Morning Report – July 12th – Bullpen Maintenance, Outfield Projection

                                                                                                                                            

Coming Later Today –    

            11 00 am -   Reese Kaplan - As Useful as a Pet Rock     

                  

            3 00 pm – 2015 Draft Profile - RHP  -  Carson Fulmer  -  Vanderbilt - UPDATED 6-30-14

I’ve been meaning to write about bullpen maintenance, in general, and the Mets, in particular, for some time. I wanted to wait until the Mets pen were putting out some good numbers, so I can’t see it ever getting better than right now.

The Mets currently are operating with a seven man pen. Some teams have been known to push it to eight or limit it to six, but seven seems to be the average number for the league.

Currently, the Mets do not have a reliever with an ERA above four. I don’t have the time or desire to research this, but my guess is you would be hard pressed to find many teams that could say that.

Being a relief pitcher gets you seven opportunities to make the 25-man squad. Try to imagine the luxury a team would have with seven shortstops (I know Reese, TC would still call it wrong…).

We are all guilty sometimes wishing out loud (another name for a ‘comment’), or even writing about, the desire of some minor league relief pitcher to become part of the Queens roster, but, for right now, things seem to be properly in place. Career minor leaguers (Buddy Carlyle and Dana Eveland) are doing a stellar job on the mound, replacing others that haven’t.

(let me take a moment about Germen Gonzalez here… I give him all the credit in the world, but Las Vegas is exactly the place he should be pitching right now. His numbers this season were sub-par (4.78) and his timing on bad outings cost the team games… Eveland and Carlyle have stepped up and should be part of this year’s pen, regardless of their age)

There are very few times professional baseball team approach the draft ready to pounce on a reliever in the early rounds. International players are signed at 16-years old, so there really is no history on them pitching in this role either. I always grew up in an era that we defined a relief pitcher as a failed starter, but that just isn’t true anymore.

Take the case of Jack Leathersich. He leads all of baseball in K/9, but he can’t even gain enough respect to be ranked more than the 16^th best prospect in the Mets system.

And what exactly are you going to do with him? We know the Mets can’t field all their top starters at the same time. What’s going to happen to guys like Darin Gorski, Tyler Pill, Gabriel Ynoa, and Cory Mazzoni?

Short range… you know my man-love for Rafael Montero to become a back-end reliever for the Mets. I can’t think of a better time for the Mets to ‘experiment’ with this idea that the remainder of 2014.

Long range… look for speed ballers… I like the Cardinals approach. Give me 4/5 guys that can throw 96+ for 15 pitches each. Akeel Morris, Domingo Tapia, and Jose Medina could be targets that way.

The signing of Michael Conforto has created a new projection for the Mets outfield for the remainder of this decade. Let’s talk 2015 and beyond.

Curtis Granderson is under contract through 2017 and will be used as a starter for his entire contract. I have him primarily slotted in at RF, but we all know he is fully capable of playing CF as well.

Juan Lagares is pre-arbitration, and has proven himself to be an adequate CFer until someone better comes around.

Eric Campbell has proven this year that the least he is capable of doing is being a positive force as a platooned 1Bman, or RFer, and, in addition, adequate to produce a competitive batting average.

Kirk Nieuwenhuis, after numerous attempts, is falling into place to become one of 2015’s utility OFers.

Brandon Nimmo will most probably open 2015 in Las Vegas and be held back until June to allow for his to gain an extra year of arbitration eligibility. Look for him to be the starting Mets LFer on 7-1-15.

The assumption is that Michael Conforto will play both St. Lucie and Binghamton in 2015, start the 2016 season in Las Vegas, and could be ready to take over right field in Citifield as early as July 2016. This would move Granderson to center.

Cesar Puello is playing better lately in Las Vegas, but he’s far from the ‘sure bet’ prospect we wrote about a year ago. My bet is he will return to AAA in 2015 as a 24-year old and has a long way to go to earn back a tier one prospect status.

There may be future major league roles for players like Matt den Dekker, Cory Vaughn, Kyle Johnson, Dustin Lawley, Travis Taijeron, and Darrell Cecciliani, but, for various reasons (age, injuries, blocked, lack of results, etc.) there may not have a future as a NY Met outfielder.

Lastly, there are second tier prospects (Jared King, Champ Stuart, Wuilmer Beccera, Ivan Wilson, Ricardo Cespedes) that haven’t played enough to be evaluated.

Observation:  The future Mets outfield hasn’t looked this bright in years, but everything would still be better if they could trade for, or sign, one more established star to roam CitiField next year.