Morning Report – 4-13-14 – Away Wins, Lawley, Taijeron, Flores

1925 World Series 

Coming Up –

         11am – Top 10 OF in 2014 MLB Draft - revised 4-10-14

          2pm  -  John Sickles - Top 20 Prospects - Philadelphia Phillies

         5pm -  Matt Imhof, Braxton Davidson, Benito Santiago, Alex Verdugo, Justin Smith

         8pm –  OF - Justin Smith - Bartram Trail (FL) HS

My computer problems have been solved and fixed. (a little warning… this site uses Blogger which is not compatible all the time with Internet Explorer. I changed my search engine to Google a while back and everything was fine… my daughter talked me into downloading Goggle Chrome which led me to a virus that has somehow eliminated all my stores favorite places and prevents me from having Google as my home page. I’m back on Internet Explorer until a computer expert arrives today and hopefully returns everything to normal…watch downloading Google Chrome…)




Probably the most important thing that happened last night was the return to winning ways by St. Lucie prospect SP Michael Fulmer (7.0-IP, 5-H, 1-ER, 5-K, 0-BB). His ERA dropped to 6.75 and should be back in line with one more excellent outing.

Derek McKnight wrote -

Mack, have you ever seen a team play better on the road than at home more so than the Mets over the last 3 years?

        Three years? Frankly, I’ve never seen this ever.

I don’t understand the whole dimension theory. The ‘other’ teams have to play here 81 times a year also. I frankly would think that the home team would have an advantage knowing how ‘the ball bounces’ and all that.

This has to fall into the mental part of this game. We’re not 20 games into the season and fans have already turned on players like Curtis Granderson.

And trust me… it seems like the only thing the beat press like is a good loss.

We read all the time about how the Mets don’t want a player like Ike Davis playing for them. Has anyone ever wondered what some of these players think about playing for this team, these managers, and this owner?

Away games are a great play to hide… and play baseball.

Thomas Brennan asked -

Mack, who do you like better, Mac? Taijeron or Lawley? They're both the same age, but Taijeron put up slightly better #'s in a higher league (AA) than Lawley did in hi-A. Actually, aside from his high K's, Taijerson this year and last in just 435 at bats has a stunning 41 doubles to go with a fine 23 HRs, well over half his hits. Oddly, Travis actually hit significantly better vs. righties in 2013 than lefties (unlike, say, Duda and Davis, both of whom are very weak career-wise against lefties as lefty hitters).  So projecting a likely improvement vs. lefties would make Travis a very dangerous power bat. I feel bad for Taijeron that he is currently blocked from AAA by Messrs. Dekker, Kirk, Campbell, Abreu, and Puello. If this were last year, he clearly would have been a AAA starting OF.

As I have said before, I have my favorites, but the system is supposed to create the better player (by the way, no top projected player ever really gets ‘blocked’… teams always make room for the Cesar Puello’s in the organizations).

I like Lawley, but the determination as to which one of these guys should ‘graduated’ AA first should be on the field.

For some reason, the Mets have decided to rotate Taijeron (13-AB) with Kyle Johnson (15-AB), Lawley (25-AB), Cory Vaughn (21-AB), and Darrell Ceciliani (25-AB) A 5-man rotation here just might be too much and could limit everybody’s bat time. I’m not sure either one of the guys you mention will be represented well with this system.

Right now, I would venture to guess that only Brandon Nimmo and Puello project as starting major league outfielders someday (however, I must also remind you that I said that Juan Lagares would never rise about the AAA level).

Friday night:

        LSU Aaron Nola – 7.0-IP, 4-H, 2-ER, 13-K, 2-BB

        NCSt Carlos Rodon – 7.2-IP, 6-H, 1-ER, 12-K, 3-BB

        Evansville Kyle Freeland – 8.0-IP, 0-ER, 15-K, 0-BB

Ernest Dove asked -

Hey Mack, I'm interested in your thoughts about Wilmer Flores slow start in Vegas. Dont wanna over due the whole defensive talk and appropriate position. ....I'm talking purely offense.

Hey E-Dove…

I’m not sure what’s going on in Flores head right now. He does what they ask him to do at the AAA level and all that get him is a reassignment there at a new position. My guess is that his head is obviously more into the defensive portion of his game and, as the season continues, he’s loosen up a little.

Let’s look at it this way. Right now, he is 5-25 (.200)… if he goes 3-5 for the next two games and his BA is .314.

(BTW, he also has hit safely in five of the six games played)

No one can be evaluated before that has at least 100 at bats.

 Now, if he has 20 errors in April, then we have a problem, but the real question here is will this guy ever earn a starting job with the Mets on any position.

I happen to think he won’t, but that’s just me.