

It's hard to believe F-Mart is only 21 because we've been hearing about him forever, but unfortunately for the Mets, not much has changed during that time.  Martinez still has loads of potential and still can't stay healthy.  He's currently sporting an OPS of .678 in yet another injury-plagued season.

Ruben Tejada - Stats

Tejada is a strange case, because he's been young at every level to the extent that it almost feels rushed, and yet he's not universally considered to be a superstar prospect.  He makes good contact but with virtually no power, as evidenced by his .295/.343/.361 line this season, yet it's hard to knock him for it because he's only 20-years-old.  He also doesn't control the strike zone enough to be a top of the order hitter.  Why the Mets have rushed him so quickly is beyond me, but he clearly needs a full season in Triple-A, if not more.

Josh Thole - Stats

A successful cup of coffee in the majors last season left Mets' fans foolishly calling for Thole to be handed the starting catching job this season.  Luckily the Mets got this one right and sent Thole back to the minors for some more experience.  Thole continues to display no home run power but decent doubles power and controls the strike zone well (15 BB/21 K's on the season), but the question remains whether he will ever hit for enough power to be a big-league regular.

Mejia Back to Minors?

The New York Mets need starting pitching, and Adam Rubin of ESPNNewYork.com reports that their next option might be current reliever Jenrry Mejia.  In order to make the transition, Mejia would need about a month in the minor leagues, which could happen as soon as Wednesday, according to Rubin.

Mejia has been a starter for the majority of his professional career, and it was only an eye-popping spring that prompted the Mets to convert him to a bullpen role in the majors this season.  The Mets have said that they still view Mejia as a starter long-term and that he would have spent the winter converting back regardless.

The question remains, however, shouldn't the Mets have seen this coming?  The Mets have only used 5 starting pitchers this year, so they are just now getting into a situation where they have had to use an extra starter.  Their immediate minor league options include 35-year-old knuckleballer R.A. Dickey, Pat Misch (7 starts with the Mets last season) and prospects Dillon Gee (4.21 ERA in Triple-A) and Mike Antonini (4.54 ERA in Double-A).  Clearly there wasn't a lot of depth after the 5 guys penciled into the initial major league rotation at the start of the season, and that rotation included a rookie (Jon Niese), a pitcher coming back from injury (John Maine) and Oliver Perez (enough said).

Sure enough, through almost 40 games the Mets have two reliable pitchers, with Niese now injured and Perez banished to the bullpen.  The Mets are going to try long-relief man Hisanori Takahashi in the rotation for the time being, but still need another arm, and that's without replacing Maine and his 6.13 ERA (prefer sabermetrics? his FIP is 5.72 - still bad).

These are the specifics, however.  Hindsight makes it easy to see how they Mets shot themselves in the foot by making their best starting pitching prospect a reliever this spring.  But consider these facts:  In 2009, National League teams used an average of just over 10 different starting pitchers.  No team used fewer than 8, and the Mets themselves used 11 different starters.  So far we've named the 5 initial rotation members, Takahashi, Gee, Misch, Dickey, and Antonini.  That's 10, and even some of those options are a stretch (Antonini would be rushed, for one).

It's not even worth asking if the Mets should have seen the potential need for extra starters.  But the question that does remain then is whether a month and a half of Mejia in the bullpen was worth the wins it is going to cost them to use one of these other pitchers for the next month while Mejia gets his arm ready to throw a hundred pitches.  It's a matter of opportunity cost.  If the Mets had left Mejia in the minors as a starter, he could be called up today and enter the rotation immediately, but they would have lost his bullpen production.  Now, he must spend a month preparing to be a starter again.

So was it the right decision?

We won't know for sure until we see how his replacements fare, but we know what they're up against.  In his 18 appearances, Mejia had a WAR of -0.1 and a WPA of -0.38, so despite his impressive ERA numbers and flashy velocity, he was actually right around replacement level and came in as the least valuable member of the Mets' bullpen based on Win Probability Added.  

In other words, his production wouldn't have been hard to replace.

Assuming the Mets believe he will fare differently as a starter (an arguable point in its own right, but not part of the discussion here) and more importantly if they believe he is a better option than their current replacement starters (which, accurately or not, they probably do), there is no reason Mejia should have been in the major leagues this season instead of preparing for a situation the team knew it would eventually have to face.

Best and Worst from 6/1

BEST

• Yonder Alonso (CIN) - 3-4, 2 2B in first Double-A game
• Carlos Santana (CLE) - 2-5, 2 2B, batting .288
• Matt LaPorta (CLE) - 3-5, HR, batting .316
• Eric Young (COL) - 4-6, 2B, 3B, SB, batting .303
• Jordan Danks (CWS) - 4-6, 2B, HR, batting .337
• Gordon Beckham (CWS) - 3-5, 2B, batting .500 in Triple-A
• Mike Carp (SEA) - 3-4, 2B, HR, batting .302
• Brett Wallace (STL) - 3-4, HR, batting .284
• John Tolisano (TOR) - 5-5, HR, batting .259
• Matt Maloney (CIN) - 9 IP, 3 H, 0 ER, 10 K/0 BB, 2.00 ERA
• Evan Anundsen (MIL) - 7 IP, 3 H, 0 ER, 11 K/1 BB, 1.87 ERA

WORST

• Wes Roemer (ARI) - 5 1/3 IP, 8 H, 7 ER, 2 K/3 BB, 4.28 ERA
• Mitch Atkins (CHC) - 4 IP, 10 H, 6 ER, 3 K/0 BB, 8.38 ERA
• Mike Antonini (NYM) - 4 2/3 IP, 8 H, 7 ER, 4 K/3 BB, 5.95 ERA
• Jon Niese (NYM) - 6 1/3 IP, 7 H, 6 ER, 6 K/1 BB, 8.05 ERA
• Jeremy Bleich (NYY) - 5 IP, 7 H, 5 ER, 5 K/3 BB, 4.28 ERA
• Will Inman (SD) - 3 2/3 IP, 8 H, 6 ER, 3 K/3 BB, 7.04 ERA